Does your content pass the ‘so what’ test?

It’s no secret that brands are finding it increasingly difficult to reach their desired audiences across various social media channels. The change in algorithms means that we can no longer get away with publishing content that we personally find attractive or funny. Marketers have to really get to know their demographics in order to curate relevant and engaging content.

Surely this is better, right?

In my opinion, social content should always be thought through. Unfortunately, due to lack of strategy and creativity, many social media managers have fallen into the comfortable trap of sharing cute cat pictures and videos of laughing babies. Not only can this downgrade a brand, but it can also be detrimental to your results. Yes, a small amount of pages see some traction from these posts, but in most cases, you’re just driving your audience away, decreasing the reach and ruining the chances of any relevant brand engagement; not to mention the fact that you’re going against Facebook’s like-baiting rules.

Here’s why…

Let’s imagine a Facebook page (with 10,000 fans) promoting a men’s footwear brand. The social media manager trawls various sites and topics which results in posting the ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ video and #TheDress.

When combined, the posts acquire a total of 73 likes, comments & shares, and the SMM is happy with that.

Due to the size of the page, this produces an avg. engagement rate of 0.3%. As you’ll agree, that’s not the best.

That engagement percentage is the key figure here. This is the number that is going to help increase your overall reach, drive your following, create advocates and, if your strategy includes it, drive traffic to your website.

In addition, insights show that 80% of the people engaged are actually females between the ages of 34 – 44. Not the target audience you were hoping for. No matter how many people you attract, it’s no good if they’re not likely to purchase.

So how do you go about writing content that aims to increase your engagement rate and appeals to a relevant audience?

By adopting the Three Es and applying the ‘so what’ test.

Your social media content needs to fit in to one of the following three categories:

ENTERTAIN | EDUCATE | ENABLE

1. By entertaining your fans, you’re encouraging engagement and increasing shareability. Remember, consumers are on Facebook to socialise. They want to entertain and be entertained by their friends. You need to become part of their online community. Entertain them and communicate with them, but do so in a way that has some relevance to your brand.

2. Educate your fans and give them a reason to look out for your content. Taking the example above of the men’s footwear brand, you could offer tips & tricks on keeping your sneaks (trainers for those less shoe-savvy) clean. From a business-to-business perspective, educating your community on pressing industry topics is a great way to position your business as the experts.

3. The enabling section is where you can begin to see some real ROI. The idea is to provide your fans with content that enables them to do something with it. This could be a downloadable voucher, an offer, a ‘how-to‘ guide or even a printable PDF. You can then monitor interaction, clicks and purchases etc. in order to get an idea of how well your content is performing.

So, when writing any content, simply ask yourself, ‘so what?’

If you can honestly say that your next tweet or Facebook post fits into one of the above categories, then get it out there. If you have any doubt and wonder if fans will realistically care, maybe it’s time to re-think your content strategy.

Click here to find out how we can help to produce a bespoke strategy and curate engaging content for your brands’ social media channels.