Tell me if this sounds familiar: You come up with a great idea for a social post. You find art online that generally illustrates what you’re trying to say, and then it’s copy/paste, copy/paste – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and maybe LinkedIn. You’ll do something in video format at some later date, you tell yourself, but it’s a busy day and, at least, you got the idea out there.
Sound familiar?
We’ve all done this, and it often represents the core of many businesses’ social strategy writ large.
With platforms like Hootsuite, the urge to integrate such shortcuts into your entire social strategy can seem very appealing. Why develop 48 unique pieces of social content when 12 will do, am I right?
But the reality is, while it feels like a streamlined process, it probably explains why your engagement metrics are weak across just about every channel.
The Content is the Context is the Conduit
This year marks the 60th anniversary of Marshall McLuhan’s influential Understanding Media. McLuhan taught us that the medium through which a message is conveyed fundamentally shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. In 2024, this translates to understanding how different digital platforms influence audience perception and interaction.
Each platform's inherent nature and technological framework shape not just the presentation but the very essence of the message.
Whether it’s Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter, each comes with its own set of norms, expectations, and user behaviors. Simply put, it’s not just the content but the context and the conduit. Each platform is a unique ecosystem with its own language, rules, and user expectations. The challenge is to decode these subtleties and integrate them into your brand content strategy.
The Subtext of Platform Technology
Every digital platform is built on a specific set of technologies that dictate how content is created, shared, and consumed. For instance, the algorithmic preferences of Facebook, which prioritize user engagement, demand a very different brand content strategy than Twitter, which is driven by immediacy and brevity. Understanding these underlying technologies is crucial for creating social content that not only fits the platform but also leverages its unique strengths.
Cultural Nuances and User Psychology
An advanced brand content strategy also requires you to understand the cultural nuances and psychological underpinnings of each platform's user base. LinkedIn users, for example, engage with content that enhances their professional lives, while Instagram users are drawn to aspirational and visually stimulating content. This deeper understanding enables brands to craft messages that resonate on a more personal and psychological level with their audience.
Platform-Specific Content Marketing Strategies
1. Algorithmic Tailoring
Mastering algorithmic tailoring is essential for digital success. This strategy involves creating social content that aligns with the specific algorithms of each platform. For example, on Facebook, this could mean crafting posts that drive user interaction to exploit its engagement-focused algorithm. It's a delicate balance of staying current with algorithm updates and creatively adapting social content to meet these evolving criteria, ensuring that your message not only reaches your audience but also engages them effectively.
2. Interactive and Immersive Experiences
Leveraging the advanced features of platforms can transform how audiences interact with social content. Utilizing tools like AR filters on Instagram or interactive polls on Twitter, brands can create more engaging, immersive experiences. This approach turns passive content consumption into an active, participatory experience, deepening audience engagement and offering valuable insights into their preferences and behaviors.
3. Data-Driven Insights
Utilizing data-driven insights is crucial for tailoring social content effectively. By analyzing engagement metrics and audience demographics, brands can develop a content marketing strategy that resonates more strongly with their target audience. This approach moves beyond guesswork, using concrete data to inform a brand content strategy, ensuring that each post is not only platform-appropriate but also audience-specific.
Striking the Right Chord
Neglecting platform-specific considerations will more often than not lead to content that feels out of place, unappealing, or irrelevant. This will significantly impact your ability to connect with your target audience.
If you’re a brand with a communications strategy focused on digital marketing and audience engagement – and, really, what brand isn’t – this should be the center of your thinking. Each digital platform shapes and influences how the message is perceived.
Ignoring platform-specific considerations can lead to lower engagement rates due to social content that feels inappropriate or out of place. On the flip side, brands can enhance audience connections by resonating with platform-specific expectations, maintaining a consistent brand voice across platforms, and adapting their content marketing strategies to ensure sustained engagement through continuous evaluation of platform performance. It's all about tailoring your content marketing strategy to the nuances of each platform to maximize impact and connection.
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