Why Custom Content

Overwhelmed by the volume of content on social media? It is a serious issue for anyone trying to market successfully through these platforms. One shocking statistic is that 95 MILLION photos and videos are shared on Instagram every day. Moreover, there are 25 MILLION business profiles worldwide actively using Instagram. That’s why custom content is so vital. Every content strategy attracts specific audience demographics, response types, and presents its own challenges. Custom content helps you stand out among other content producers, merging functions of connecting with users, tapping into social networks, advertising, and researching content strategies before deploying them to broader audiences. It capitalizes on relating to the unique interests of your users to engage them in ways that don’t feel like a sales pitch. It’s about building relationships and deepening connections rather than sales.

To engage users through custom content, learn about users until you understand who they are. How do you show them you care about what they want and that you appreciate their time? How do you demonstrate your expertise or skill set? The benefits of custom content are all about the relationships you form with your users. Just like we form relationships with people in real life, custom content shows that you recognize who they are, what they want, and that you appreciate their time & attention.

1. Custom content is efficient 

By customizing what you're sharing with your audience, you’re respecting your audience’s time, delivering what they want and need in an efficient, engaging, and targeted way that tells them that you know who they are, and how they like to engage. 

2. You can target specific target audiences

Today’s users are more discerning, focusing on content that relates to them. If your product is developed for a Millennial male audience, target that audience where they are, using the language they use, and with visuals that appeal to them. You can’t appeal to every demographic using the same content. Customize your content to connect with users in different user groups. The more you learn what they want, the more you can deliver it to the right audience. 

3. It engages users

Users who are served content that's specifically tailored to themselves have a higher probability of engaging with your content because it speaks to them. They're going to more likely comment, like or even purchase from something that is relevant to them and their life than a generic ad.

Balancing Story and Creative

Grabbing the attention of new customers is all about balancing story and creative. Although you may not be pitching your client in a board room, the steps to success are along the same lines.

1. Don’t hide your personality Businesses are made up of people, and in this world of social media, people don't want to be talked to as if you are hiding being a corporate name, but rather enjoy seeing personality and vulnerability. Oftentimes, opening up can help you land clients that you may not have otherwise.

2. Consider the nature of how the relationship started This is a fancy way of saying - where did your audience find you - was it organic, was it through media, word of mouth, etc. Depending on the method they came to you, talk to them a bit differently. Make them feel like you don't just have a canned marketing message, but rather custom to channel and person.

3. Make ‘em sick, make ‘em well: Highlight the problems in your customer's life that your product solve and then tell them how you solve it. People want to know what they're buying into will have some purpose in their life.

4. Leave a lasting impression Set yourself apart from others and leave a lasting impression by creating a message they can't ignore. It could be with the quality or functionality of the product, customer service, or content on your page.

Leveraging a combination of story and imagery you can help drive your message and heighten brand loyalty. These days, connection with your audience is more important than a page full of empty content - no matter how beautiful, but that doesn't mean you should leave that beautiful content on the sideline. Building a story through both words, videos and imagery will create that lasting impression that keeps them coming back for more!

Social Engagement – What To Look For

Effective use of social media is more than just getting users to see your content. Instagram has over 95 million photos and videos shared daily - placing our content in that environment without seeing how it performs is wasted effort. To maintain user interest, you want them to follow you, respond to polls, save your posts, or comment on photos. You want them to engage. To get users to engage, you need to get to know them, learn what they like. What interests them? Whoare they? Where do they live? When are they most likely to engage? How do we get on their radar? Unless you understand your current users, you’ll be unsure of how to improve their engagement.

Engaging users on Instagram is made significantly easier through the use of analytics, the tools that help you learn what, where, when, with whom, and how your content strategy is performing. Learning the tools Instagram provides will help you target the right audiences, assess content that appeals to your viewers, optimize views on stories, and calibrate your posting times to get the best responses. There are three other main pieces we look at to determine what the best content to post for any given channel. 

WHO IS THE AUDIENCE?

Most content won’t capture the interests of all demographics, nor is the same content effective on different platforms. So understanding who, what, why, when, and under what conditions allows you to focus your efforts. Audiences have limited time and attention, Instagram is saturated with content, and social media platforms are always shifting, so getting users to spend time with your content requires planning and analysis. But the impact on your content strategy can ensure that the time you and your users invest is well spent! Check out your social engagement metrics to find out who is responding to what. We also deep dive into competitors and look at who might be engaging with them to help mold our client's strategy. 

WHAT DOES THE AUDIENCE RESPOND TO?

Instagram is driven primarily by visuals, so photos are an important factor in engagement. For e-commerce, you will want to see how different photos of the same product perform against each other. You may notice that photos shot against a dark background, light background, city, nature, nighttime, daytime, office, or beach perform best. You gauge performance by viewing engagement data, which includes: likes, comments, clicks, shares, or saves. This tells you if your audience is interested in learning more about your product, independent of their decision to purchase it. Significant engagement means that your photos are working. On a platform filled with photos, people are interacting with yours!

Once you know which photos are performing best, you can assess which content is drawing the most interest and invest in additional product photos and expand product in the popular categories, while reducing the less popular options. If you use videos to engage your audience, you’ll find that videos need to be short, impactful, relevant, and entertaining - users aren’t going to spend several minutes watching a video clip on Instagram as they do on YouTube. Your goal is impressionistic - pique curiosity.

HOW ENGAGED IS THE AUDIENCE? 

As you work to build an audience through community management, your goal is to target an audience that engages with your content - right? So what if that's not the case? There's a few reasons that this may be happening to you: 

1. You're content isn't consistent or isn't on pair with your audience's expectations or interests

2. You're targeting the wrong audience - I've known plenty of clients who think their audience is one target when really there's a different audience that's better fit for the brand.

3. You're not engaging back. This leads to the benefit of community management, which will be left to a different blog post, but you need to engage back with your audience to build a lasting affinity.

When we engage our users via social media, we are accomplishing the goal of relationship building, which is the first step in accomplishing any other goals we may have. To cut through the “noise” of social media, you should always seek to refine and calibrate your techniques, seeking novel and impactful ways to connect with users in ways they find valuable. It’s not enough to post cool things or tell interesting stories. Your users engage with you to improve their lives in various ways, so always seek to give them what they want and need. If you do, they will do the same!