With Guest Blogger Glen Hall of OSIM Interactive
So someone asks if your business has a Facebook page:
“Yes!” you proudly remark, “… it just hasn’t been updated for two months.”
Sound familiar?
You might return to social media sites to dish out a few days of content, but eventually day-to-day operations pick up and suddenly Facebook, Twitter, and the social media scene has fallen off the priority list.
Providing content for your social media pages can become a time-absorbing task; however, below you’ll find five tips to make generating quality content easier:
Share Published Articles
Simple, right? Well sharing articles can take a lot more of your precious time if you’re not organized, so organize!
Oh thanks Glen, but how?
Set up an RSS Feed:
An RSS feed is ONE page that organizes ALL the blogs you follow into ONE stream. All that you need to do is subscribe the web page (ex. blog.website.com, forbes.com/tags/social-media) to your RSS feed and voila: your RSS will fill with articles whenever those pages are updated.
You may have a few websites bookmarked that you use to find articles – if not try Google-ing “top 10 blogs for <industry>” to get you started.
I recommend Google Reader. It’s free, easy, and a great time saver.
Create Your Own Articles
When creating your own articles you should focus on three fields to report on: company, community, and industry.
- Company: Do you have any successes to share? Any odd things around the office? Photos of your work?
- Community: report your community involvements and share community events even if you aren’t necessarily a part of them.
- Industry: what could you tell people about your field that they wouldn’t understand? What is- and How To- articles are great ways to show off your expertise.
Newsjack Articles
Newsjacking is capitalizing on a popular story by rewriting a similar, but original article.
Ex. An article is published 1 minute ago: “Steve Jobs has died”.
So publish your own article immediately, titled: “Can Apple Persevere without Steve?”
These stories do not have to be the same in scale as Steve Jobs’ death; depending on your industry, it can be as simple as a new type of flower being discovered or Facebook’s new timeline update.
But once the news gets out, people will flock for more information and if you newsjack industry-related articles you’ll have an attractive article that pulls in the leads you want to your website. So watch your RSS feed; you can hit the jackpot.
Share Photos
Photos are an easy way to place a face behind your company. Whether it be on-site work, new products, team building, or documenting the surprise dozen of Timbits in the office can generate interactions and even be fun to create!
Motivational or funny photos are also easy to share, and, so long as you keep it relevant, they can yield excellent results.
Ask a Question
This is the social media version of a call-to-action. Leave an open-ended question to encourage conversation. See our examples below:
Question: The iPad 3 has been released in China! Are you a tablet user?
Opinion: What do you think of Facebook’s new timeline?
Response: It takes _____ cups of coffee to wake me up in the morning.
I hope these tips help grow your online presence and nurture your brand’s community.
Glen Hall
OSIM Interactive
