Best Formats to Share Social Media Content
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Social media has become an essential part of almost everyone's life. The addition of smartphones to our lives has made it easier for everyone to use social media. To date, more than half the world's population accounts for active social media users who use various social media platforms.
The younger generation, aged 18 to 29, make the most of social media users. Around 84% of people in this demographic use social media platforms actively. They generally use social media to consume information.
Businesses can earn huge by engaging people on social media. 75% of users search for brands on social media before purchasing from them. Social media posts can help businesses inspire people and entice them to buy from them.
Social media content can play a key role in enhancing conversions for a brand. Marketing accounts for various strategies, and social strategy is one of them. Social media content is the most effective method for a brand to stand out from the crowd. However, many brands fail to identify the best format to share social media content.
This unawareness leads to the failure of social media marketing strategy. Hence, brands need to determine the best formats to share social media content and what type of format works best on which social media platform.
Moreover, multiple types of these formats are used to reach the targeted audience on social media. Unfortunately, brands' marketing teams are often unaware of the types that would work better for them. Therefore, we have included details about all the formats and types used to share content on social media.
In addition, we have also discussed suitable social media platforms for each type of content format in this blog. Read on to learn more.
Formats to Share Social Media Content
Brands use various formats to share social media content. You can't declare one of them as the best of the lot. Sharing content on social media for the promotion of brands may sound like an easy task to an average joe, but it is not!
It requires the marketing team to consider various factors and the overall performance of a particular format before sharing content on social media through it.
We have discussed various formats and their types in detail to help you learn more. Further details are given below:
Text
The first thing that comes to mind when we think of content is 'text'. It is obvious, as nothing can replicate the power of words. Other content formats have started seeing their frequent use lately. However, it has been in use for decades.
Brands use text-based posts to reach out to the audience as well. The text still requires the same attention and consistency as you would give to any other format, like visuals. Potential and existing customers often follow a brand's social media handle to get updates and news about its products. Text-based posts are a perfect solution to give them the information they need.
The best way to make your text-based content on social media perform like your visual content is by aligning its tone and voice with the brand's visual identity.
Some social media platforms are suitable for brief, sharp, and impactful text-based posts, while others can make your blog posts, articles, PDFs, and eBooks impactful.
Take the example of Twitter; this social media space is perfect for brands that want to get noticed. Many brands participate in Twitter conversations and post according to hashtags to reach a broader set of audiences.
Images
Images are considered the most frequently posted content across various social media platforms. Images are preferred over other formats because they can deliver information at a mere glance.
The content featured by images can give the audience a quick impression of your brand at once. Social media users appreciate images because they don't have to read many words to get information or knowledge about a brand.
They would prefer seeing any image that would take a moment over reading several hundred words that would take several minutes for this purpose.
Images open a door for marketers to share UGC (User Generated Content) on social media without taking the help of too many resources. The best thing is some highly popular social media platforms were launched to make sharing images easier.
You can improve your social media marketing game by finding relevant images for your brand. The image finder can be used to ease up this process. It’s an advanced picture search utility that allows users to search for similar images over the web. If you are struggling to find new ideas, you can turn to this online tool.
Brands can use these platforms to reach out to the audience. Many platforms even allow brands to tag their products featured in a picture for easier access by users interested in buying these products or learning more about them. Images can really create an impact if powerful captions accompany them.
Videos
Videos are considered the most valuable social media content type across various platforms. 54% of marketers consider this format the best to reach the targeted audience.
Most social media users access social platforms to watch videos. Hence, brands can achieve their marketing goals by publishing videos on various social media platforms. The best thing about video marketing content is the boost it gets from all social media platforms.
Whether you want to publish detailed videos to guide the audience about a specific product or post short videos, you will get the required engagement from users.
Most marketers admit that video content on social media has helped them boost audience engagement and increase sales exponentially, which reflects its effectiveness.
Additionally, videos on social media platforms with links to landing pages can help brands drive organic traffic that is genuinely interested in their products. Even the social media platforms that are originally popular amongst users for photos can help you get more engagement through videos.
Hence, putting effort into creating videos for social media platforms is definitely worth it, especially when short videos are gaining immense popularity amongst social media users.
Stories
Although stories genuinely don't come under the category of content, their effectiveness is undeniable when we consider them in regard to social media. Many brands ignore them because stories can't help them increase brand awareness as other formats do, but they can serve as goldmines regarding audience engagement.
Since the introduction of stories on various social media platforms, most users browse stories to stay updated. Brands can use text, videos, and images to reach their existing audience through stories.
The option of stories on various social media platforms allows brands to keep their audience up to date. Moreover, the placement of stories on social media platforms makes the audience watch them first. Hence, brands are likely to get more engagement because of the timely nature of the stories they post on multiple social media platforms.
Additionally, a few platforms allow brands to keep stories available as highlights even when they disappear from the stories section. People who are really interested in stories must download them using a Facebook story saver for later use. Stories become an evergreen source of engagement and outreach for brands.
Live Streams
Although live streams can't be categorized into different types of content from videos, their application makes them unique from the rest of the content types you see on social media.
For example, brands use live streams to broadcast conversations, podcasts, Q&A sessions, interviews, webinars, and other events that interest their audience. In addition, the interactive nature of live streams allows the audience to get answers to their queries immediately, which is not possible with other types of content, such as text-based posts and images. Hence, live streams get significantly high engagement.
Live streams allow brands to stay closer to their existing customers and get the attention of prospects. Moreover, engagement through live streams on social media enables brands to build a community that feels attached to them.
Additionally, these live streams can be saved and published later to grab the attention of users who access the social media handles of brands later. Hence, live streams can later work as video content on social media for the brand. Thus, you can consider them more valuable.
What is the Best Format to Share Social Media Content?
Since we have discussed various formats for brands to share social media content and promote their trade, you will understand that all these formats are special in their own way.
You can't put more effort into one and ignore others if you want increased audience engagement and brand awareness. Every format has its own features to offer that are used to get attention from users on social media.
Additionally, it is worth understanding that you will get more value from a specific social media content format on a particular platform, while the same format won't deliver great results on other platforms. Hence, it is essential to determine what format will work better on which platform. Further details will be discussed in the coming section.
Suitable Social Media Platforms for Various Types of Formats
In this section, we will try to understand which format will work better on a particular social media platform and which platform supports a specific format. Read on to learn more.
Facebook is a platform that supports all formats to help brands engage audiences. However, brands may not get significant engagement from the audience on posts that only contain text.
Such posts may update the audience, but they are less likely to comment on such posts. However, text-based posts accompanied by images or video clips will get more engagement. Just make sure the text you are posting on Facebook is unique.
Videos are the best-performing content type on Facebook because of Facebook Watch and Reels features. Stories also help brands get engagement and keep users updated. Users can download Facebook videos and stories if they want them because stories disappear after 24 hours.
However, the best thing that has come out of Facebook lately is the Facebook Live feature. Additionally, its amazing features like creator tools and audio-only feature has made it easier for brands to publish podcasts and Q&As.
Created as a specified platform to share images online. Since its creation, Instagram has grown a lot and has become the most popular social media platform among youth. It can prove to be a goldmine for brands that target youth for sales and engagement.
It is worth considering that this platform doesn't support text. Images are a must if you want to post on it. Brands can publish infographics with relevant hashtags to get engagement from the targeted audience.
A surprising thing about Instagram is the boost it offers to posts that feature videos. Hence, brands can use videos on Instagram as well. It also allows brands to go live and publish broadcasts and Q&As for better engagement.
Stories are true goldmines on Instagram, as brands can download Instagram reels for long-lasting engagement with the audience by turning them into highlights.
Generally considered a professional platform, it offers great value for brands that target professionals from various industries. Brands can publish PDFs on this platform as well. Videos are likely to get 5x more engagement on LinkedIn. Images that include stats and captions featuring powerful words also work great.
A surprising way brands can use text-based posts on this platform is by turning them into polls. By using the polls feature brands are likely to get significant engagement from the audience.
Moreover, live streams through LinkedIn Live also get huge responses from the audience. Finally, brands targeting professionals can get engagement by publishing podcasts featuring pioneers of a particular industry.
Initially used as a micro-blogging website, Twitter has seen a significant increase in the number of users lately. The surprising thing about Twitter is the diversity of users who belong to various demographics and psychographics.
Generally, you will see brands engaging with the audience through text-based posts on Twitter. However, Tweets featuring text-based captions and images get more engagement.
In addition, you will also see tweets featuring short video clips getting considerable attention on the platform. Sadly, Twitter doesn't allow users to store videos, but thankfully online Twitter video downloader can assist in this regard.
Brands can also promote their blogs using powerful captions, relevant hashtags, and URLs. Moreover, the options of going live and publishing stories are also available on Twitter, and brands can use it from time to time to get engagement on this platform.
Bottomline!
Social media is considered an essential part of any modern-day marketing strategy. The chances of enhancing brand awareness and getting the attention of prospects without social media engagement are limited.
We have discussed the advantages of using a few formats to share social media content. All these formats are likely to work better on a particular platform.
We have also discussed popular social media platforms and their likeliness to boost content shared through these formats. This information will help you determine which format is better for your brand to enhance brand awareness and engagement with your audience on social media.
