A successful social media program should provide your audience with helpful, interesting content. The internet gives you access to some great resources that can quickly help you develop a system for finding that content. The following are some tips on how to find great content for your social media program:
1. Follow Several Industry Leaders
Choose several leaders in your business’ industry and start reading their blogs, following them on Twitter or liking/subscribing on Facebook. By subscribing to their blogs or websites you receive daily or weekly updates that give you great articles to share with your audience or great ideas for topics to write about yourself.
2. Use Google Alerts with your Keywords
Sign up with Google Alerts for several keywords in your business or industry.
Go to: http://www.google.com/alerts
Type in the keyword(s) and you will get a Preview of the results: this will help you narrow the focus of the keywords if you don’t like the results that pop up in the Preview box.
Choose the Type of information (everything), How Often (daily, weekly or as it happens), Volume (only the best results) and Deliver to (your email address)
A note about your email address: I recommend setting up a new email address (I use gmail) to be used exclusively for your alerts as you will find it easier to read and manage the volume of information coming in.
3. Create Your Own Content
Of course, creating your own content is a great way for your audience to learn more about your business while you build your brand with informative, helpful articles and posts.
A few quick ideas for your original content:
- A List of Tips for your customers relating to your industry or business
- Announcements for your business or industry-related news
- Special offers or contests for customers
Remember: content does not have to be text-only. Videos, podcasts and pictures/slide shows can offer a lot of value to your audience too.
Once you’ve started building a collection of great content for your social media program, the next steps are to organize and schedule it. Those steps are covered in an upcoming post: Organize and Schedule Your Social Media Content.
About Terry League