Content Strategy for Network Marketers on Social Media
Whether you like the trendy word or not, content is important. It is what you give your audience in return for their support and interest. It is a way to share information and even, to entertain. But most of all, it is the most consistent and fail-proof method of building a brand. This can be said for both substance and authority. You can build a strong social media content strategy in three (3) simple steps.
Seriously.
Social Media Strategists Thoughts on Content Strategy
Butterfly Social is a ‘social media boutique agency’.
And, in a recent interview with Entrepreneur Magazine, the owner was quoted sharing this insight to social media platforms.
“It’s about focusing on one or two of the best platforms for your business and really building quality connections on those platforms,” she says. “If you try to spread yourself thin, whether it’s across all social media platforms or trying to get huge quantities of followers, how will you engage with all of them effectively? I advise clients to go for meaningful engagements.”
Please understand.
Thus, this is exactly why we only ever encourage our community to focus on one or two platforms. More importantly, master one before you move onto another.
Quality of quantity engagement, matters.
3 Steps to Building a Strong Content Strategy for Network Marketers
#1 Determine who your audience is
Who are they? What do they want? We recently published a post on how to develop your Audience Profile — Find it Here — Consider starting there before moving on. You will need this step before anything else. Because, knowing who your audience is will help you create the right content strategy for them.
How can you create good social content if you don’t know your audience?
A couple suggestions for websites that you can in fact check what others are doing (including competition) are;
- BirdSong Analytics — This will give you an indepth analysis of your competitor’s Facebook page showing which content has been the most successful for them. Including which days of the week and time of the day elicit the most interactions. In addition, it will also tell you which words are the most common for their posts, etc.
- BuzzSumo — This site will let you compare Facebook pages and receive insights into how their updates are being received by their audience
- Fanpage Karma — Lastly, this site allows you to identify your competitor’s most engaged social media followers
**Please Note. This list is not recommending that you should have a Facebook Fan Page. In fact we have a great post about that >> HERE. However, this list will help you gain valuable insight. So, for those reasons we have included it.
#2 Build a Content Strategy Calendar
Once you know who you are writing for, you should have a good idea of what content to plan for. We are big believer’s in having a calendar for every piece of work drafted, or that will be created in the future.
Incorporating a social element into that calendar is a great idea.
It will turn an incomplete content strategy into one that is seamless and fluid.
Here are some ideas to include in your social media calendar:
– Monthly holidays (including unofficial holidays + International ones)
– Company or business events (especially those specific to your niche)
– Festivals, upcoming big movie releases and concerts (Find memes that relate to your niche and gain attentions for exploiting long awaited events)
– Your company plans and events
______
The easiest strategies that are almost always shown a good success rate at driving interactions is what is known as the 80/20 principle. 80% of your interactions such as Likes, Shares, Comments, replies, retweets, hearts (Instagram), etc. should be focused on your audience/followers and not on you.
You should aim to have a style that is Approachable and Authentic.
A good sense of humor is always a plus, keeping this causal, informal even. Keep a unique style and tone that is fun and professional — but aligns with who you are.
One content strategy that people have found helpful, especially when the goal is consistency, has been theming days of the week.
Motivational Monday – Share a great story or quote that will motivate others
Testimonial Tuesday – Share a customer story – or your own!
Wellness Wednesday – Informative tips or trends in wellness (mind, body, spirit)
Throwback Thursday – A very general one that always gains great traction
Fashion Friday – Perhaps you have a great fashion sense, or share
You can always include the weekend too — and really, any name you want that relates to the day of the week you want to post on. These are great tools to stay consistent with, and ones that can be easily duplicated by your team.
#3 Measure your Results and Adjust
Measuring your results is the final step in your social media content strategy plan. You need to know if your efforts are delivering results for your business. We can break this down into two (2) areas of results: engagement and conversion.
Engagement
Discover how people are engaging with you. This can include likes, comments and shares. Please note that likes don’t always dictate conversions – in fact this is rarely the case. Where we want to focus our efforts more is when people comment and share our content.
And, here’s the deal — we are busy people (we get it) but take that time to respond to comments, and thank others for sharing. This is perfect for any type of post 1) text 2) images 3) videos and 4) Facebook Live videos.
Documentation beats Conversation
Document the results. When you are consistent in your content strategy, trends will start to appear within the results. You might find that you receive more engagement on a Facebook Live than you do a regular video. With this result, increase your Live videos.
Alternatively, your audience might respond best to text or narrative statuses over images. Thus, use these findings to create more narrative posts than images.
And so on.
Conversions
Conversions in this sense relate to how many prospects you are attracting to your content. Your conversations may vary and generally they are associated with sales or recruiting. Determine which posts drive the most sales and/or recruits. Include how long that sales process took before they whipped out their credit card (slight humor).
What did the sales or recruiting cycle look like? For example;
Monday you created a live video (typically Monday’s are the best days to post things related to earning more income – lifestyle posts, new business ideas. etc. translate best on Mondays. Why? Because most people return to work on Monday and too often, dread it.
Let’s assume a prospect commented on your video. You respond. A conversation ensues, and you start to build that relationship. It may take one month or even three months to convert that prospect into a customer or a new business partner.
It may even take a year.
Whatever the case is, document what that cycle looks like. Knowing these bits of information will help you strategize the best content to deliver based on these cycles.
Final Thoughts on Content Strategy for Network Marketing
Overall, developing a content strategy will help you not only deliver the content your audience wants to see — but it will help keep you on task, and manage your time better. Once you create these habits, implementing it weekly will start to become effortless.
In addition, we would love to hear some of your favorite content delivery methods. What do you find is working best? Where can you apply some of what was included here?
We hope to see you on our upcoming webinar and we know it will help you understand more about content strategy and how you can apply it to your business to gain the interest of more people!
Let’s make the difference.
“How to Get 5X More People Interested in Your Business on Facebook Without Feeling Spammy or Salesy”
First, register here >>> WEBINAR REGISTRATION
Date: January 10, 2018
Time: 9:00 p.m. EST
And, to give you a sneak peak .. here are a couple things we will cover;
- The 3 common mistakes most network marketers make on Facebook that are REDUCING the amount of signups and sales
- A simple and proven formula to generate more customers and reps even if you are new
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