Understand Your Audience

Before diving into content creation, it’s essential to understand your target audience. Conduct thorough research to identify their preferences, pain points, and behaviours. This insight will guide your content strategy across all channels, ensuring it resonates with your audience. 

Take advantage of the socials

Social media platforms are diverse, each with its own unique characteristics and user base. Here’s how to tailor content for some of the major platforms:

Facebook 

Audience: Broad, diverse age range, with a focus on community and engagement. 

Content Types: Videos, images, articles, and infographics. 

Our tips: 

• Use high-quality visuals and engaging headlines. 
• Leverage Facebook Live for real-time interaction. 
• Post consistently and engage with comments and messages. 
• Utilise Facebook Stories for short content. 

Instagram 

Audience: Younger demographic, highly visual, lifestyle oriented. 

Content Types: Photos, short videos, stories. 

Our tips: 

• Prioritise high-quality, aesthetically pleasing images. 
• Use Instagram Stories and Highlights to share behind-the-scenes of your company. 
• Engage with users through comments, likes, and direct messages. 

Twitter 

Audience: Wide range of ages, professionals, and news seekers. 

Content Types: Short text updates, images, videos, and GIFs. 

Our tips: 

• Keep tweets concise and to the point. 
• Use hashtags to increase visibility. 
• Focus on informing and educating.  
• Engage with trending topics and participate in conversations. 
• Share links to blog posts, articles, and other content. 

LinkedIn 

Audience: Professionals, B2B audience, job seekers, and recruiters. 

Content Types: Articles, professional updates, case studies, and infographics. 

Our tips: 

• Share industry insights and professional advice. 
• Publish long-form content and articles. 
• Engage with industry groups and participate in discussions. 

Content for Blogging

Blogging remains a powerful tool for content marketing, SEO, and establishing authority. Here’s how to create high-quality blog content: 

• Research and Plan: Identify trending topics and keywords relevant to your audience.  
• Structure and Readability: Write clear, concise, and well-structured articles. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, and short paragraphs to enhance readability. 
• Quality and Originality: Provide valuable insights, backed by data and research. Ensure your content is original to avoid SEO penalties. 
• Engagement: Encourage comments and discussions. Respond to reader feedback to foster a community. 
• SEO Optimisation: Optimise meta titles, and descriptions, and use relevant keywords. Add internal and external links to boost SEO. 

Content for Email Marketing

Email marketing is a direct way to reach your audience. Here’s how to create compelling email content: 

• Personalisation: Use the recipient’s name and tailor the content to their preferences and behaviours. 
• Engaging Subject Lines: Craft compelling subject lines to increase open rates. 
• Concise and Valuable Content: Keep emails concise, with a clear call-to-action. Provide value, whether through discounts, exclusive content, or useful information. 
• Design and Mobile Optimisation: Ensure your emails are visually appealing and mobile-friendly. 
• Segmentation: Segment your email list to send targeted campaigns to different audience segments. 

Cross-Channel Strategies

Here are a few more tips to implement in your marketing strategy, regardless of the channel: 

• Maintain a consistent brand voice and message across all channels. 
• Adapt content from one channel to another to maximise reach and efficiency. 
• Regularly review analytics to understand what works and what doesn’t. Use this data to refine your content strategy. 

By understanding the nuances of each marketing channel and creating tailored high-quality content, you can effectively engage your audience and achieve your marketing goals. However, we understand marketing can be overwhelming. That’s why our team of marketers is here to help you. Contact us today at hello@brighterdirections.co.uk and book your free discovery call.  

The post How to create high-quality content for each channel appeared first on Brighter Directions.

But – there is still significant misconceptions and understanding about ‘how’ businesses can use hashtags to maximise their digital activities. Even after ten years of use online, it’s clear than consumers have a much better understanding of their activity, than B2B environments – thanks to the likes of popular TV channels who have build engagement up between live TV and social media.

So, what better time than today, for us to share our top insights on HOW you, as a business can utilise #hashtags effectively:

What are hashtags on Twitter?

Put very simply, hashtags on any digital platform are essentially a very quick and easy way to ‘categorise’ or ‘tag’ a certain topic or phrase online.

These ‘tags’ provide a simple way to find or engage through a word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#), used widely on social media websites and applications, especially Twitter, to identify messages on a specific topic.

Should businesses use them?

Yes, and no.

The issue is that although hastags can be a great source of exposure, they can also restrict the visibility of posts if the hashtag is not relevant, or a relevant enough tag… which is where many of the businesses we see fail when using them.

This brings me on to… How should businesses use hashtags?

Can you tag onto great topics quickly and without preparation? The answer is of course yes, but, be mindful that this may not always be the best strategy, unless you are an active user and understand the concepts.

There are a few things you should do before/ when aligning your marketing with hashtags:

1. Research the # first – do this by searching the tag in Twitter – look at the engagement around it, who is using the tag, how large is the reach? Are the posts suitable for what you had in mind?
2. Then compare the search without the tag – how do the results compare?
3. Once you have the answer, then go ahead and use it within your posts!
4. Make sure your post is directly related to that tag, and relevant for the audience
5. Track it – after the post, review the positives and ways you can improve next time

One thing to bare in mind is that sometimes using a #hashtag actually limits the reach of your post, so ensure you complete the above ‘check-list’ before you click.

Final question we get asked a lot around hashtags….

What are our top tips for using hashtags on Twitter:

• Be specific: If you’re using a hashtag to join a conversation, make sure the hashtag is specific and relevant to your topic.
• Keep it simple: Hashtags, like links, look like spam if they are used too often. Three hashtags should be the maximum
• Give context: A tweet that contains only hashtags is not only confusing — it’s boring.

Follow our simple rules above, and you can’t go wrong with #hashtags!

Are you looking to maximise your Twitter and social media accounts more professionally, or effectively for your business and build audiences for your brand? If you’d like expert support or advice, please contact us today to see the reason why we are known as one of the UK’s digital agencies!

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The announcement from Twitter says this change to replies is rolling out to all users across the web, iOS and Android.

As a refresher, Twitter was originally designed as something of a public text messaging service. SMS messages are limited to 160 characters, so Twitter went with a character limit of 140, thinking to leave room for a username ahead of the tweet.

However, the @usernames in Twitter replies did end up counting towards the 140 characters, as did other media attachments, including photos, GIFs, videos, and polls. That left precious few spaces for a user’s actual thoughts.

This also led to informal conventions like “tweetstorms” for sharing longer thoughts, and “Twitter canoes” – large, multi-person conversations which eventually break down because so many people join, there are no characters left to actual post responses.

Twitter has been trying to rectify the problems with its 140 character limit over the past several months by changing its user interface and lifting various technical restrictions. It already stopped GIFs, images, videos, and quote tweets from counting towards the 140 characters. (Links still do count).

With today’s change to replies, Twitter’s interface on web and mobile will now display those you’re replying to above the tweet text, instead of within the tweet, which frees up more characters for your thoughts.

The change to replies marks an end of an era for Twitter. The company helped to popularize this format and bring it into the mainstream. Today, using the “@” symbol to mention someone is supported across a range of services, including Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Slack, and even Outlook, among others.

So far the test launch of this today has been really successful and received some positive engagement, but we’d be interested to hear how you feel about this and if it will in fact change your strategy while using the platform?

Do you struggle to compose effective, accurate content for your business Twitter account? Let our experts help. Speak to our friendly team today on 01246 252855 about our Twitter content, or Twitter management packages and see how we can excel your online engagement, and build your brand on Twitter!

The post Twitter extends 140 character tweets – @replies appeared first on Brighter Directions.

Moments is linked to Twitter’s content so it can show visitors, current topics that are popular or relevant. This can be searched via categorized tabs by News, Sports, Entertainment, Fun, and more.

In our minds, Twitter is not only using this update as an extended tool for users to build a better experience as part of their usage, but it also means that you as a company can extend your reach when it comes to topical subject matter and as a result, also extend your digital footprint through SEO keyword tagging and external linkage.

Think of Twitter Moments as you do Pulse within LinkedIn – a tool for you to utilise to better extend the branded journey for your audience.

Mashable describes the new launch pretty succinctly too: “Moments, however, is something new and very different, for Twitter, at least. The goal is simple. As one Twitter representative put it, Moments provides “better discovery for an easier, more delightful experience for users who haven’t been able to find value thus far.”

What’s the point?

Moments is the answer to the question, “What would Twitter look like if it started as a news curation site?” Clicking on Moments on the desktop (and mobile) reveals a place that it doesn’t really look like Twitter

In the left column is a simple section navigation stack with “Today” up top. Under that you’ll find News, Sports, Entertainment and Fun. Each section is full of “Collections,” which is basically another word for “Moments.” Individual Moments (or Collections) revolve around a single story. Visually, every Moment has a category, like “Weather” or “NFL,” a much larger headline and a synopsis. Inside a Moment you’ll find a carefully curated and quite-attractive-looking collection of images and centred tweets.

Images are singular and in grids. Tweets are overlaid on images and those tweets without images are in larger fonts (at least larger than your usual Twitter stream tweet) and, interestingly, centred. The overall effect is consumer-friendly and inviting.

While every tweet in Moments looks different than the Twitter I know, there are also some comforting and familiar elements. Every image, tweet, Vine and embedded video includes the usual Twitter tools: retweet, favourite and more.

How to create a Moment

There are three ways to begin creating your own Moment. You can access Moments through the Moments tab, your profile page, or through a Tweet detail. To get started all you need is a title, description, Tweets, and a selected cover image.

The easiest way is from the Moments tab on your profile page: Click on the Moments tab, then click the Create new Moment button to get started.

Ways you can use moments:

1. Have your say on topical subjects and opinion pieces – great for PR
2. Share thought-leadership content and interesting viewpoint articles (extended from your blog)
3. Search and segment the news and topic you want to see/ reflect on, creating a personalised experience for your needs

If you are looking to develop your Twitter business profile, why not take advantage of our free analysis and recommendations consultancy session. To access yours, simply call our professional team at Brighter Directions on 01246 252855.

We work with organisations from start-ups,  growing SME’s through to corporate firms looking to advance their digital strategy successfully.

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