Social media marketing is among the most effective forms of marketing for businesses these days. Since social media content is easily shareable, it is easy for individuals and organizations to spread it among their friends and professional network. The more interesting fact is that when social media content is shared, it doesn’t cost anything. It neither incurs any cost to the firm whose content is being shared, nor the individuals who share and spread it.
The different types of social media content have various incentives for individuals to share it with others. Some social media posts are perceived as entertaining, so users share them with their peers for the sake of fun. Other posts are informative and are shared to spread knowledge on a particular subject.
Sometimes social media users have their gains from sharing the marketing content of a business. For example, a social media influencer might feel like if he shares a certain advertisement of a brand with a moral message, he will be seen as a righteous person by his followers. He would thus share the particular brand’s adverts more and more in the hope of increasing his followers further. On the other hand, the brand will benefit from sharing because it will keep getting free of cost reach for its adverts.
This is the magic of the contemporary types of social media content. There is a benefit for everyone involved in sharing and spreading social media content with others. That’s why businesses nowadays are focused on creating content for social media that users will find interesting and exciting.
But what are the most popular types of content for social media? That’s exactly what we will discuss in this article today.
The Top 5 Types of Social Media Content
Here are the 5 most popular types of social media content that businesses must create for effective marketing.
1. Written Posts
This type refers mainly to blog articles, although text written directly into social media feeds, such as on Facebook and LinkedIn, are also included in this category among the types of social media content. Many businesses these days have their blog, where they share articles to spread knowledge about the industry they are operating in and the changing market trends in the specific niche they serve. Such articles help the business or brand establish itself as an expert in its respective field.
Businesses that do not have a blog of their use guest posting to have the same effect. Guest posting means writing articles to be published on other people’s blogs, inserting backlinks in them that direct readers to the brand’s website. This not only drives traffic to the brand’s website but also helps in conveying to the audience that the particular brand is quite knowledgeable about the market they serve.
It is not difficult nowadays to do both of the above. That is, a brand starts a blog of its own and also contributes to the blogs of others. If you have a website on Strikingly, for instance, you can easily add a blog section to your site, where you can post as many articles as you want regularly. All you need to do is, from your Strikingly editor, select ‘Add New Section’, and then click ‘Simple Blog’.
Image taken from Strikingly
Blog posts are easily shareable on social media and are thus one of the most popular and contemporary types of social media content. When you copy the URL of a blog post and paste it as a social media post, the thumbnail automatically appears in the post and is clickable for directing users to the blog post.
Another way of using a blog post as a social media post is to use the Strikingly social media feed feature. This is a method of integrating your social media content with your brand website, whereby you can view part of your social media post on your website. Clicking on it will direct the reader to the original social media post.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
2. Electronic Books
The next on our list of popular types of social media content is electronic books or ebooks. An ebook is basically a compilation of several blog posts brought together to distribute as a downloadable file or document. Businesses usually select their best content or most viewed articles to include in their ebooks. Many organizations hire professional content writers and curators to compile, distribute and promote their ebooks.
Like blog articles, ebooks can be shared as social media posts by pasting the link to download the ebook into your social media feed. You can create this link from where the ebook is downloaded from your website’s editor.
If you build a site on Strikingly, you can create such links by uploading the ebook file into your Simple Store section. You can also set a price for it if you want to sell it instead of distributing it for free. In the Products section, select ‘Digital Download’ to upload your ebook file.
Image taken from Strikingly
If it’s a paid ebook, customers will receive the download link via email when they purchase it. If it’s a free ebook, the link will be available for anyone to click and download the ebook, either directly from your website or via their email inbox.
Ebooks generally provide more detailed information as compared to blog posts. This helps you showcase your expertise on the subject matter at hand in a better way. But the cons of distributing are as follows.
- They take time to be produced.
- Fewer people like to read ebooks.
- Many people don’t see the value in them, as they think they can get all the information that they need for free by browsing through the internet on their own.
3. Links to External Content
When an organization does not have the time to create their own blog or compile its own ebook, it can use external links to share social media posts. This tells your audience that even if you are not producing original content, you are at least active in sharing the relevant content about your respective industry with your potential customers. It also shows that you are updated on the key industry trends because you read the content posted about the industry by other external sources. That’s why this is included among the effective types of social media content to be shared by successful businesses.
Links to external content are shared as social media posts in the same way you would share your blog article links, that is, by pasting the links into your social media feed. Credit is automatically given to the source of content, as the thumbnail that appears in your social media post includes the domain name of the content source.
4. Images
Using good quality images in your social media posts increases user engagement. Thus, images are among the most popular types of social media content. Photos endear a brand to its customers and entice them to share the posts. Images also make it easier for users to swipe through your entire album quickly, thus conveying your message to them before they lose interest.
Visual content in the form of images is more digestible by users than text or long paragraphs. These days you don’t even need an expensive DSLR camera to take quality pictures. You can simply use your smartphone to snap good photos and upload them as social media content. If you need to edit the images, you can use a free app on your phone to do so instead of installing or purchasing costly photo-editing tools. Some free photo-editing apps also allow you to add filters to your images to make them more attractive.
Therefore, images are the most accessible form of social media content you can create. All you need to do is grab your smartphone and snap a picture. Many businesses use product photos snapped with a smartphone to upload on their website. Instagram is particularly suitable for making social media posts in the form of images.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
5. Videos
Videos are more engaging than text and images. It is common for businesses to use explainer or animation videos to convey a long message in a 60-second video clip. The moving pictures help the viewers maintain their attention on the message, which is easily diverted if they convey the same thing via text.
Creating videos to post as social media content is not expensive anymore. Many skilled freelancers can do the job at cheap rates and can sell their services on popular freelance websites. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to arrange for a real shoot to produce a marketing video for your brand. This is why video marketing has become one of the most popular forms of digital marketing and among the most effective types of social media content to share.
If you have a website on Strikingly, you can easily add a video to your web pages. You can do this by first uploading the video on a third-party video-hosting platform, such as YouTube or Vimeo. Then you insert the link to the video using your Strikingly editor. You can paste the same link on a social media page to share the video as a social media post.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
Video marketing has become quite convenient and cost-effective, even for startup firms. It serves as good social media content and drives traffic to a brand’s website, and increases sales.
These were the different effective types of social media content. If you noticed, all these are also the most effective types of content that you can use on your brand website.
If you are looking to create a website for marketing your products and services, but are not ready to deal with the hassles and costs of hiring a full-time developer, register for a free account with us on Strikingly, and we will guide you from there.
Many of our users are running simple websites created on Strikingly for free and have integrated them with their social media pages to give an all-rounder effect to their marketing campaigns. You can do the same by trying out our simple tools and features, using our Free Plan for as long as you like.
Most of the types of social media content can be integrated with a Strikingly website. You can add social media icons on your site’s footer, which will direct your site visitors to your social media pages when they click on them. You can also add social media handles at the end of each of your blog posts. This makes it easy for readers to share your posts on their social media. When they click on any social media handles, the respective social media platform opens up on their device, with their account logged in, and the post appears ready to be shared. Our social feed section allows you to insert part of your Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter feed on your web page.
We have created these features in Strikingly, keeping the importance of social media in mind. Nevertheless, having a website is primary, and linking it to your social media content comes next. Therefore, if you need any help in developing and maintaining your Strikingly website, you can contact us anytime through our 24/7 live chat support system.
