As part of your content marketing campaign for social media, you can control your content, but you cannot control the behaviour of people who see it, or regulate how readers react to your content.

What you can do is get to know your readers, find out what they see as important and discover what triggers their behaviour so that your content can be targeted.

Read or browse

People coming across content can either read it or browse. Research has revealed that 55% of visitors spend 15 seconds or less on a website. This means that over half of people who see your content on social media will not read it. Many of the people, after those 15 seconds, will click on a link. The reason they click is that they are attracted to a headline or an image. A call to action link should be placed in the first paragraph to attract browsers.

You may have spent a long time crafting a well-written article, but remember that over half of its viewers won’t read it at all.

Sharing

For maximum impact, you want your social media followers to share your content. Make your content appeal to people’s emotions, as this will influence readers to share your content. Encourage comments, respond to the comments and thank your followers.

Sometimes, even something as simple as asking your followers to retweet your tweet will make a difference.

Viral is not everything

It’s great if your social media content is shared to the point where it goes viral, but remember the purpose of social media content is to raise brand awareness. If your comic video goes viral and makes everyone laugh, will they still remember your brand the minute after viewing?

Social media content cannot control behaviour, but it can influence it.

Darren Jamieson