Content has evolved a lot over the last decade. It does so many things that entertain, inform, and captivate our attention. In social media marketing, there are several forms of content that can be used to captivate an audience. In our executive briefing, we covered some of our top 5 styles: short-form video, photography, graphics, blogs, and podcasts.

“...marketers globally have been allocating as much as 40% of their budget to content...”

With the right type of content, your brand could expand its reach, educate people, and differentiate your offering from the competition. Overall, marketers globally have been allocating as much as 40% of their budget to content, displacing even social media marketing as the preemptive top strategy for marketers. Unfortunately, only 41% of B2B and 33% of B2C have a documented content strategy.

“Don’t force it. Be natural. Your audience can tell the difference.”

— Bryce Thompson, Senior Content Producer, Firebelly Marketing

Content Strategy

When considering your content strategy, you must first understand your customer. Connecting to the original problem the brand is solving can help marketers better understand their customer’s wants and needs.

You are your niche in terms of understanding your customer; come at content strategy from the consumer's standpoint. Some important questions to ask when planning your content framework:

“You are your niche in terms of understanding your customer; come at content strategy from the consumer’s standpoint.”

What do your customers look like?
What are their challenges?
Where do they play/work/relax?
What is the problem that they are dealing with?
How does your product solve the problem they are dealing with?
Is there an educational barrier for your customer to use your product?
What do they buy? How long does it take to make a buying decision?

Marketers must match content with the consumer’s journey. Essentially, what problem will you solve for them? When you narrow down the buyer persona, you must appeal to your target marketing with engaging, educational, convincing, and inspirational content. Each content format will be chosen for effective delivery and measured accordingly. Goals should ultimately align with the brand’s overall objectives, with different goals for different social media networks.

Building Trust & Credibility

“If there’s value that’s being delivered in a friendly way, you start to establish a relationship — an incentive, including a call to action or conversion action, you have commerce.”

Provoke a conversation. By building trust and credibility, relationships are strengthened. Engaging in conversations with your customers, with the partners of your business, and with people that you work with regularly gives you a better understanding of the following:

What people are talking about.
The kinds of things they’re interested in seeing.
Spotting trends
Research

If there’s value that’s being delivered in a friendly way, you start to establish a relationship — an incentive, including a call to action or conversion action, you have commerce.

Despite content creation driving leads and sales, its real value lies in the emotional relationship you could build with the audience. People are emotional creatures and will make buying decisions based on these emotions, so make sure you trigger positive feelings in them.

📍Just remember: it’s not about the followers and likes. The engagements, shares, click-throughs, and conversion rates are much more important in content creation.

Foundational

When starting your content creation journey, one of the most important things you MUST establish about your brand is your brand’s themes, purpose, values, voice positioning, and general aesthetics. This foundation allows your brand to focus on relevant and meaningful topics for your customers.

After your brand values are identified, take a look at your content buckets. Overall, we recommend every brand considers four primary buckets of content creation:

Inspire through conversation — Is your content helping build conversations around your brand?
Educate through consumption — Is your content being consumed by your audience?
Engage through connection — Is your content building an audience?
Convince through conviction — Is your content persuading consumers to act on their interest as sales or leads?

Once you know the content buckets, examine your brand and see what content pillars you have that support each. We define these content pillars as a set of themes or topics brands use to create content. These content pillars should be consistent with your brand:

Purpose
Values
Tone of Voice
Positioning
General Aesthetic

Pillars example 1:

Firebelly works with Herculean Meal Prep. A brand that focuses on delivering convenient meals with quality ingredients to support busy people wanting to live a healthy lifestyle.

Their content pillars include:

➡️ Lifestyle/People

➡️ Convenience

➡️ Quality Ingredients

➡️ Local Business

➡️ Healthy Living Information

Pillars example 2:

Firebelly works with R-C Ranch, a prominent player in the Wagyu livestock industry to bring high-quality wagyu beef and heritage pork direct from their family farm to your kitchen table.

Their content pillars include:

➡️ Lifestyle/People

➡️ Around The Farm

➡️ Recipes and Pairings

➡️ Local Butcher Shop

“Without content pillars, content feels disconnected or even random. Sticking to your brand pillars will ensure your brand remains relevant and engaging amongst your customers.”

— Arnelle Mitchell, Marketing Manager, Firebelly Marketing

Content Creation Ideas

So, now you know the foundation of content creation, but if you’re struggling to come up with fresh ideas for your content, don’t fret: we have a few formats you could use to get those creative juices flowing:

Short-form video

Brisk, captures attention very quickly. You can play with AR filters to frame content, and appeal to a younger and broader audience. Short-form is increasingly popular and redefines how people consume, create, and distribute content.

Photography

Visually appealing and makes a strong first impression. A good picture enhances engagement, ease of shareability, and leads to an emotional connection.

Blogs/informational content

Establishes authority and thought leadership, furthering trust. By generating relevant and valuable content, blogs can drive social media marketing efforts.

Podcasts

Build relationships with people in your industry. By hearing your expertise, you will build trust and credibility with your customers.

Trends

Using industry trends to inform your content can significantly increase your brand visibility and engagement.

Here is what we recommend to help your brand stay on top of trends no matter what industry you are in!

Use trend-spotting tools like Pinterest Predicts and Google Trends.
Engage in conversation with your customers and see what their conversations are about.
Listen to podcasts and read news material in your industry.
Watch your competitors.

Those are our top tips on how to improve your content creation strategy! Give it a try and see how they work out for you.

If you’re operating with a small team or still need support in executing your content strategy, schedule an appointment to see what a relationship with Firebelly Marketing could look like!

Executive Briefing: Content Creation Made Simple