Social media content can direct a large portion of online traffic to your business, but it can also deter customers if performed poorly.

Consider the following tips for creating engaging social media content:

Unique
Content that is creative and unique is likely to be more meaningful and engaging to followers. The content you are sharing should consist of something followers cannot get anywhere else, and it should be interesting. Research what your competitors are doing and then perform a team brainstorm on how you can provide more than this, something different and something better.

Live
Creating live content can be very engaging, particularly if you have posted content leading up to the live stream making followers aware of when you will be going live. Live streaming allows followers to feel they are connected directly with the business or brand. Just ensure you go live at an appropriate time; 9 am on a Monday when everyone is busy starting the working week or late on a Friday when people are going out to start the weekend are both poor times to go live.

Involve followers
One of the surefire ways to create engaging content is to include your followers. A great way of doing this is to run online promotions and competitions, or free giveaways when customers share/like a post and enter a specific code. Another great way to involve followers is to take on board their feedback and implement their suggestions into future content.

Different content on various platforms
If you have more than one business social media platform, you should be posting different content on each. There is no point in posting something on Instagram, and then sharing the same content to Facebook and Twitter. Whilst this is ok to do sometimes, you should also be including different kinds of content on each platform. Perhaps Instagram will be used to market new products, Facebook for promotions and humorous non-business related posts, and Twitter for industry news. Research the types of content most suitable for each platform and implement this to ensure your content is engaging.

Tracking
You may think you’ve produced some fantastic content, something that is going to go viral only for it to receive a handful of likes and a couple of shares. Using tracking analytics is very useful for gaining insight into how far your content is reaching, and how users are engaging with it. You can discover the most receptive time to post, the most effective platform, and the types of content that are most engaging for your target audience.