Social media marketing can elevate your brand and client base in a dramatic way. More people are interacting with brands through social media these days, which presents an opportunity for you to tap into their interests and leverage the power of social marketing. To do so, however, you must share quality content; and lots of it.
Top brands, such as Coca-Cola and Nike, employ dedicated teams specifically to tackle their social media marketing. Like well-oiled machines, these teams churn out regular content that entices, entertains, and encourages their audiences.
To a small insurance agency, the large-scale social marketing operations undertaken by those big brands can seem intimidating. How can you possibly compete with their big budgets, social know-how, and endless content resources? Well, likely you can’t compete. But, you can at least ensure that your agency maintains a consistent output of high-quality content.
The key, and often the most challenging, aspect of social media marketing is finding interesting, and relevant content to keep the publishing calendar full. Fortunately, there are ways to do that without putting undue pressure on your team or causing your agency to go bankrupt.
Create Your Own Content
Creating content from scratch is time-consuming. That is the part that derails many social media marketing strategies. For those that are committed, however, content creation enables greater control over the brand marketing message. There is also the opportunity to be unique, and the ability to always have something new to share.
The first, and probably most straightforward, place to begin your content creation, is with a company blog. That content can serve multiple purposes, including search engine optimization for your agency website, information resource for prospects, and for social media marketing. When you share blog content across the social networks, not only will you be providing useful information to your audience, but you will also establish a useful link back to your website instead of someone else’s. A percentage of the people that view your post will follow the link back to your website.
You can also create infographic, video or audio content to reach different audiences than those reached primarily with your text-based blog posts. Tools like Wistia give you the functionality to host videos for distribution across social channels, while Piktochart makes it easy to create beautiful infographics.
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Source Content Online
Of course, you don’t always have to share original content on social media. In fact, content sharing from other online sources is a fundamental aspect of social marketing. It shows your audience that you are on the pulse of what matters in your industry, helps to establish a connection with other thought leaders, and enhances your reputation as a facilitator of information.
Sharing content from other sources takes the hassle out of coming up with your own ideas. In that respect, this can be considered a speedier way to fill your content schedule. The main challenge here is finding reputable sources to get content. Each industry has a handful of go-to places where valuable content can be sourced. But here are a few common ways to find great content.
- YouTube – Visual content is popular on most social media channels. While there are numerous places from which to source visual media, YouTube is unmatched for content and user numbers. Search for channels and videos from thought leaders in your industry and follow them to get a steady supply of great content to share.
- Buzzsumo – Using this tool, you can find content that is most likely to be a hit with your audience. You can search by topic or domain name to find content with the most social shares. That means you will be able to share content that you know people are already enjoying.
- Feedly – This is one of the most popular blog aggregators around. Use it to subscribe to several of the most important blogs within your area of speciality. It makes it easier to keep up with all that is happening in your industry. Feedly even allows you to integrate your social media accounts for easy sharing.
- Scoop.it – Create a profile on Scoop.it and follow topics and people of interest. Then, watch as your feed fills up with useful content that you can schedule for posting across your social media channels.
- Curata – This handy tool sources content from multiple sources using a proprietary algorithm. The content recommendation adapts to fit your personal preference, and you can easily share across numerous social networks.
User Generated Content
Word of mouth remains one of the most important aspects of marketing. That, despite major advances in technology, huge amounts of money being pumped into marketing, and ever creative ways for brands to grab people’s attention. True marketing traction and brand exposure on social media can be achieved when people begin to talk about your brand of their own volition.
To inspire people to talk about your agency, you should encourage them to create content for you. How you do that depends on numerous factors, including your budget, resources, and insurer restrictions. But in general, you should aim to surprise and delight, give users a reason to engage with your agency, and maintain a high level of satisfaction amongst clients.
When you positively surprise your prospects, they will want to share their experiences. They do that by broadcasting a message to their social network, and that means increased brand exposure for you.
Conclusion
You don’t need to have huge social media marketing departments or a big budget. All you need is the right strategy and a few tools to ensure that your agency’s content machine is just as effective as the big brands. The keys to social media marketing success are quality and consistency. So, don’t overstretch your resources by trying to compete on quantity. Focus on keeping your social media marketing schedule stocked full with high-quality content.
