How do you craft engaging and relevant content for different social media platforms?

In addition to content, tone can be very important. The tone of voice and language you use should vary according to your audience. If you're targeting millenials on Instagram, you should use a very different tone than if you're aiming your media at a professional audience on LinkedIn. Your writing style should feel familiar and comfortable to your audience - imagine you're communicating with them face-to-face and adjust your style accordingly. I'm sure most of us can call to mind a situation when we were chatting with our friends and someone entered the group that just didn't "fit in". How did it make you feel? Was it uncomfortable or did the conversation die? Immerse yourself in your audience's world and meet them where they're at.

Additionally, understand that your audience is not homogenous and may impact a message's timing and delivery. For example, not every parent is prepared for Back to School shopping on July 15th. Your content strategy may need to adjust the messaging for parents who anticipate the school year and those too busy to shop until the last week of August.

There are traditional social media platforms, and there are also emerging immersive social spaces. From 2D to spatial platforms, brands can create content that is both entertaining and a means for interacting with audiences. Content marketing is able to expand beyond offering social media content, to also offering immersive social media experiences. For all social platforms, it is essential to understand your audience - who they are (each of your segments), what drives them to use the platform, how they want to engage with content on the platform. For immersive platforms - marketers should also 'step into' the platforms to truly understand their unique communities, and how to offer them value through immersive branded content.

I want to add some points following my experience in content marketing thus far. Here are some steps that helped me to create effective content: 1. Knowing my target audience in & out. This helps in tailoring content to resonate with TA. 2. Defining what we want to achieve with our social media strategy. 3. Customizing content to fit each platform. 4. Use compelling visuals to capture attention. 5. Attention-grabbing headlines that encourage users to engage. 6. Embrace storytelling to convey a message & connect with the audience emotionally. 7. Encouraging interaction by asking questions, running polls, or requesting their opinions. 8. Monitor & analyze the performance of our content using analytics tools. Keep experimenting.

When it comes to aligning your content to your audience's journey, if they're in the awareness stage, they're trying to give a name to their challenges or opportunities through research. It's best to serve them educational content. In the consideration stage they understand their problem or opportunity and are exploring all available approaches and appropriate content should position you as an expert. Things like demo videos and case studies are good choices to establish you as a leader. In the decision phase, your audience has decided on their approach and is now evaluating providers. Appropriate content could include free trials and product documentation.

It's also important to understand emerging trends on platforms. TikTok is a great example where you may not immediately consider long-form educational content, as used in the above example, but the increased use of platform search combined with long-form breaking the doom scroll habits could mean a differentiated approach stands out.

If you are creating content for a specific audience, with a specific goal, then create the story that best suits what they want to engage with, and how they like to consume or engage with content (the platforms.) This means considering both the story or story experience and the mediums that it is for at the same time. A story can have multiple touch points across different social media platforms as well as mediums, overall. Do not choose the form of content first, and then decide on the platform that makes most sense for it.

Each platform has its strengths. For instance, use visually-rich content like images and short videos for Instagram or TikTok, create thought leadership articles for LinkedIn, employ casual and relatable content for Twitter, etc.

Often, content is created by multiple members of your team. It's important to have a standard set of guidelines and messaging available in the form of a style guide, branding guide and messaging framework. Each author can have their own voice, but when it comes to representing the brand, there needs to be consistency. A robust review process is vital to ensure that these guides are adhered to. Things that should be considered in the review process include defined roles and timelines, as well as clear expectations of what reviewers should be looking for. A system to track progress and flag roadblocks can help keep things on track. Finally, the content needs to be organized and stored effectively.