How to create content that evokes an emotion from your audience

Do you ever wonder why people would follow a brand like?Scrub Daddy?on social media? It’s a f****** sponge. And then you also wonder how some influencers literally pop up over night (i.e.?Alix Earle)

By now I think most of you know that consistency is key - and that is not just posting on a regular basis. It means your content is consistent in terms of what is is or offers. A while back we started pushing our social media strategies (at?TCE) to focus on one content type per placement (i.e. one style or approach of content for IG in feed vs stories vs reels, etc.). People need a reason to follow up, check your stories and reels, and also keep up with you on other platforms (not just see the same content across them all). But the next step in this content creation journey is not only coming up with an idea, but it’s what that content will make someone feel.

The thing about Scrub Daddy is they are unhinged and personified their product (same for?Duolingo) and Alix Earle is praised for talking to the camera like she is talking right to you, as an individual, oh and if you don’t know?Keith Lee?you should he makes you feel like you can really trust him.?

One issue I have with some brands are they don’t want to put a face to the brand - and that is making things hard, because social has evolved to needing something or someone (even if it’s your product personified) to connect with, product pics aren’t cutting it. Now you can of Course work with influencers or create seed accounts like?Coach, but generally (whoever you hire a face to the brand or not) you need your content to make people feel something.

So, let’s cover our basis, what are these feelings?

• Upset/Disgusted (we all know?PETA’s content can do this to you)
• Pleased/Charmed/Joyful (easily can be something like a giveaway or coupon code, or your favorite influencer did a product collab with your favorite brand)
• Strengthened/Motivated (our TikTok Therapists do this well, obviously)
• Amused/Entertained (most brands have focused on this the last two years - edutainment)

Obviously so many more emotions that than but our focus here is to give our audience consistent content that makes them feel a consistent way, and when we change that emotion up, it may shock people or help them feel more engaged. AKA our girl?Kylan?always has a great day but when she has a bad day (which isn’t often) it just engages her audience so much more).?

Now I am not saying you can never post a product image again, social is still a great way to inform your audience of what is happening, but you do need to ensure that content is not just a picture, but going to push for something more.

Other than the visual content itself, Tiktok makes it easy to voice over content and use their voice to text features to give your content a little more personality. Otherwise think about how your captions can be helpful here…if you can get people to actually read them. Outside of that, this is why people create memes for their brands (and focus on trending topics so much) - it makes people laugh, feel related to, or nostalgic - but you will notice the best of brands don’t really focus on this.?

I can’t wait to see what the next wave of best performing social media content is (maybe that will hit us in 5 years) but until then this should be your focus, good luck!?