How Diversifying Your Social Media and Blog Posts Can Increase Engagement and Sales

What’s Not Working With Your Social Media Content? 

So you’re chugging away, working tirelessly to try and increase your following and engagement on social media. You try posting every day, posting to your stories, maybe even creating some video content, but people just don’t seem to be paying attention. 

You’re talking about your offers, and posting about your products or services, but it doesn’t seem to be leading to any sales. 

We’ve seen this many times before, and can tell you with confidence that it’s not how often you’re posting that’s the problem, but rather (what) you’re posting that’s missing the mark. 

According to Forbes

“Fewer than half of companies describe their social media strategies as “very effective” when measuring its power to strengthen brand image, raise awareness, increase sales or growing the customer base. Further, they are not overwhelmingly confident in their company’s current social media strategies.”

Forbes

When it comes to content, cultivating an on-brand variety is key to keeping your audience interested and engaged. If you’re not sure how to do this, don’t worry! We’re going to break it down here, so you can start creating varied and exciting new content and increase both your engagement and sales along the way! 

Diversifying Your Content and Finding the Perfect Content Mix for Your Business! 

We know at this point that having a clear brand message is important to increase brand recognition and build trust with your audience. However, if you post the same thing over and over again, it may increase your brand recognition, but it’s also going to bore your audience to tears and have them reaching for that unfollow button. 

The trouble is that many businesses think that they have to just stay focused on their product or service and company events, and they rarely branch out from that.

In order to stay on-brand while at the same time diversifying your content, we recommend developing a content strategy including Content Pillars. 

 What are Content Pillars & How Do You Choose the Right Ones for Your Business?

Content pillars are high-level topics that you can use to create a variety of content while staying focused on a few areas of importance to your brand. 

For example, a professional service provider that is in B2B (Business to Business) sales could choose content pillars such as: 

• Customer Stories/White paper/Case Studies
• Testimonials
• Educational tidbits: Short ‘Did you know?’ posts
• Common problem in industry + solution
• Industry topics: Adjacent relevant topic in industry that doesn’t directly relate to their services
• Tech/Tool highlights: How certain technology or tools can help solve problems
• Events
• Product/Service Highlight
• Education: more in-depth than ‘Did You Know?’
• Mythbusting: Breaking common misconceptions holding people back from being open to their products/services
• Light-hearted posts: humor, inspirational, etc
• Behind the Scenes Look
• User-Generated Content (resharing those that are posting about your business already)
• Staff Profiles

Then they can take those pillars to start outlining their content calendar with a variety of subjects for posts. From there, it becomes easier to plan several specific posts ahead of time, while at the same time keeping things fresh and your audience engaged! 

The key is to incorporate educational topics, entertainment, and relatable posts along with content that specifically promotes sales. 

When it comes time to choose your Content Pillars, consider your brand’s values, your customer’s challenges, the problems you solve, and industry trends in addition to your product’s features and upcoming offers.

How Often Should I Post A Direct Sales Pitch About My Product or Service?

This number has been steadily decreasing every year as users make it abundantly clear that they don’t want to be sold to!

While in the past it was normal to do pitches about 20% of the time (The 80/20 Rule), but with user trends and expectations, we recommend not directly pushing your product/service 90% of the time. 

Yes, you head that right!

If you stick to educating and entertaining your audience 90% of the time, the 10% you do pitch a product or service, your audience will be more inclined to actually be receptive to your message.

From that same Forbes Article: 

“Companies approach social media primarily as an advertising and marketing media: post images to drive sales and store visits. As a result, they measure it like any outbound advertising campaign. 

But consumers don’t want to be advertised to on social media. They want to be engaged on social, like they are with their friends and families. For them, it’s primarily a communications and information platform.”

Forbes

Still Lost? Get Expert Help On Diversifying Your Content and Choosing Your Content Pillars! 

Here at Desert Creative Group, we work closely with our clients to help them develop content marketing strategies they can come back to again and again as their business grows. If you’re struggling to create content pillars for your brand, or find that your content strategy just isn’t working, we’d love to chat with you! 

Click here to schedule a free consultation today and optimize your content strategy with a team of experts! 

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