The key to a successful digital marketing campaign is creating useful and engaging content. From simple images to interactive videos, digital content can make or break your social media or online marketing campaign. In this workshop, you will learn the 5 basic principles of engaging content and the 3 factors that must align to run a viral marketing campaign. You will also learn how to create high-quality digital content for your campaigns using free online tools.

1. Best Practices for
Creating Digital Content
Designing Great Content to Share in Social Media
The University of Texas-Pan American, Office of Continuing Education
By Alex Garrido, July 2015

2. We will cover
1. Social Sharing Triggers
2. Beating the Algorithms
3. Designing on a Budget

3. 1. Social Sharing Triggers
“When love is not enough”
Today:
● Our attention span is shrinking.
● It takes us more info to act.
● We are bombarded by messages
from friends, family, and brands.
Your customers might love your product or service, but if
you do not remind them of your existence they will forget”

4. Be remarkable, not annoying.

5. Passing the filters
Our brain tries to
protect us from
information overload.
Only messages that
pass through the
filters will be effective.

6. The 5 Principles of Shareable Content
● “This makes me feel special”
● “Everybody is doing it”
● “This is important to me”
● “OMG this is so me”
● “Oh, my friends definitely need this”
We feel compelled to share content that triggers the following inner-dialogue:

7. “This makes me feel special”

8. “Everybody is doing it”

9. “This is important to me”

10. “OMG this is so me”

11. “Oh, my friends definitely need this”

12. 2. Beating the Algorithms
Social media platforms use algorithms (sets of
rules) to decide who gets to see what.
This form of artificial intelligence can be helpful
but has limitations.

14. General factors in social algorithms:
● Level of engagement: how many people have
engaged with a particular update.
● Type of engagement: what kind of engagement has
an update generated (likes, shares, favorites, +1)
● Time factor: how old is this post?
● Profile similarity/affinity: who tends to like/share
updates like this.
● Personal engagement history: what is the personal
engagement history of the end user.
● Publisher trust factor: what is the reputation of the
publisher of this update?

16. Recommendations:
● Share in the moment (Time factor)
● Use your smartphone (Trust factor)
● Ask people to participate (Engagement)
● Feed the algorithm with “like-bait” (Personal
engagement history)
● Track individual post reach by hour of the day
(Time factor)

17. 3. Designing on a Budget
Content creation doesn't have to
be expensive
No professional graphic designer?
No professional graphics editing software license?
No desktop or laptop computer?
Issues to tackle:

18. No professional graphic designer?
You do not need a graphic designer to create great
content for social media. You need creativity.
What to share in social media:
● Quotes
● Business/Customer pictures
● Infographics
● Memes
● How-to articles
● Instructional videos
● Video reviews

19. No professional graphic designer?
Aim for balance.

20. No professional graphic designer?
Take your own pictures. Do not be afraid of the camera

21. No professional editing software?
There are many free online tools to
create digital content.
Ideas:
● Make an inspirational post with Buffer’s Pablo
● Create a quick infographic with Google Drawings
● Make a movie in Google’s Directr.co

22. No professional editing software?
Online editing options
Graphics:
Polarr.co
Piktochart.com
Gliffy.com
Piktochart.com
Canva.com
Infogr.am
Pixlr.com
Google Drawings
Video:
Directr.co
Wevideo.com
Magisto.com
YouTube.com/Editor
Animoto.com

23. No laptop or desktop?
Mobile Apps for Content
Graphics:
● Android
o Adobe Lightroom mobile
o Autodesk Pixlr
o BeFunky Photo Editor
o Photoshop Express
o PicsArt Photo Studio
● Apple
o Adobe Photoshop Express
o Autodesk SketchBook
o Graphic Design Studio
o iDraw
Video:
● Android
o Magisto
o WeVideo
o VivaVideo
o Google Photos
● Apple
o Magisto
o Splice
o Video Editor

24. Thank you!
Questions? Comments?
Connect with me
Twitter.com/MrAlexGarrido
LinkedIn.com/in/AlexGarrido
jagarrido@utpa.edu or
josse.garrido@utrgv.edu