The document outlines 20 effective social media content strategies aimed at enhancing engagement and reach for brands. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the audience, utilizing diverse content types such as interactive quizzes and storytelling, and optimizing posting times across different platforms. Additionally, it advocates for planning with a content calendar and leveraging analytics to evaluate performance and effectiveness.

1. Peter Barros
Digital Content Strategist
IBM
September 17, 2015
#ContentMarketing That Soars:
20 Social Media Content Ideas to
Skyrocket Reach and Engagement

2. Opportunity is great to optimize and trail blaze social
media with branded content
Source: Michael A. Stelzner, 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, May 2014.
97%of businesses use
social media for
marketing
purposes
report social media
is important for
company success
find it difficult to
optimize social
content
55%92%

3. Know your audience and what social networks they use
Use of social media is as varied as we are, so it’s important to understand where and how your audience uses
social.
Most social media activity takes place on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. But there are lots of channels. Ask your
customers what social media platforms they use, and how they use them.
Are they primarily using a smartphone for social media? If yes, you need to be sure your content is mobile-friendly.
Number 1
Source: April Heavens-Woodcock, Slideshare: A Morning of Social Media, 23 October 2014.

4. The best Interactive content,
like online quizzes, are
popular social assets that
allow users to learn about
themselves – and make them
likely to not only engage but
also share and comment
about their results.
Use to drive traffic by whetting
appetite for longer form
content.
Allow users to interact with your content
Number 2
LONG-FORM
CONTENT
EMBEDED WIDGET
WEB PAGE
SOCIAL DRIVE-TO
LONG-FORM
CONTENT
82% completion rate
23% share rate
EXAMPLE: PERSONALITY QUIZ

5. How to create an interactive quiz today
Number 2
1. Write your quiz. Determine what expertise your
audience wants to learn from you. Write 5-8 questions to test
their knowledge or uncover what kind of personality they are
Determine your kitchen cabinetry style
What’s the best way to brew coffee?
Are you a home renovation genius?
What Nintendo character are you?
3. Publish and share. Embed on web pages or blogs with
minimal amount of code. Share to social media platforms
and ad servers.
2. Build your quiz. Choose a quiz provider like Plyfe or
Qzzr. Select a quiz type and upload questions and images.
4. Track effectiveness and improve via dashboards.

6. Planning always-on content
for social media posts can
be overwhelming, but
keeping a content calendar
can keep you organized and
make sure you have a
consistent cadence of social
assets.
Build editorial themes that
you want to drive home.
Find the intersection
between what your
audience wants and what
your brand wants to be
known for.
Ensure you’re considering
all content types and length
for a robust mix of content --
and making sure you’re
adequately covering the
social networks where you
belong.
Plan ahead with a social media content calendar
Number 3
PLANNED 70%
Mapped out on editorial
calendar, this content is
aligned to objectives and
relevant events that
support brand storytelling
and engagement
RAPID RESPONSE 10%
News, events or social activity that requires immediate
response
TRENDING 20%
Content about current or upcoming trends
where your band can have a credible POV
Themes Content types
Build your career skills
Lessons from startups
Go behind the scenes
BLOG POST SOCIAL TILES
SLIDESHARE
VIDEO
PODCAST
WEBINAR
SOCIAL TILES
SOCIAL TILES
BLOG POST
Map out your content types by theme for a given week or given month to
ensure your audience gets a good mix of content across all your
editorial themes.

7. FACEBOOK
 Best day to post is on Saturdays
 Next best is to post during lunchtime.
LINKEDIN
 Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays have highest
reach and engagement
– Peak times are 7-8am and 5-6pm in US time zones
TWITTER
 Nearly 50% of Twitter users are in US Eastern time zone
 Most retweets occur after 5pm
 Most click-throughs occur around noontime and 6pm.
INSTAGRAM
 For greatest reach, post Mondays and during off-work
hours
For greatest reach and engagement,
there are certain days of the week and
times of the day, by venue, that will get
you the most reach and engagement.
Use a scheduler like Hootsuite,
BufferApp etc. to post in advance.
Post at optimal times
Number 4
Lots of great posting
recommendations available from
HubSpot and kissmetrics
SCHEDULE YOUR CONTENT IN
ADVANCE WITH TESE TOOLS

8. A virtual world can be
extended from a physical
event.
DJ James Murphy created
music from real-time US
Open match data for IBM
Music was streamed live to
accompany TV broadcast,
and made available on
SoundCloud.
A myriad of assets for many
social venues were created
based on the musical
segments.
Create a virtual world from a physical one
Number 5
FACEBOOKTWITTER
YOUTUBE
Music videos and making-of video
SOUNDCLOUD
Can embed elsewhere
TUMBLR
FACEBOOK

9. Make physical
events available
virtually not only
for the members
of your audience
who couldn’t
attend in person –
but also for the
physical
attendees who
are socially savvy
and want to share
their experiences
on social
networks.
Also, you’re digital
content can live
on well past the
event and be
optimized for
search engines.
An easy way to create a virtual world from an event
Number 5
1. Use Storify to create a story around an
event, including photos, video and quotes.
2. Drag and drop content into your story.
• Buzz and preparations beforehand
• Actual event including interviews and candid shots and videos
• Live stream the event
• Include live blogging
• Reactions by attendees
3. Publish on storify.com and/or embed on
wordpress or your website
STORIFY EXAMPLE
Add posts from
Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram, Google
search, your own
photos, etc.

10. Visual quote social
tiles can be easiest,
highest engaging
pieces of content to
create.
Template can be
created in advance
and used at events to
produce social tiles to
appear like breaking
news
Including faces on
Facebook and Twitter
posts can increase
engagement 30-50%
TWITTER
LINKEDIN
FACEBOOK
Share visual quotes
Number 6

11. A CTA is a call-to-action – a
singular, clear instruction that tells
your audience what they should do
next.
If you’re running an ad, a CTA is
critical to increasing response and
ROI.
If just posting regular content, you
can increase engagement by
encouraging followers to comment
or share.
Include a clear Call-to-Action
Number 7

12. We know that engaging with
social media influencers can
increase awareness of your
brand, create brand advocates,
increase online reputation, as
well as increase page rank.
But influencers may also be
flattered and eager to create
short-form content for you, and
therefore be very willing to share
and promote with followers.
Make it easy for them. Provide
them with the materials to create
what you’re looking for.
Influencers hand drawings used
in social tiles and slideshare.
Ask your influencers to create content
Number 8

13. Social media allows for
rapid testing of concepts,
tone, and types of content
– in order to identify best
performing assets before
you pay to promote them.
First step is to identify
your key metrics. Are you
trying to build reach,
engagement, or click-
throughs? Which social
channels are most
important to optimize your
pay promotion budget?
Be nimble! Don’t be afraid
to fail in order to learn
lessons each time.
TWITTER
More creative tile
created 300%
more engagement
than more
traditional,
advertising-like tile
vs.
Test, and test again
Number 9
WINNER
A Scientific Guide to Hashtags: How
Many, Which Ones, and Where to Use:
http://buff.ly/1eohLhp
The Research Behind Hashtags: How to
Find What Really Works:
http://buff.ly/1eohUBx
TWITTER
Tweet copy that
described an actual
item the user would get
with specifics about
what they would learn
garnered 66% more
click-thrus
Source: BufferApp
FACEBOOK
Self-explanatory
image brought in
700% more clicks
than abstract
image
Source: BufferApp
vs.
vs.
WINNER
WINNER

14. Want to prove a point? Well-
crafted data visualization
can be the most effective
tool to tell a story in the
seconds of attention you’ll
garner on social media.
Create a datagram for social
media within minutes using
visage.co’s online tool
Grab attention with a compelling statistic
Number 10

15. One of the best ways to pull
customers in with engaging
content is combining the power of
storytelling with social media. We
as human beings share a
common way to understand the
world – through story-telling. And
story-telling is inherently social.
Social media also makes it easy
for brands to engage and harvest
their audience for content. The
collective story can be comprised
of user-generated content
curated to amplify and humanize
your brand in an authentic way –
and making your audience feel
special and become advocates
along the way.
Tell a collective story by your audience
Number 11
EXAMPLE: #LifeinCbus
Campaign by to lure Millenials to consider relocating to Columbus, OH.
Submitted and other
curated content
LIFEINCBUS.COM
#LIFEINCBUS

16. Social media is inherently
conversational. So strike
a conversational tone in
your copy.
Make sure your voice is
authentic to your brand.
Especially important in
social media where you
have little time to exert
your brand.
Marketers many times do
not naturally speak like
target audience (e.g.
highly technical,
scientific, tweens, etc.).
Non-marketers within
your company may be a
good sounding board for
proposed copy.
Writing (and re-writing) copy for social media
Number 12
TWITTER
• Keep your character count under 90
(even though 140 are allowed!)
• Use popular related hashtags to
piggyback on popular streams
FACEBOOK
• Tone should be super-conversational
• Ask a question to encourage comments
• Include an eye-catching image
(especially faces)
LINKEDIN.
• Highlight a specific tip in your post
• Ask a question to encourage comments
• Tailor update to groups where you share
Source:

17. Re-imagine existing content
Re-purposing an existing white
paper into a more visual, sharable
asset on Slideshare added a new
life to existing content
Magazine spread format with
ample room for data visualization
provides greater readability /
consumability
Number 13
SLIDESHARETRADITIONAL
WHITE PAPER

18. Measure your content’s effectiveness
What’s the best
way to allocate
your finite content
creation budget
and resources?
Look at your
content’s
performance. To
successfully
analyze social
media content,
you’ll need to
determine what
Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs)
make sense for
you.
Number 14
KPIs TO CONSIDER
REACH
Understand the potential and actual reach of your content.
Followers and fans of your social property are important. But more
important are those who actually see your content.
ENGAGEMENT
Likes and favorites are important measures of how good your
content is. But even better are people who really endorse your
content by sharing, forwarding, retweeting it.
CLICK-THRUS
Which content causes you audience to click-through more often? Is
it certain themes, or certain types of content? Learn and optimize.
CONVERSION
Look beyond social media to your own website, online shop, or
landing page. Track the behavior of your social media visitors as
they progress on to your own properties.
SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS
GREAT TOOLS FOR
MEASURING
CONTENT

19. ABC: Always be constructive
Content marketing is
about providing
utility to your
audience – in
contrast to disruptive
advertising, which
audiences are
ignoring more and
more.
Try to provide your
audience with value
in most everything
that you do. Posts
your audience finds
useful are usually
the most shared and
retweeted –
transforming your
followers into
advocates.
Number 15
HOW GOOGLE WORKS
BED BUG IDENTIFICATION CARD

20. Take chances as an early adopter
MEERKAT
Live-stream video app
Schedule and promote
real-time interviews with
influencers
Consider niche but fast-growing
channels like Meerkat, Periscope,
Snapchat, and Beme – depending
on your brand identity and
audience.
Become a trailblazer on these
venues by creating a unique
campaign that only your brand
has the permission for.
PERISCOPE
Live stream video
Amplify your PR
efforts with real-
time behind the
scenes shots of
events
SNAPCHAT
Pics and videos disappear quickly
Reach B2C, especially young
female audience, and make them
feel special with exclusive
announcements
BEME
4-second, uneditable videos
Amuse skeptical millenials
with short videos that can
underscore a brand’s
authenticity
WECHAT
Mobile text and voice messaging
Multi-national brands can reach
global B2C audience, especially
China, with large and still fast-
growing messaging app.
Number 19 Number 20Number 18
Number 17Number 16

21. Thank you!
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Challenge
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Read this white paper for a deeper look into the challenges and inefficiencies of
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 Drive brand consistency
Peter Barros
Digital Content Strategist
IBM
@ThePeterBarros
https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrospeteribm.biz/contentmarketing