Everywhere you turn these days you run into a social media guru. Each one tells you to ramp up your social media activity. You are encouraged to share tons of valuable information via social media channels, and it doesn’t take long before you find yourself struggling for interesting material to tweet, post or share. Here are six types of content you can reuse to leverage your assets, and raise your profile in social media.
1. Make A Video
One of the best ways to create material to fuel your social media activity is to create videos out of articles and posts you already have. Many people prefer to watch a video rather than slog through a long article. Did you know YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google? Add videos to your YouTube channel on a steady basis. Create useful information that helps people learn more about your area of expertise.
2. Share Images
Social media is filled with images: quotes, funny photos, family pictures, and photos from the latest vacation. One social media site, Pinterest, is entirely built on sharing images. If your business, product, or service is visual, you are a step ahead. Share shots of your latest products and how your customers are using them. Allow customers to upload their photos showing them using your product. Show new designs, fashions, and looks.
Share images of behind-the-scenes action at your company. Bring your readers into your world. Take photos of customer promotions, company events, office parties, product developments and new arrivals. People want to feel like they really know the companies they buy from. This is difficult when so much buying takes place over the internet. Bridge that gap with insider photos.
Another way to utilize images is to excerpt existing content into attractive quotes, sayings and motivational statements. Set the text over attractive images or animated scenes. Make sure the content is relevant and useful, no matter how short the actual text. These images can be directly uploaded to your Facebook timeline and Pinterest, or linked from Twitter.
3. Answer Sites
Answer websites let users ask questions on various topics. Other users log on and answer the questions. Yahoo Answers is a good example of this type of site. It is one of the most successful websites the company has ever produced. They are a wonderful chance to meet customers where they live by giving them direct answers to problems that are bothering them right now.
Care should be taken to avoid spam-like responses, and to adhere to the terms of service. Don’t make it a sales channel. Simply answer questions with content and insight you already have. Depending on the site’s rules, you can link to pertinent posts on your site, helping build traffic and sales down the line.
4. Infographics
Infographics break complex concepts and information into easy-to-understand charts, images and animation. Currently, the popular trend is to create elongated images that take several clicks of the mouse to read.
Whether short and snappy, or long and informative, infographics are very popular in social media channels. They can be loaded on your own site or uploaded to image-based sites like Pinterest. Infographics appeal to people because they can gain a lot of insight and knowledge in a short period of time. It’s a simple snapshot of the most important details on a subject.
Many infographics use highly artistic animation and graphic design. This may be beyond the capabilities of an average company or individual. Don’t be discouraged. Freelance designers are available worldwide. Another alternative is to create simpler infographics with less need for designer skills and aesthetics. If the presentation is useful, applicable and easily understandable, it will garner plenty of interest and social media buzz.
5. Documents and Slide Presentations
An easy way to reuse content for social media is to upload documents and presentations to sites likes Scribd, DocShare and SlideShare, each of which is extremely popular in the search engines. Many companies have reams of data sitting unused. Get those documents out and set them free.
A side benefit of participating in document sharing sites is it helps build authority status for an individual or company. When you share useful information about your industry and marketing niche, you become a resource in the eyes of customers and prospects. In the future, they instinctively trust any information you share because you’ve already demonstrated authority on the topic.
6. Ebooks
The days of having to submit a manuscript to book publisher after book publisher in the hope of scoring a deal are on the way out. Now anyone can publish to platforms like Amazon’s Kindle in a matter of hours.
Like document sharing sites, one of the major advantages of online publishers like Kindle and Barnes and Noble is their massive reach. You don’t even need to own a Kindle to purchase books on the platform. They can be read online, on a desktop computer, on tablets, and smartphones.
Content can be sold at higher prices to generate revenue, or set at lower prices to encourage acquisition and the spread of ideas. Ebooks are usually longer than an average report or document. They are perfect for establishing a reputation as a thought leader and industry expert.
Videos, images, answer websites, infographics, documents, and ebooks are excellent ways to reuse content for social media. Experts say social media will play an increasingly important role in the way consumers and businesses research products before purchasing them. Feeding your social media efforts with a steady diet of varied content will keep customers engaged and the profits rolling in.
