How to Write Effective Content For Social Media Sharing

By thought-horizon | Jul 1, 2020

The world is changing. Let’s talk about it.

Writing effective long-form social media posts used to be simple (enough). It had to address the reason that more people weren’t paying attention to your product, and find the solution. But now, talking to your potential buyers about your product isn’t enough. You need to talk about them. Their lives, their struggles, their experiences in a world that is in the midst of massive, long-term change. 

But so much of the content produced by businesses right now sounds the same – is it possible to beat the “post-Covid office life” drum too much? Social media is a personal platform for many people, not just a business platform; it’s okay to fuse the personal and the professional. In fact, it’s encouraged!

Sharing using social media, especially when using Advocacy or Social Selling methods, will reach your targets much faster than relying on search.  For B2B Enterprises, it is much more likely that your content will be clicked on and consumed if it is shared by a trusted individual, rather than your brand or the Google ‘highest bidder’ principle.

Make sure your marketing stays relevant. Consider the usual questions that long-form posts try to answer: “Why do customers buy from you?” “What problems do you solve?” This content isn’t all that interesting to your target buyer who no doubt knows about these solutions and may even know about your company’s solution already.  Address more complex questions, too: “How have you adapted to address the current issues facing business and individuals?” “How is your company different from others, and how is it better?”

Creating articles that start with the objections you commonly receive has an incredible effect on the market – especially when these messages are delivered by your sales team and executives using social. When I worked for AT&T selling complex wireless security and application services, the questions went well beyond our ability to deliver quality network services. We were considered a highly trusted brand, but our customers wanted to know why they should work with us as opposed to best-in-breed boutique smaller firms who specialized in mobile applications and software. Our prospects secretly wondered if we would give them the attention and expertise needed to deliver all the piece parts. Addressing this problem head-on was critical. We need to show them the intrinsic value of ‘one throat to choke’ and focus them on the importance of tight integration and QA over our network as important aspects of creating and securing new mobile apps.

These days, social media can be a fantastic tool to demonstrate ‘thought leadership’ in front of your clients, and pose questions that they may not have considered before. This will improve your credibility, and make clients more likely to keep following and engaging with your posts. This improved social engagement is the basis for future relationships and sales. 

Don’t try to do all the heavy lifting using the content. It isn’t necessary to educate, convince and wrap with a ‘call to action’ all in the same posting. Make your company approachable. Answer questions, but do so as people. We all live in this unexpected, evolving world together – your customers need to be reminded that you do, too.