It’s harder now than ever before to capture your target audience’s attention on social media. Whether you’re a creator or a brand, every social media platform is oversaturated with “noise” from the competition.
Organic, sponsored, collaborative, advertisements – your audience is becoming more and more adept at filtering out what they aren’t interested in viewing online. Advertisers need to find new ways to stand out from their competitors, especially as brands focus their efforts on reaching consumers via digital media.
This means that influencer and digital marketing is more important than ever before. Brands need to be developing an online narative, if they want to reach their consumer audience. Influencers and creators need to be strategic, when creating content for their followers.
Here are three important tips all brands, creators and influencers need to know when it comes to creating content that will capture your audience’s attention.
1. Make video content a priority.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube – video content is more likely to capture audience attention and receive engagement from viewers. There’s a reason why platforms, like Twitter, are starting to incorporate in-stream video ads into users’ feeds.
When it comes to social media marketing campaigns, brands should focus their efforts in creating quality video content.
Wondering which platform you should be advertising on? Try YouTube.
There is a common assumption that viewers will choose to skip ads on YouTube, if given the choice. The reality is that 50 percent of people globally actually watch them – and even more in the GCC region.
Focus your efforts on video and advertise consider advertising on YouTube.
2. Follow the three- and thirty-second rule.
When it comes to video ads, brands and marketers have a limited amount of time to capture their audience’s attention. Therefore, they need to be following the three- and thirty-second rule.
A brand has three seconds to capture your audience’s attention. And the bulk of its message (i.e. the “take away” of the advert) needs to be received by the viewers within the first thirty seconds. Brands and marketers need to keep this in mind, when coming up with ideas for video ad campaigns.
Overall, consumers have become very adept at tuning out brand-focused advertising. Marketers need to quickly and efficiently capture their attention.
3. Don’t be afraid to embrace the new
Generally speaking, when a platform releases a new feature it wants users to embrace it. It does this by promoting content that incorporates or uses the new feature. This is why Instagram Live will automatically inform a follower when an account is “going live.”
It’s always in a brand, marketer or content creator’s best interest to make the most of new features, as the platform will reward the user for incorporating it into their content strategy.
4. Use your tools and analyse the stats.
There are so many tools out there for brands, to help them analyse their audience’s engagement with content. Use these tools to look at the numbers, and tailor your content to keep your audience engaged.
For example, YouTube Analytics is key when looking at how viewers respond to video content. If you find that your audience “drops off” at a certain point in a video, avoid featuring similar content in your future videos or advertisements.
Learn from your audience’s engagement and use the tools you have on hand to help you in creating better content.
5. Target, target, TARGET!
Once you’ve figured out who your audience is and have started tailoring your content, be sure to target them correctly when promoting and boosting your content on social media.
According to Hubspot “. . . before you boost your Facebook post, you can either distribute your post to a recommended audience that Facebook will make for you or create a new audience based on a robust set of targeting options and distribute your post to them.”
We always recommend you target your own audience, so you know exactly who you’re trying to reach. This means understanding the brand affinity, demographic and primary locations of your followers – and the followers you want to attract.
What techniques do you use to get your audience’s attention? Let us know in the comments below…