Social Media Content Creator Best Practices

With social media becoming an essential part of any company’s marketing strategy, every social media content creator should have these best practices (see below) down pat.

We’ll assume you’ve seen the numbers. Literally, half the world (~4.89 billion people) uses social media. Of course, that percentage is likely much higher where you’re doing your

business.

Food manufacturers are no exception to this reality. With the rise of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok, food manufacturers have the opportunity to reach a vast audience and build a strong online presence.

However, creating and managing social media content can be time-consuming and overwhelming – two strong reasons why food manufacturers should consider hiring a social media agency.

Below we’ll discuss why hiring an agency can save you from pulling your hair out.

Plus, we’ll cover some of the best social media marketing practices and the role of the person who should leverage them for your business – the social media content creator.

Benefits of Hiring a Social Media Agency

1. Expertise and Experience

One of the main benefits of hiring a social media agency is the expertise and experience they bring to the table.

Social media agencies have a team of experts who specialize in social media marketing. While it varies agency to agency, that team may include copywriters, graphic designers, video creators and marketers who are extremely familiar with each platform’s interface.

This is especially helpful when it comes to paid social (aka running ads on social media platforms). Social media platforms are innovating all the time, and a social media agency can stay on top of updated features and capabilities that may benefit improve your ability to reach customers on social.

Beyond their individual skill sets, they’ll be familiar with the latest social trends and strategies. By hiring an agency, food manufacturers can tap into this expertise and ensure that their social media strategy is effective and up-to-date.

2. Time-Saving

Creating and managing social media content can be time-consuming, especially for a food manufacturer who has other responsibilities to attend to. The fact that the average social media user is now bouncing around seven different social media accounts in a month only adds to the potential time and labor needed to hit the right platforms.

By hiring an agency, food manufacturers can save time and focus on other aspects of their business. Social media agencies can handle everything from creating content to scheduling posts to reporting analytics, allowing food manufacturers to focus on other important tasks.

3. Increased Reach and Engagement

Social media agencies have the expertise to create content that resonates with your target audience, resulting in increased reach and engagement. (Find more on engagement below.) Since social media algorithms reward engaging content with extended reach, those two concepts are intertwined.

With seemingly endless content possibilities, a social media agency will help you narrow down what type of content for what audience for what time of the year. By working with an agency, food manufacturers can ensure that their social media content is relevant, engaging and informative, resulting in increased brand awareness and customer loyalty.

Best Practices for Social Media Content Creators

Whether you’re operating solo, heading a team or enlisting an agency for help, these are five of the best social media practices to deploy.

1. Identify Your Target Audience

One of the most critical aspects of social media marketing is identifying your target audience.

Understanding your target audience’s demographics, interests, and behaviors can help you create content that resonates with them. Too many novice social content creators have a very generic idea of the social media user that they’re creating content for. Or, worse yet, they imagine they’re creating content for someone who’s just like them.

Avoid this trap by creating buying personas to help guide your content creation. This is especially important for food manufacturers who may be targeting a very specific type of consumer or even other businesses. By identifying your target audience, you can ensure that your social media marketing efforts are more effective.

2. Create Engaging Content

Creating engaging content is essential to the success of your social media marketing efforts. While the word gets bandied about often, “engaging” means content that sparks a reaction or interaction from your audience. That response may come in a variety of ways: a share or retweet, a comment, a follow, a click-thru to your website, an online purchase, etc.

Since social media users are bombarded with content daily, to stand out your content needs to be informative, entertaining and visually appealing. By creating engaging content, you can increase reach and engagement, resulting in increased brand awareness and customer loyalty.

3. Leverage Influencer Partnerships

Influencer marketing has become an effective way for businesses to reach their target audience. And the good news for food manufacturers is that there are plenty of food influencers out there looking for brand sponsors.

Since influencers already have their own established audiences, partnering with influencers allows food manufacturers to reach new and wider audiences and build brand awareness. Influencers can also help create content for you that resonates with their followers, resulting in increased engagement and brand loyalty.

And if you think influencer is just another word for “celebrity,” think again. Influencers come in all shapes and sizes, including “nano” and “micro” influencers with much smaller but no less loyal followings. Such influencers will be more affordable to work with if you’re dealing with a limited marketing budget.

4. Take Advantage of Hashtags

#Hashtags are an essential aspect of social media marketing. They help categorize content and make it easier for users to find. By using relevant hashtags, food manufacturers can increase their reach and engagement. Additionally, hashtags can create a sense of community and help food manufacturers connect with their target audience.

There are a number of websites that will find or generate the most popular and relevant hashtags for you. (Some are even free to use!) Try using All Hashtag, Hashtagify or Rite Tag. Bear in mind that some of these services are better for some platforms, like Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram, than others.

5. Use Data and Analytics

Data and analytics are crucial to the success of social media marketing. Managing social media platforms without analyzing performance data is like driving a car without using the steering wheel.

You’ve probably heard that one definition of crazy: doing the same thing again and again while expecting a different result. Avoid going crazy with your social media content by paying attention to your data so you know what content is striking a chord with your target audience, and what isn’t. By analyzing data, food manufacturers can optimize their future social media strategy and ensure that their efforts continue to be more effective.

The Social Media Content Creator to Your Rescue

A social media content creator will put the above best practices to work for your marketing plan. Two decades ago the role didn’t even exist. Today there are more than 60,000 social media content creators or managers in the U.S. alone.

Generally, a social media content creator is responsible for creating a consistent stream of high-quality content that is aligned with your brand’s image, voice and messaging. This may include developing text, images, videos, infographics and other types of content that are optimized for social media platforms. Ultimately, their work should increase brand awareness, drive traffic, promote engagement with followers and encourage online or in-store purchases.

The responsibilities for social media content creation were once considered intern work. That, or tasks to pass to the youngest person on the team (because young = social media savvy).

Responsibilities of a Social Media Content Creator

However, more businesses are recognizing how demanding being a social media content creator actually is, as well as the level of expertise it requires.  How demanding you may ask? Social media content creators need to…

• Stay up-to-date with the latest trends and tools in social media marketing
• Be familiar with various social media platforms and understand the unique features and requirements of each one
• Know how to use hashtags, create engaging captions and optimize content for search engines
• Possess a high degree of creativity, organization and detail-orientation
• Communicate and collaborate well with other members of the marketing team, including copywriters, graphic designers and social media managers

If You’re Looking for Your Own Social Media Content Creator…

It’s safe to say there’s no dipping your toes in the social media waters. Trying to stand out on a crowded newsfeed can quickly escalate into a full-time project. (Hence, the rise in the number of social media content creators mentioned above.)

If you’re a food manufacturer looking for success on social media without all the stress, schedule a chat with NewPoint today. Whether you need a B2B or B2C social strategy, we’ve have the experience and expertise to deliver.