4 Types OF Social Media Content To Promote Your Brand

There are 4 different types of content that you can create to promote your brand on social media. All content including post copy, stories, video, images, and audio will perform a function for your brand based on these strategic categories. 

4 Types of Social Media Content

You may find that you are driven to create one particular type more than the others and that's ok.  However, in order to fully engage your target audience, you'll want to create a variety of content across the 4 types. ​Excluding one of more these content types from your social media strategy could lead to missed opportunities to connect with members of your audience. Additionally, each type can help inspire you to showcase the different aspects of your brand and may even help you develop a new brand that is still under construction. ​

Read more about developing a brand personality and take this short brand quiz to find your result.

Storytelling

Storytelling content takes your customer on a journey with your brand. It often includes an emotional transformation of some kind either by the customer or by the brand itself. The audience will want to engage with this content because there is a satisfying emotional resolution. 

Examples of Storytelling Content

• Behind the scenes footage
• An emotional customer testimonial
• Before and after images
• The family legacy behind your brand's creation
• Your personal journey as an entrepreneur
• New product release anticipation
• Volunteer activities and community building projects
• Story takeovers by brand partners (Instagram and Facebook)
• User generated content
• ​Custom hashtags

Demonstration

Showing your brand product or service in action is one of the quickest ways to build customer trust. If you are a skilled creator or artist, you can showcase your skills and expertise. If you sell a product you can create your own product tutorials or have them generated for you by influencer partners. Product un-boxings and live tutorials allow users to interact with your brand in an authentic way before making a buying decision. Seeing your product in action will help them feel more confident buying and boost brand trust and loyalty.

​Social media endorsement by customers has taken the place of modern day word of mouth advertising. Encouraging buyers to become ambassadors for your brand by creating their own demos or featured content can spread your brand message. 

Examples of Demonstration Content

• Product tutorials
• Unboxing videos
• Influencer demos
• Before and after photos
• Instructional videos​
• Testimonial hashtag campaigns

Belief Shifting

Most of the decisions that consumers make about a brand are emotional and rooted in deeply held beliefs and biases. Breaking through these biases to change someone's perspective is a tall order. However, not all belief shifting happens around core or immovable principals. For example, let's say your target audience has never associated their morning routine with their mood throughout the day. You can create content that suggests that the morning routine is an essential opportunity to establish positive thoughts for the day.

​There are many products that can benefit from this type of positioning. For example: tea and coffee, breakfast food, daily affirmation app, skin care routine, essential oils etc. By shifting your audiences belief system about the ritual value of their morning you can show them how your product or service can become a part of that routine in a way that will make it essential to them. This is different, for example, than convincing your audience that chat based customer support system is more effective and efficient than a customer service call center. Different target audiences will require you to address their fear of change in order to shift their belief.

Examples of Belief Shifting Content

• Side by side comparisons of old vs. new solutions
• Challenging the way thing have "always been done"​
• Asking users to place value on something that is new to them​
• Acknowledging a fear of change

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Future Pacing

Future pacing content is an opportunity for you to give your target audience a glimpse of a happy and positive future. In order to create desire for your brand, it will need to solve a problem. Innovative products and services often offer solutions that customers didn't know they needed. That's where future pacing content comes into play. You can use this content to identify a problem and then position your brand as the solution. You want your audience to imagine themselves in a new future that is defined by the value of your brand.

Examples of Future Pacing

• Future timelines
• ​"What would you do with an extra $200"
• Open ended questions for which your brand is the answer
• Promising positive outcomes

Picking the Right Media Type for your Content

Different types of media may lend themselves to each of the 4 social media content types described above. Videos will be particularly effective for demonstration while descriptive post copy with scroll stopping image is essential for belief shifting. You may also find that there is overlap, and campaigns may include belief shifting and storytelling or Future Pacing and Demonstration. 

For information about social media marketing and content strategy contact Caldwell Media Arts.