Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – it’s the battle cry of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to conserve our natural resources. At Pipeline, we don’t really want to reduce your messaging, but we certainly want to repurpose good content. After we write a press release, article, or blog, we encourage our clients to let us condense it into bite-sized chunks for social media, or even use it as the basis for a video. That way, we have even more opportunities to share the story.
Want to maximize your message? First, make sure your content is relevant to your target audience. If other people in your industry have previously commented on the subject, do your research and make sure you are adding something to the conversation. Remember, you want good content, not just content.
Also, be sure to write for the platform. Yes, it’s easier to write one short blurb and post it to all the social media platforms you want to cover – but it’s better for your audience if you take the time to write posts that are appropriate for each channel you use. For example, hashtags are still not particularly popular on Facebook, but you’ll find them all over Twitter and Instagram. They can help build your brand or increase engagement through searches or trending topics. By the way, if you’re going to use hashtags:
- Start with the # symbol but don’t use spaces, symbols, or punctuation.
- Make sure your hashtags are relevant and specific – for example, #electricity is way too general, but #AVpower will attract more AV professionals researching power solutions.
- Research any hashtag you plan to use, and make sure it’s not already associated with a competitor or another industry.
- Limit your hashtag usage or your post will look like spam (Twitter recommends no more than two hashtags per tweet).
Finally, great words deserve great images. Logos, stock photos, infographics, head shots, pull quotes – use something visual to call attention to your content. You can also repurpose your content by writing a script and shooting a video for YouTube (or other social media platforms), and you might even be able to repurpose your graphics in your video, too.