How Long Does it Take to Create Quality Social Media Content?

When it comes to digital marketing, social media content and social ads are no longer optional or a nice finishing touch. Today good social media content is essential. Taking a few minutes to haphazardly post or share without following a solid strategy just won’t pay off. With an ever-changing, increasingly targeted set of algorithms to deal with, the time spent on social media crafting posts, engaging followers, and targeting ad campaigns continues to grow every quarter. Learning the time and effort it takes to create social media content gives you a better idea of what to expect so you can strategically and effectively plan and execute campaigns.

What Goes into Quality Social Media Content?

First, you need to have a clearly defined strategy that speaks directly to your target prospects. Once you know who you are writing or creating for, you need to spend time crafting a mix of posts that are appealing and sharable. Both your posting frequency and your mix of promotional, educational, and entertaining content need to be considered as well. Curating sharable content, finding quality images that are legal to use, and tracking performance to gauge your audience’s reaction are all part of a sound social media strategy. Ideally, you’ll spend time each day analyzing, tweaking your content and strategy, and creating solid content that appeals to your core audience.

Short and Shareable Takes Time

Every social platform your brand uses has a different length requirement, but all need attention-grabbing, shareable content that gets results. It can take longer to craft short, intriguing, and interesting posts because every word and character has to perform. You need to be able to engage, connect, inform, and entertain your followers with quality content, and you only have so many words or characters with which to do so. Even platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, which offer a higher word count, only display the first few sentences, so your social media posts must make use of every single visible word. The more time you spend creating, editing, and testing content, the better your posts will perform.

 

A person uses social media on the phone and computer

Strategy Matters

Every post you make must follow a strategy designed to appeal to your specific targets and the platform it appears on. This approach ensures that you are truly making the most of your time and that you are reaching the people that matter most to your brand. Every post you make must move you closer to your goals and increase the likelihood that a prospect will take the next step into your sales funnel. Take the following steps to ensure your posts align with your brand and they bring the attention you want:

  • Research brand goals for the month and determine which products or services to feature
  • Research monthly news, holidays, and events so your posts align with holidays without competing
  • Review recent news posts from other, non-competing entities, like authority sites or recognizable professionals in your field
  • Research trending events, hashtags, and more to ensure you are part of trending conversations
  • Source high quality, relatable images that are legal to use; create branded images, pins and posts as needed
  • Review ad performance and tweak as needed; A/B testing may be used to refine ads and save money
  • Write copy for posts, making sure that each word counts and that the final post and image align with the branding
  • Schedule for optimal timing and optimal audience, with hashtags as needed

Make the Most of Your Time

While you do have to have high-quality social media content, the average person might find it intimidating. Luckily you do not have to do it alone! Work with a social media ads and strategy expert to consistently post good social media content that gets results without taking away from your precious minutes per day. Get it touch with the StratGrow team today to learn more about your options and to cut your time spent on social media while increasing your effectiveness.

Millennials sit on a wall and use their phones