According to Nuseir Yassin, the founder of Nas Academy, the training and development arm of social creator Nas Daily, the evolution of social media is shifting your focus from text-based posts to short-form videos and other visual content. It is also allowing you to leverage trending topics and challenges, among others.
From the time of Friendster’s inception in 2002 to Tiktok’s launch in 2016, social media has evolved from its initial purpose of helping us connect with friends, family and strangers with similar interests to enabling us to use it as a critical marketing tool and retail platform of the 21st century as well.
A Shift of Focus to Interactivity and Experience
Due mainly to the advancement of smartphone and camera technology, social media has become more interactive and engaging. Firstly, there has been an increased focus on short-form videos that average 15 – 30 seconds and other visual content, rather than text-based posts. There is also a rise in the popularity of TikTok, while Instagram and YouTube have also jumped on the bandwagon with their own short-form video formats, called Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts respectively. Instead of relying on a desktop or laptop computer, users now can hold social media in their hands. They can scroll through their newsfeed to browse the content by using their finger on their smartphone screen.
Secondly, followers can now interact with content creators through comments and direct messages (DMs). This may make the experience feel more intimate as if you know the creator on a personal level.
All these have created a shift in marketing and business, and present exciting opportunities for creators to make careers out of their passion.
5 Tips on Creating Effective Social Media Content
While social media today looks very different from the social media of years past, the thread that connects them is the goal of connection. It’s just been realised in ways that developers couldn’t have imagined 20 years ago. Here are a few tips to amplify that level of connection with your audience when planning your social media content for marketing.
1. Leverage Trending Topics and Challenges
Although it depends on your social media platform and niche, in general, it is important to take advantage of trending topics and challenges. This is because trends are what people are watching constantly. Leveraging trending topics and challenges is a way to guarantee hits and clicks. This isn’t a bad thing because there is a reason why trends happen. Instead of merely following the crowd, it is up to the creators to make a particular trend their own in order to differentiate themselves from the crowd.
2. Be authentic
Though social media has capitalised on people’s desire for the ideal life and created pressures for everyone to be perfect, many users are reverting to supporting the initial intent of what social media was made to do – bring people together. Creators are increasingly being called out for being fake, and so those creators who are genuine and honest are the ones succeeding in building real connections and followers. Be authentic, because people know it when you are being fake.
3. Be Consistent
Even if you have gone viral once, in order to have staying power, you need to post consistently on social media, even if your content does not hit the mark. According to
Hootsuite, maintaining the right posting frequency can help keep your audience engaged, though each platform has its own best practices.
4. Be Patient
It takes on average three years for a creator to become viral, if ever. If you really want to make it in the creator economy, you have to be willing to post on social media every day for years before you start to see results.
5. Learn from Others
See what others are posting, and make that your own. You aren’t copying if you’re taking their content and putting it through the lens of your style and your experiences. That said, people want to hear you, not another version of a creator they just watched. When taking inspiration from others, be sure to not copy.
Learn how to create thumb-stopping social media content today. In partnership with Nas Academy, the Diploma in Media and Communications offers a social media pathway where students will learn content creation skills from Nas Academy trainers and receive an e-Certificate from Nas Academy upon graduation.
TOP