How to build a content strategy in 2024

New year? New content. It’s time to take a moment to refresh your perspective, get some new inspiration and develop a social media strategy that will truly make a difference to your business. In this article, we’re going to show you how to make a data-led social media content strategy, strong enough to grow your business and flexible enough to add your own style to. Whether you’re brand new to content creation or a seasoned professional, read on for up-to-date tips for a shiny new year.

Before creating content…

Social media is a bridge between your business and potential customers. The platforms are like showrooms to display what you have to offer and they can be used in a variety of different ways to achieve different goals.

To build a content strategy, you first need to get clear on a few things. Ask yourself:

• What am I selling?
• Who am I trying to reach?
• What are my current goals?

Without these key pieces of information, shooting content onto the internet can be aimless and fruitless. This can waste resources such as time, money and effort, so it’s crucial that you can answer the above questions before continuing to develop your content strategy.

Get clear on your why

To grow a successful brand on any social media platform, it’s important to know why you’re on the platform. Is your ultimate goal to sell products or services? Are you looking to build a professional or a personal brand? Do you consider yourself a business owner or a creator? Does your business model thrive through subscriptions, affiliate marketing or sponsorships? What is the end goal? What will make your brand succeed?

Get really clear on your reason for being on social media and it will make building a content strategy a lot easier. Your main reason for being on social media will shape every area of your social media presence. It will also make decision making easier because you will have a clear vision of the end goal.

Target a relevant audience

Once you’ve got really clear on your end goal, it’s time to work out who your business is meant to serve. This will influence the content you make, how it’s presented and the social media platforms you pour the most effort into. 

If you’ve been making content for a while, you will already have an audience. By looking into your audience demographics with Minter.io you can shape future content to suit the people who already know and love your brand. Learn about the gender, age, location and language of your followers, as well as the size of your audience, your follower change and when your audience is online. These details can shape every aspect of your content strategy and help you connect with your audience on a deeper level.

If you’re building a brand from scratch, think about the kinds of people who are likely to connect with your products and/or services. As you share content and grow your audience, you’ll be able to get access to audience insights which will help hone your target audience over time.

Set goals 

Now that you know what you’re selling and who you’re selling to, it’s time to decide on some specific goals.

You could choose to:

• Grow the audience
• Build brand awareness
• Increase engagement
• Boost sales of particular items or services
• Drive traffic to a website

You can ensure the success of your efforts by tracking key performance indicators with Minter.io - the social media analytics tool for brands online. Track metrics for your audience, content, engagement, ads, profiles and more. The most important metrics will depend on the goal you’re currently pursuing. For example, if your goal is to increase engagement, you may focus mostly on engagement metrics such as the post engagement rate and engagement rate by reach. On the other hand, if your goal is to drive traffic to a website, you may focus on website taps instead.

Ok, now to get started with content creation…

Decide on platforms to focus on

Different demographics tend to congregate on different social media platforms. The majority of Instagram users in 2023 were aged between 18 and 34, whereas TikTok users tend to be a bit younger and Facebook users tend to be a bit older. LinkedIn attracts a professional audience with a focus on careers and business connections. X (formerly known as Twitter) is like the town hall of the internet, whereas Facebook leans towards connecting friends and families and TikTok seems to have a firm focus on trending content.

Knowing how people interact with each platform will help you decide on the platforms that are best suited for your brand and the audience you’re growing. This is crucial in creating content that connects.

Decide on the types of content to post

Depending on your chosen social media platform(s), you’ll have various media options for creating and sharing content.

Social media posts could include:

• Text posts
• Images
• Carousels
• Short-form videos (reels, TikTok videos)
• Long-form videos

Different media types gel with different audiences. If you’re already posting content, you can see how many likes and comments were gained by different content types on your profile with Minter.io.

If you’re just starting your content journey, experiment with different content types to find which content your growing audience responds to best. You may also want to think about your branding, such as your company colours and the tone of voice you use online. This may vary from platform to platform.

Research your competitors

Learning about what works for your competitors is a brilliant step in gaining inspiration for new content. You can find plenty of information about the content that works best for relevant brands to your own by setting up competitor accounts using Minter.io. This is particularly useful if you’re just starting out, if you’ve hit a road block, if you need some inspiration or if your competition is kicking your butt. There’s no need to rip off anyone’s ideas, but a fresh perspective can help spark new angles to approach content from.

Optimise your content 

When you have your content ready to post, optimise it. By posting your content at a time that works well for the platform and your audience, as well as adding effective hashtags, you can get your content into social media feeds and in front of people when it’s most likely to make an impact. Head to Minter.io to find the best time to post for your audience as well as your top hashtags and most effective hashtags.

Stay consistent

Designing and sticking to a content schedule can make it easy for your audience to anticipate and look forward to new content. It also helps to keep your content reaching people in news feeds. For these reasons, posting regularly can help grow your audience and build loyalty. Batch-producing content or scheduling content in advance can help you keep consistent throughout the year ahead. 

We hope you have a successful 2024! To get access to the metrics mentioned in this article, head to Minter.io - the social media analytics tool for any thriving business this new year.