How To Tailor Your Content For Each Social Media Platform
Social media is dominating the way we consume content as well as how we market and promote our businesses. However, some content may need to be tailored and altered differently in order to fit a certain platform of social media. It is not a one size fits all situation with social media as different platforms contain different audiences.
Furthermore, some social media platforms are more informal than others so it is important to know how your content should be shaped in order to attract as many viewers as possible to your social media account, website and business.
This article will give you a few tips on how to tailor your content on the social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
A GENERAL NOTE
First and foremost, you want your content to reach everyone accessibly on each platform, no matter how complex your content is. Consider your audience and then alter your use of language and images to fit with this. Remember; you don’t need to be on EVERY social media platform. Choose the social media platforms that are right for your business and your audience.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is also intertwined with social media. We’ll go into this in more detail in another post but think about what words are key to selling your product and always include them in your social media posts and website content.
According to Statista, in the last four years, Facebook use amongst the older generation has almost doubled.
Facebook has always been more of an adult social network with many using it to reconnect with old friends from school and be involved in local community groups with those around them. Because Facebook tends to be more dominated by older generations, it is wise to consider this general demographic and tailor your content to them. Therefore, your language for your business can be somewhat formal but clear.
Avoid using business terminology the average adult wouldn’t understand and use strong, captivating images to draw your target audience in.
Take a look at our blog in using the right images on your ads. Facebook is useful in that your posts aren’t limited to only a few words or characters, so you can pretty much write as extensively as you want and go into great depth. However, you should try to put all your important information in the first few lines of your post as many viewers will not read your content to the end if it’s too long. And often a more snappy and to the point post is a lot more effective than a long-winded one. If writing specifically for ads (sponsored content) always keep these posts short and to the point. A couple of lines of text is perfect - any other information should be included on your landing page.
In contrast to Facebook, Twitter appeals to a younger audience. 38% are aged between 18 and 29 and 26% of Twitter users are aged between 30 and 49, says Statista. This is almost two-thirds of the active users on Twitter. Therefore, any content you want to market will need to be vastly different from Facebook.
Firstly, on Twitter, each post you make can only have 280 characters. You can create a thread of tweets to expand on your original post but be warned that you won’t gain as much traffic as your original post, so it is best to keep your writing concise, engaging, fun and informal to entice the younger generation to your products.
Attach a few images and use relevant hashtags to make your product a talking point for the Twitter community. You can find more information on effective hashtagging here.
Similar to Twitter, Instagram also appeals to the younger generation with 30% being in the 18 to 24 age bracket and 35% of users aged 25 to 34, according to Statista. As a result, the content you write and produce for Instagram needs to be tailored even more informally than for a Twitter audience.
Posts on Instagram can only be images or video with text underneath them. The stories feature is also popular on the platform but this too is a visual feature. Therefore, with Instagram, you need to make images paramount to your business. You need high quality engaging and interesting photos with tags on them.
Instagram have a feature where you can add a swiping gallery of photos in one post so you can add more images. However, make the first one the most important as many users will only see that as they scroll through Instagram.
Like Facebook, your text under the image can be as long as you want it to be, but since the demographic for Instagram is so young, it is wise to keep your text short and sweet as users don’t often bother to read captions. Make your image worth a thousand words!
Also remember that links in Instagram captions aren’t clickable! Avoid putting any links in your Instagram post capations and instead, write “link in bio” and ensure your bio link is up to date with your most recent promotion.
The demographic for LinkedIn is varied, but all tend to be business professionals. Therefore, LinkedIn language needs to be formal, and you can get away with more fancy business language. An image or link will help to optimise your post, and longer text won’t hurt either.
Many LinkedIn posts you see are journey ones of young people growing in the world of business and showing their progress so far. These are often long but engaging, so bear this in mind when writing content for LinkedIn.
Entering relevant hashtags can also help. Find out how to use hashtags on LinkedIn here. This will help you gain new viewers to your post and eventually your website and business. Keep your content friendly but professional, clear and clean in order to gain lots of traffic.
Images
When creating your social media posts make sure you adjust your images to the correct size for each platform. If you don’t you’ll wind up with cut off Instagram images (such as the one shown here), and half-visible Twitter image previews.
Here are the key image sizes you need to know:
Facebook Post: 1200 x 630
Instagram Post: 1080 x 1080
Instagram Story: 1080 x 1920
Twitter Post with 1 image: 1200 x 675
LinkedIn Post: 1200 x 627
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