YOUR Social Media Content Creation Career?

The popularity of social media as an effective marketing channel has created opportunities for many to turn content channels into full-time careers..

Related Article: Maximize YOUR Social Media Conversions?

Building a large following of loyal and highly engaged followers presents you with two monetization avenues -- working with companies to build their brand awareness and promoting your own products or service. It's fun and can be extremely lucrative.

Sounds like a dream job, right?

It is, but starting a career creating content on social media is difficult. The type of viral growth that leads to monetization opportunities requires high-quality content and something unique -- with millions of social media profiles competing for the same attention, you need to stand out.

Over the past few months, I've gotten to know Mariam Ezzeddine (@CookinWithMima), and I learned that, when she started her Instagram account, Ezzeddine had no social media experience or professional cooking background. Fast forward to today, and she is now one of the top food-related Instagram accounts in the world with more than 2.6 million followers. For those looking to duplicate her success, here are four tips to help you turn social media content creation into a full-time career.

Related Article: An Eight Figure Instagram Influencer?

1. Create content in a niche that you are both passionate about and active in.

Ezzeddine graduated college with a degree in criminal justice and never had any cooking experience until she and her husband moved to start a family.

While living in Missouri, though, she couldn't find the selection of European desserts she used to enjoy, which led her to make her own cakes and tarts. Throughout this process, she started to experiment, developing her own recipes.

Building a successful content channel requires you to be actively involved within the niche on a day-to-day basis. This way, you know what content is going to be best for your audience.

You might not have experience in your niche right away, and that is fine. Spend time networking within your niche and focus on self-education -- it can be incredibly rewarding down the line.

Related Article: A Social Media Creativity Boost?

2. Focus on what receives the highest engagement rates.

As Ezzeddine grew her account, she made sure to offer a wide variety of content, paying close attention to what posts received higher engagement. She then adjusted her strategy to feature more variety of the post-types that had the highest engagement rates.

Furthermore, when Ezzeddine first started the account, she focused more on the recipes and less on photo quality. She soon realized that the more time she spent on presentation and photo quality, the higher the engagement rate was. Remember, social media content, especially Instagram, is highly visual.

While you must create high-quality content, it's ultimately your audience that determines what they deem to be high-quality. You can't let personal opinions or speculation dictate your content direction. There is only one thing you should be taking into consideration, and that is engagement rate.

Related Article: YOUR Next Level E-Commerce Strategy?

You should always be experimenting with different post-types and subtle changes. Little changes, like uploading a video if the majority of your content is images or incorporating emojis, can result in huge engagement spikes.

3. Treat content creation like a full-time job from the beginning.

From the beginning, @CookinWithMima was a full-time job for Ezzeddine.

When she isn't taking care of her children and family, she is working on further developing her account. Regardless of the niche, treating your content creation as a full-time job is the only way you are going to create high-quality content on a consistent basis.

Additionally, when she was just starting out, Ezzeddine purchased a number of books and enrolled in various courses. All careers require skill development, and content creation is no different. Knowing how to take good pictures, have the best lighting and stage shoots can all be self-taught if you are willing to invest in yourself.

Related Article: 7 Top Social Media Influencers Killing It?

4. Don't focus on the money.

It can be easy to focus on the monetary aspect of having a successful social media channel, however, concentrating on monetizing your following can ruin the relationship. Ezzeddine began working with brands after her following was well established and doesn't let collaborations or sponsored posts interfere with her main content.

If you focus on providing value, the money will follow, as monetization opportunities will never arise unless you build up a large highly-engaged following.

Guest Authored By Jonathan Long. Jonathan is the founder of Market Domination Media, a performance-based online marketing agency, blerrp, an influencer marketing agency and co-founder of consumer product Sexy Smile Kit. Follow Jonathan on X.

Related Article: Influencing The Social Media Influencers?

Building a large following of loyal and highly engaged followers presents you with two monetization avenues.

Working with companies to build their brand awareness and promoting your own products or service.

It's fun and can be extremely lucrative..

• 

  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

Mistakes To Avoid When Posting To Social Media?

Social media can be one of your most successful marketing channels, but only if you do it right. Just being active on social media isn't enough -- there is a lot of noise you need to break through if you want to find success..

Take a minute to scroll through your social media feeds and look for posts that are from business accounts that actually cause you to stop and engage with them, let alone read them. They are very few and far between. To help you create social media content that performs well, make sure to avoid the following five mistakes.

Related Article: Lessons For YOUR Brand On Social Media?

1. Using Stock Images

Stock images have their place, but social media isn't one of them. Your social media platforms are a way for you to attract and connect with potential new customers and continue engagement with previous customers.

Using stock images can make your content feel too promotional -- you want consumers that come into contact with your social media content to be interested in your brand, not turned off due to images that look like they belong in an instruction manual.

Not every business can afford to hire a professional photographer or purchase expensive digital cameras, but that is fine, because your smartphone camera and free photo editing apps are all you need to create captivating images. If you are looking for quality stock images to edit and alter to use as memes, for example, that is a different story.

Related Article: 7 Social Media Mistakes To Avoid?

2. Too Many Hashtags

Hashtags are a great tool to use to help improve social media content discovery, but don't go overboard.

Using too many hashtags in a post not only makes it look spammy, but it can also annoy consumers -- and that's the complete opposite of what you are trying to accomplish.

The goal of social media is to build brand awareness, create fans of your brand and then eventually drives sales and revenue.

Jamming every post full of every hashtag imaginable will act as customer repellant.

Related Article: YOUR Career Killing Social Media?

3. Voicing Personal Opinions

If you use too many hashtags, you will take away from the main message and point of your post, so use them intelligently.

Buffer suggests using one to two per post on Twitter is best and that posts on Instagram with 11 or more hashtags receive the best engagement. They also note that Facebook posts with no hashtags outperform posts using hashtags.

Remember that you aren't the only person who will be reading what you post, which is why you should never discuss things like religion or politics on social media.

Other people reading your content will have a wide range of beliefs and opinions. Being conscious of this will help you avoid pushing potential customers away or receiving public backlash.

Related Article: Being Smart On Social Media Refresher?

4. Posting Content Littered With Grammatical Errors

Grammatical errors just are not a good look. I see mistakes on social media on a daily basis. It's a much larger problem than most people probably think.

"Simple grammar mistakes can make you look unprofessional on social media.

They show your potential customers that you can't take a few seconds to at least run spell check.

If this little detail is overlooked, how can a consumer put his or her trust in your product or service?

They can't and won't," says Ed El Dabe, founding partner at El Dabe Ritter Trial Lawyers.

Related Article: Fixing YOUR Boring Social Media Brand?

5. Posting Irrelevant Content

One of the biggest mistakes I see brands make is posting too much content focused on current events, from viral videos and sporting events to breaking news. They do this in hopes of leveraging the buzz and interest of current events, assuming it will naturally lead to engagement and new followers.

If a consumer wants to read about news, politics and sports, they seek out that information from the proper sources. Just because there is major world news trending doesn't mean you need to broadcast it. Unless something is directly related to your business or industry, it's best to not post about it.

Guest Authored By Jonathan Long. Jonathan is the founder of Market Domination Media, a performance-based online marketing agency, blerrp, an influencer marketing agency and co-founder of consumer product Sexy Smile Kit. Follow Jonathan on Twitter.

Related Article: A Business Killing Lack Of Social Media Strategy?

“Social media can be one of your most successful marketing channels, but only if you do it right.

Just being active on social media isn't enough -- there is a lot of noise you need to break through if you want to find success.." -Jonathan Long

• 

  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

Vital 2018 Social Media Trends?

The end of the year is quickly approaching -- the holiday season is right around the corner and 2018 is just a few months away.

Social media gives your brand an incredible opportunity to attract attention to your brand, provided you do it right. You either take full advantage of the opportunity or your competitors will.

It's a constantly changing landscape, and it's time to start laying out your social media marketing strategy for the approaching year.

In order to be successful, you need to know what the latest trends are. Staying ahead of the curve will put you in a much better position to capitalize as we head into 2018. Here are four social media trends you need to start focusing on immediately.

Related Article: 2018 Future Social Media Trends?

1. Chatbots Have Arrived - You Need to Master Them

If you aren't familiar with chatbots, you need to learn how this technology can greatly benefit your social media marketing. Customer service has transitioned to phone calls and emails to social media.

Consumers demand instant replies to their questions and concerns, and they now turn to social media any time they want something.

The sooner you can reply, the better, as you satisfy the desire for instant gratification. Chatbots allow you to interact instantly, which is why Facebook Messenger bots especially are becoming so popular. Setting one up is fairly simple and you can do it for free.

"Social media is the hub for customer interaction, and it's becoming necessary for every business to acknowledge this, even service based businesses. The most attractive aspect of utilizing a chatbot is the ability to provide instant engagement that feels personal. Chatbots are there for your customers around the clock," says James Memije, founder of AccuServ Heating & Air Conditioning.

Related Article: Chatbots Take Over Social Media?

2. Social Media Needs to be Entirely Mobile-Focused

Snapchat and Instagram are mobile-focused social media platforms, and while Instagram is accessible via desktops, very few users, if any, use it on anything other than their mobile devices.

Facebook makes 84 percent of its advertising revenue from mobile -- making it clear as day that the majority of social media users are on their phones.

"The content you post on social media needs to feature calls-to-action that have the mobile user in mind. They already have their phone in hand, so take advantage of the opportunity and create content that triggers an action," advises Catherine Jacobs, COO of McQuarrie Hunter LLP.

Facebook was originally created for desktop use and has evolved to become extremely user-friendly on mobile devices. The trend of mobile use dominating social media is only going to increase, so prepare yourself now.

Related Article: Connecting With Customers On Social Media?

3. Don't Eliminate Platforms Because of Feature Similarities

It's no secret that Facebook and Instagram copied Snapchat -- they all now have very similar features, but that doesn't necessarily make them the same. From the outside looking in, they might seem similar enough to possibly eliminate one from the mix, but each platform has different reach abilities and different audiences.

"Snapchat is still the more popular option among the younger demographic, while Instagram is the Millennials social network of choice. Facebook is the option the older demographic is comfortable with, and it now has a "Stories" feature as well. So, while these three all have the same feature, they are favored by different audiences," explains Yosef Adelman, CEO of Falcon Marketing.

This is going to continue, and while the features might become more similar across different social platforms, you can't eliminate a social media channel based on features alone -- doing so can possibly eliminate your ability to reach certain demographics and audiences.

Related Article: The Social Media Platform For YOUR Business?

4. Video Needs to be Part of Your Content Strategy

Everyone knows that video content is hot right now, and Facebook ads that feature video are attracting more engagement, which then amplifies the organic exposure. When done right, there isn't a bigger bang for your social media marketing dollar.

"Snapchat is heavily video-content based, as is Instagram's Stories feature, proving how video is the dominating content format on social media right now. Businesses that quickly learn how to tell their story through video content will experience much better social media success than those that ignore it," says Brian Gwinn, CEO of Greenview Investment Partners.

I can already see brands and entrepreneurs start to get more involved with Snapchat, myself included. They are becoming more influencer-friendly, which will contribute to introducing it to a much larger group of users outside of the younger demographic.

Guest Authored By Jonathan Long. Jonathan is the founder of Market Domination Media, a performance-based online marketing agency, blerrp, an influencer marketing agency and co-founder of consumer product Sexy Smile Kit. Follow Jonathan on Twitter.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Video Marketing?

“Consumer conversations are a proven driver of critical business outcomes, including sales.

Tracking, measuring, and benchmarking the impact of conversations happening around a brand and industry -- both online and offline -- is key to the brands success.."

• 

  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)