The world of social media is a vast and varied space, with many different social networks to choose from. Each of these social platforms works according to a unique algorithm (a digital set of rules). Because of this, the kind of content you use to promote your brand will depend greatly on which social networks you choose.
For most brands, the top choices for social media promotion will be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Below are some simple content guidelines to follow for each platform.
Facebook’s approach to content is quite simple – whatever content you engage with (Like, Share, Comment), the more of that kind of content you’ll see. So, for example, if you mainly engage with Game of Thrones memes then your feed will be mainly filled with Game of Thrones memes. Get the picture?
Stats show that video content is the most popular on Facebook (over 100 million hours of video is watched on FB every day), with photo content coming in second. Therefore, if you’re looking to engage your audience on the world’s biggest social media platform, it’ll help to have plenty of video and photo content at your disposal.
Twitter’s algorithm works similarly to Facebook’s in that it prioritises the content you’re most likely to engage with, with video and photo content once again reigning supreme. The main difference is that your Twitter timeline is divided into three main sections:
- Ranked Tweets – Tweets you are most likely to find relevant and interesting
- “In case you missed it...” – Similar to ranked tweets, but contains tweets posted 10 or more hours ago
- Remaining Tweets – All remaining tweets (in chronological order)
There are also a few additional factors to consider when compiling content for Twitter. For one, there’s the 280 character limit – always bear this in mind when constructing your captions. Additionally, include a few relevant hashtags to increase the reach of your tweets. And, perhaps most importantly, stay active – unlike with Facebook, Twitter’s algorithm won’t punish you for posting high volumes of content (as long as your content is of good quality, of course).
Instagram’s algorithm is based around three key factors:
- Interest - How interested you’re likely to be in the content based on past behaviour
- Timeliness - The more recent, the better
- Relationship - How close you are to the user based on past interactions (Have you been tagged in photos together? Have you commented on their previous posts? etc.)
Essentially, Instagram prioritises content in a similar way to Facebook (unsurprising, considering the former is owned by the latter). However, this doesn’t necessarily mean the content you share on Instagram should be the same.
Instagram is, first and foremost, a photo sharing platform. You should therefore look to share as many natural, high-quality visuals as possible (avoid stock photos). Also, unlike with Facebook, using hashtags can give you a huge boost in terms of reach. Therefore, you should look to include numerous relevant hashtags in your posts. In fact, using hashtags in your posts has been shown to increase engagement by an average of 12%.
LinkedIn differs from most other social networks in that it is strictly B2B. But that doesn’t mean the LinkedIn algorithm is drastically different from its B2C counterparts.
When it comes to content, the only major difference with LinkedIn is that text-only posts are far more popular than they are on other platforms. Stats have shown that text posts get almost twice as many Likes and Impressions compared to links, images and videos.
However, it’s worth noting that videos posted directly onto LinkedIn (files uploaded directly, as opposed to links from YouTube and other external sites) are still worth your while, as these tend to earn for more Shares than any other type of content. In fact, social videos have been shown to generate around 1,200% more Shares than text and photo content combined.