If you really want to create content that your followers will engage with – you need to get in their heads! But you also need to do this without compromising your brand – or losing sight of what you have set out to achieve through your social media presence. If you’re outsourcing social media to an agency they’ll be taking care of this for you – but if it’s all down to you, here are a few things that might help!

What drives engagement?

Think about what drives you as an individual to engage with online media content and you’ll probably find it’s for one of the following reasons.

• It’s entertaining
• It’s educational
• It endorses your viewpoint
• It stirs an emotion

With that in mind – we’ll assume you know your target market pretty well. What would their drivers be for engaging with content online?

What do you want to achieve?

What is it you actually want to achieve? Here is a list of typical reasons for having an active online presence. There may be other reasons for your business to be online – either way, we suggest selecting just two or three from the list below:

• To generate traffic to the website
• Brand awareness
• Customer Retention
• Reputation Management
• To appear as an expert in your field
• To uncover new opportunities
• To gain early warning of problems
• To get an insight into your customers
• To get data on behaviour
• Reassurance marketing
• To be everywhere

OK – So I thought this was about creating content that engages my audience?

It is! Consider your answers to the two questions above and then start to brainstorm some content ideas. If you need a helping hand, take a look at our 75 ideas of things to post resource. Download it, print it out and make your way through the list considering which of the 75 ideas are relevant to your business and also how you can practically apply them to your online strategy.