Written by Ashley Groves & Mandi Gould
Now more than ever before, it’s important to diversify your social media content. Sharing a variety of types of content is one of the best ways to extend your reach with both the Instagram and Facebook algorithms. So if you want to continually grow your business’ social media visibility, you should diversify the type of social media content to get in front of the most viewers and help build your following.
Diversifying your content is especially relevant for Instagram and Facebook, because these platforms feature so many potential formats for content. But it’s also useful for other platforms. Varying your content can take a bit more time and effort, but it’s definitely worth it!
What Is “Diverse” Social Media Content?
How can social media content be diverse in the first place? What we’re referring to is sharing content in variety formats or mediums. You could post single images, photo sets in a carousel, short videos, longer videos, Lives, Stories, and Instagram Reels. More on Instagram Reels for businesses here.
Platforms like Facebook and Instagram permit a huge range of formats for your content, but you don’t have to incorporate all of the mediums that are available. Most people favour single images. However, the algorithm favours a mix of content so it’s a good idea to develop content in a few formats. You could post a carousel on Monday, a Reel on Tuesday, a single photo on Wednesday, an IGTV video on Thursday, and then a Live on Friday.
Did you know that when you post a carousel of photos on Instagram, if a follower doesn’t interact with the first image shown, Instagram will show the carousel again, leading with a different image from the set? This is essentially Instagram helping you get more engagement! For this reason, it’s so much better for your engagement to post images in sets than posting a single image alone, since Instagram is more likely to only show single images once in your follower’s feed.
Video Is Here To Stay
While photos will never go away, TikTok has emphasized that there is no escaping the importance of video as part of your content strategy. Video is continuing to grow in importance and Instagram has announced that it’s transitioning more and more into a video content app. That means that your Reels and IGTV videos are more important than ever. And don’t forget about Stories either!
Creating Reels is one of the best ways to get in front of new people and has a higher chance of being featured in Instagram Explore. The more videos you create, the better your odds of reaching new audiences.
Stimulate Engagement
It’s also very important to post content that your audience can engage with. A popular way to do this is to ask your followers questions designed to elicit comments. It can be as simple as questions with single word answers like “yes or no”. “Does pineapple belong on pizza?” Then there are multiple choice questions like “what’s your favourite summer cocktail” with a variety of choices. Or, you can make it completely open ended: “What was your first concert?” Click here for an extensive list of Engagement Questions for Social Media.
Why should you do this? The more comments your posts receive, the more the platform favours your account and shows it to more of your followers. This is a great way to grow the organic reach of your posts.
In Instagram Stories, you can easily integrate engagement by using the options for Polls or Questions. One popular idea for Stories is the “This or That” concept where you choose two images or concepts and people select which one they prefer.
Another popular type of engagement question on Facebook is the emoji react. If you just released a new product in different colours, you can ask your audience which they like best (Like = blue, Love = green, Surprised = red, etc). Just remember that emoji reactions are not as strong with the algorithm as comments, but it’s still engaging and can be a lot of fun.
The key to creating engagement is to make it easy and fun for participants. Don’t make people work too hard to get involved. Your questions should be “no brainers” that are irresistible for people to participate in.
Why You Diversify Your Social Media Content
The biggest reason that you should diversify your social media content is that the algorithms favour variety, and especially video.
It’s no secret that social media platforms are constantly changing how their algorithms determine who gets shown which posts and where. For sites as popular as Facebook, the algorithm can get pretty complicated, incorporating multiple factors such as who users interact with, what type of content, and how often.
But one factor that many businesses have control over (but may neglect!) is their blend of social media content. Facebook takes into account content type, so why not participate in ways that will be the most fruitful?
Beyond the algorithms, seeing a diverse mix of content is more interesting to your followers. People have different learning styles and content preferences. For example, when researching a topic, some people prefer to watch videos, while others prefer to read blogs. By including a range of formats, you can cater to the different preferences of your audience.
Having varied social media content can also help you pinpoint what type or medium of content your followers like and engage with the most. If you figure out that your audience loves image carousels of products and minute-long videos (vs. longer ones), you can incorporate those kinds of content more regularly into your feeds.
Not sure how you can diversify your social media content to grow your business? Do you have ideas for content but need help with the execution? Contact us today for a free marketing consultation to discuss how we can help you diversify your social media feeds!
