The Best Types Of Content For Social Media To Dominate 2019

Finding the best type of content to feed your audience on social media platforms can seem overwhelming.

What if I tell you it is actually not hard at all?

All you need to do is to get some insight about the social networks you intend to use, then apply what you learned to your business.

It's in vain to sweat yourself to feed your audience with a large quantity of content if the content you provide is in the wrong place.

If you put in hours of hard work to create content for social media but your pages don't seem to grow as expected, that's a sign something is wrong with your social content strategy. You may need to change your approach.

The most important thing when it comes to content is quality. I can't say this enough. If you don't have valuable content, you won't see results.

What about when you have outstanding content but people still don't wrestle to share it?

If you have no engagement with great social posts it means you don't share them where they belong.

The biggest mistake people do is that they share the same content on every social media platform when a particular platform calls for particular content. It might sound overwhelming – creating content for each place where you have an online presence. But it is not hard at all once you get the hang of it.

Learn how to feed your audience the right content based on which social media platform you use in your marketing strategy.

Each social media platform has its own audience. Get to know them right!

The best types of content for social media are the ones that are tailored to answer the demand on a certain social media platform.

There are different types of social media that exist today. Every business or blog should pick the right ones for their niche to promote themselves.

After you decided which social media platforms you want to use for making noise, don't start to use them blindly. Every social platform is different, and it is not just a matter of design.

Each platform has its own users, and each is used with different intent. The first step to getting the best out of social media marketing is to understand how people use social networks, what they are looking for, and what type of content generates the most reactions.

• What type of content should you post on Facebook?
• What type of photos gets the most likes on Instagram?
• How to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website?

In order to squeeze all the social media's juice, you need to pay attention to how every platform works.

There are 3 essential questions to ask yourself before you start developing a social media content strategy:

1. Why people use X platform?
2. How do people use it?
3. Which type of content is more engaging for users on X platform?

Asking these questions for every platform you use will get you the best content to post on social media, boosting the engagement while investing the minimum of effort.

Now let's dive into the most used social media platforms and their specific guidelines.

With Facebook being the most used social media platform, it is hard to neglect what kind of impact it can have on your social media marketing strategy.

If just talking is not convincing enough, let's let the statistics talk. There are over 2.07 billion monthly active Facebook users, 1.15 billion mobile daily active users. If this is not a lot, I don't know what it is.

If you wonder how this can affect your traffic, know that one in five page views in the United States happens on Facebook.

Facebook IQ researcher Vicki Molina-Estolano stated in a blog post prior to a study regarding Facebook and Instagram's users behavior:

“For example, our survey revealed that for people who use both feeds equally, Facebook better satisfies their need for empowerment, recognition, and connection, and Instagram more strongly fulfills their desire for fun, relaxation, and discovery.”

Facebook is the place where people go to boost their confidence. I know it sounds odd, but there is a psychological explanation of how the human brain reacts to engagement from the outside. Getting likes and shares makes your brain to fill up with rewarding feelings.

People like to affirm themselves and they get a strong reward feeling when others approve their opinions.

Moreover, people tend to interact with content that says something about themselves.

Through one study conducted on 58,000+ people, researchers could predict users traits by using their “likes” into an algorithm. They predicted with 95% accuracy if someone was white or African American, with 88% accuracy if they were a gay male, and the gender was predicted with 93% accuracy.

Images

Humans are visual, they like seeing images they enjoy looking at. And it is not just about how pretty your images are, is about what kind of feeling they trigger in someone's mind. People want emotions. You should give it to them if you want your posts to make their way to the top.

• Images that talk to people on a personal level

Make them say “I feel that, too. I know how it's like”. When people recognize themselves in a post it is more likely for them to share it with the world or at least they will hit “like” button with excitement.

• Inspirational quotes

We live in a busy world, surrounded by tasks and hurry. It is easier and easier to lose your mind trying to adapt to today's society. That's why inspiring quotes became one of the most popular content on social media.

When reading an inspiring quote is like someone grabs your hand and tells you “You can do this”. Who doesn't like to feel like they can conquer the world? People don't seem to get enough of them.

• Memes

Humor cannot die. One of the main reasons people use Facebook is for the posts that make them laugh. This is how memes took over the internet and became one of the most engaging types of Facebook posts. With some jokes, a bit of creativity and a meme generator you can easily keep your audience entertained.

Educational & Informational content

Facebook is a good place to share blog posts and articles. On Facebook, people are more open to finding something to read so they can develop a skill or stay tuned on what is going on in their area of interest.

Keep your audience informed, try to educate them with links to your own articles or with curated content.

Don't shy away from curated content, it can do a lot for your business. I know you want to attract people to your website, but adding curated content on your types of content for social media list you get a better reach, engage more people, and keep your audience entertained. You also develop new connections with fellows from your niche – which is a big win.

Videos

The engagement on video posts grew exponentially lately. That's why many businesses started adding video content to their social media marketing strategy – and it is working! Videos became the most popular content on social media.

Just take paragraphs from your blog posts (in a way it will make sense) and put together a nice, informative video. Or take out the camera and make a short tutorial that is helpful for your audience.

One thing: keep it short! Videos between 60 and 90 seconds get the best engagement.

Studies show that the most engagement happens at the end of the week. From Thursday to Sunday people are happier, hence they are more open to interacting with social media content.
The best times to post on Facebook are: 9 a.m, 1 p.m, and 3 p.m. On weekends, posting at 12-1 p.m. can get you the most likes, shares, and clickthroughs. Keep in mind demographics in order to target your audience's time zones accordingly.

Finding the perfect time to post may take some time as not all users behave the same way.

Experiment with different times and days and get to know when your audience is online.

Instagram is one of the most used social media platforms, reaching 800 monthly active users in September 2017. Among teens from the United States, Instagram beat out Facebook and Tweeter. Speaking about global users, 41% of users are <24 years old.

Instagram is a platform based on images and videos, and people consume visual content like ice cream on torrid days.

Instagram is more than just sharing random photos. Most Instagram users use this platform as a source of inspiration and positive thinking. Instagram's content stimulates user's imagination and they are pushed to try out new things.

Seeing stimulating visuals makes users feel more empowered in their own lives and more excited to explore and learn about new opportunities.

Being a mobile social platform, users are active throughout the day, every day of the week. According to a study conducted by Mediakix, the average daily time spent on Instagram is 15 minutes.

Users interact with businesses and celebrities more on Instagram than on other social media platforms – 80% of users follow at least one business on Instagram.

The engagement rate is high, which means a great opportunity for marketing your business.

Sharp images

Instagram loves nice photos with great aesthetics. Photos that succeed are photos with fine compositions, that are pleasant to the eye and which trigger people's emotions. Whether they are emotions of happiness, joy, excitement, creativity or nostalgia, you have to spark some feelings in people's brain to cause reactions.

• High-resolution and colorful photos

People seek high-resolution photos — the higher the quality, the more engagement you get.

If you don't have the means to take high-resolution photos, you can still use decent quality ones and play around with the filters Instagram makes available. Just don't overdo it.

Try to keep the photos as natural as possible as overusing filters reached its saturation point.

• Places

Great quality photos of amazing places do extremely well on Instagram.

Don't you feel inspired when looking at a scenery of a wood seen from the top of the mountains? How about a peaceful photo of a bright blue sea with the sun just starting to warm up the entire beach?

It is true that not all businesses resonate with this kind of posts, and your content must be relevant. If your niche allows you to stay relevant by adding images of places to your social media content strategy, you shouldn't dodge this opportunity.

• Behind the scenes

You may think that behind the scenes photos are suited for lifestyle businesses, and you are not wrong. But they can successfully be used by other niches, too.

The more you know about a business, the greater chance for you to trust it. Showing your audience the human part of your business is entertaining and it attracts more curiosity and engagement.

• Quotes

Users of Instagram are endlessly looking for inspiration. Quotes have the power of stimulating your mind to feel motivated. If you ask yourself what content works on social media, inspirational quotes are one of the best picks.

You don't have to sell self-improvement tips in order to take advantage of quotes. Whatever audience you have, it must be some area of their life where they may use a little push and motivation.

Stories

Instagram stories, the content that disappears in 24 hours, managed to get 150 million daily active users in less than six months from its launch in August 2016 and reached to 250 million in June 2017.

People love it and it is a great way for businesses to develop a stronger relationship with the audience. In fact, one-third of Instagram stories users are businesses.

You can use stories to create many types of social media content as diys, offers, announcements, news, behind the scene. They can be videos, photos, or even GIFs.

You can generate GIFs directly from the app. Switch from “normal” camera to “Boomerang” and you are all set. When you hit “record”, the camera takes a bunch of photos which are then blended together into a nice GIF. Cool, right?

Be creative, authentic, and add call to actions in your story. Do Q&A sessions, take interest in your audience, and you will see how the engagement levels will start rising.

User-generated content

Photos shared by customers have 4.5% higher chance of generating conversions. Not to say that showing customers excited about your product, raises the level of trust new prospects have in your business. In addition, it keeps your already customers happy which increases customer lifetime value.

Engaging with your audience creates a stronger connection which leads to a better conversion rate.

Instagram users appear to be regularly active, lesser on work hours. Try to avoid posting between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. on work days.

The engagement is at its peak on Monday and it seems to slightly decrease at the end of the week. Suggested hours are 8-9 a.m., 2 a.m. and 5 p.m. Start from there and experiment for further insight into your own audience.

Twitter gets more and more users with every year passing by, which means that it would be a shame not to leverage this to grow your business.

What is Twitter all about? Twitter is, like some may call it, a mini-blogging social platform. People “tweet” texts of a maximum of 140 characters which can also include visual files like photos, videos, and GIFs.

It seems that most people use Twitter as a news platform to stay in touch with what is happening around the world.

Blog posts

Like Facebook, Twitter is a great place to share blog posts with your audience. You can mix up your own blog posts with curated content. The difference between Facebook and Twitter is that Twitter requires more posting through the day.

Links to which you add images or even videos do better in terms of engagement and click-through rates.

GIFs

Tweeter is the place where GIFs became one of the most popular content on social media. They didn't lose this trait, people still respond well to GIFs. And why wouldn't they? GIFs are short, they can be funny and they are really engaging.

News

As we seen earlier, Twitter is like a newspaper for many users, so why not take advantage of it? Even if you are not a media or news company, every niche has new things going on. Stay up to date with what is going on in your niche and share some fresh and exciting news with your audience.

You can start by using the guidelines studies give about the optimal time to post on Twitter. It seems that the best time to post is 12-3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Posting at noon usually does well as many users use Twitter while traveling home. While most users show more activity on Twitter during workweeks, for some niches posting on weekends gets more results.

Pinterest is more than just a social platform, it is more of a search engine. People sign in, then use the search bar to look for what they are interested in. Like it happens on Google. The difference is that your content is not automatically indexed by Pinterest. If you want it there, you have to pin it there.

Pinterest's content consists of images. You can add your own images with a description and link to your website, or you can repin other people's posts. If you sell products, here is the best place to showcase them.

Create your own boards to keep the content organized by product or subject. You can also join other's group boards as a contributor so you can pin your content there, too. This will give you a larger audience ready to repin your posts which will lead to increased exposure.

Unlike other social media platforms, the content you share on Pinterest is evergreen. While on Facebook or Twitter your posts have the potential to reach people within a couple of hours after posting, on Pinterest the content is there to stay. Your content may be seen even after years passed from its first pin.

People go on Pinterest for ideas and inspiration. There's no wonder diys, recipes and fashion pins are getting the most attention. Not to say, around 80% of Pinterest users are females. But don't be discouraged if becoming a fashion expert is not on your marketing plan.

Pinterest still has a lot of room for other niches to grow on.

As stated by Pinterest, 96% users go on Pinterest to inform themselves about products, and 93% are using Pinterest to actually plan their shopping. Sounds tempting, doesn't it?

Infographics

Infographics are amazing and people can't get enough of them. They are insightful and way easier to follow than just a bunch of text. In addition, they are fun. Although infographics may engage users, they are harder to integrate into the types of content for social media because of their lengthy height. But not on Pinterest.

Pinterest loves vertical images. In fact, the optimal ratio aspect is at least 2:3 – the longer, the better. Just keep them under 2,061 px (for a width of 736 px) so they won't get cropped on mobile phones.

With help from visual content tools, like Canva of Easel.ly, you can easily make awesome infographics with no graphic design skills required.

Photo Guides

What better way to teach people something if not through a step-by-step visual?

Step-by-step photos are gold mines for crafty people. If you educate people on diys, handmade or practical skills, taking photos of the process then sharing a “how to” photo guide will definitely increase your number of repins.

The power of photo guides shouldn't be used just by crafty people. Even if your business targets audience from a different field, you can find relevant skills or tricks your audience will be thrilled to learn.

Headlines on photos

It may sound simple, but sharing photos with the title of your article or blog post on Pinterest can generate nice traffic to your website. Be sure to add a description which explains the content of your post so users know what to expect when they reach your page.

If your content is insightful and adds value for the users, they will most likely repin it.

This is a great way to keep interesting blog posts organized on a board so you can have easy access to them later on.

Pinterest users seem to be in the mood for ideas on weekend days, Saturday being the winning day to post on. You can get the best reach by posting late in the afternoon. 8-11 p.m. is an optimal time frame to generate engagement, 9 p.m. being the peak hour.

Google+ is usually underestimated and considered dead. But with between 4-6 million active users it is quite alive and running and you shouldn't turn off this opportunity. It's true that the engagement rate is lower than other social media platforms, but it has some benefits you shouldn't miss.

Google+ is amazing for SEO.

It is believed that Google crawls URLs way faster if they show up on Google+, and this is no surprise. Also, articles posted on Google+ have more chances of ranking higher in Google searches.

People stay informed on topics that interest them. And Google+ gives a nice platform to do this.

You can create your own circles based on your subjects of interest and choose a specific circle to share your content with. Let's say you have a circle for your cat obsession and one for HTML practices. When you post an article about how to train cats, you won't want users from your HTML circle to see it. Just choose the circle you want to share your content with and – problem solved.

Statistics show that around 78% of Google+ users have an occupation related to technology. So if your business is in the tech industry, here is a large audience waiting to be reached.

Being a great place for branding your business, 70% of brands have a presence on Google+. Most users are from the United States, with a percentage of 55% and 73% of the total users are male.

Blog posts

Google+ should be the first place to share your articles after publishing them online. This way your URL will get indexed promptly. You can also submit to join communities in your niche so you can share your articles there and get greater exposure.

Always use a headline when posting as this will be incorporated into the title tag and it will be shown in Google search results.

When you want to share a link, Google+ will automatically take an image from the article to show. If the image is not suited for sharing or is in the wrong size, you can upload your own eye-catching image.

Take advantage of the fact that you are not limited to a small number of words in posts and write a description of what your article is about. Make a short summary explaining to people why they should click and read the entire piece.

Check out NASA's page for inspiration, as they are doing great at curating their content on Google+.

Mornings do the best on Google+, 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. being the peak hours you can start experimenting with. Speaking of week times, it seems that workdays are the best pick, especially Wednesdays at 9 a.m.

Now it's time to generate a successful social media content strategy!

Start with this guideline on what content works on social media and develop it further.

Every audience is different, so choose the content that is most relevant to your business. And keep this in mind:

• Be authentic
• Be creative
• Stay relevant
• Trigger emotions
• Use inspiring visuals

In the end – experiment and get to know your audience.

You can only pick the best types of content for social media if you get to know what your particular audience enjoys and interacts with.

Let us know what types of social media content work best for you. What content would you like to include in your social media strategy for 2019?