Content Creation - Getting to Your Content with Tips and Tricks

The struggle is real - as they say. The content dilemma is ubiquitous, especially in companies facing social media managers, content marketing managers, and other marketers. But what does content dilemma mean in detail and how can a company or content manager try to solve this dilemma? This guide by guest author Virginia Singer aims to inform about this and provide an introduction to the topic of content creation.

First of all, it should be mentioned that sensory overload prevails in today's media landscape and companies or brands fight for every second of attention from their target groups. In addition to the omnipresent marketing opportunities, there is the possibility of conveying one's themes, values, products or messages to the outside world via content marketing and thus reaching a target group relevant to the company. Especially in the social media environment, it has always been and will continue to be important to be successful in the relevant target group by tailoring your themes and messages to suit the channel. Content can be designed in a variety of ways.

What is meant by Content Creation - a definition:

It should be mentioned at this point that content and content creation in the digital environment encompasses all. This can range from simple website texts to glossy productions for YouTube. In this article we focus on content creation on social media, especially on the platforms Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest and Twitter, which basically serve the following three main content types: videos (9:16 and 16:9 video format, 1:1 or 4:5 image and video formats and texts or copies). Basically, it can be determined that content creation involves identifying a topic, deciding on the format of the content piece (text, image, video...) and then producing it. Of course, taking into account your existing content- / social media strategy..

Importance of Content within the Communication Mix

If you want to reach your target group in a way that is customized to the channel and get their attention among the multitude of messages, you should think about how to prepare your content. Content that the user perceives as

• Entertaining
• Informative
• Surprising
• Emotionally engaging

, is in most cases successful content. When is content successful? When it triggers the action in the users that I want to achieve, e.g. long viewing rates (for videos) and thus a long engagement with my brand/my product, clicks, engagement (likes, comments, shares) or even conversion (if this is trackable). The range of social media KPIs, is enormous, but should always be defined before the content is created, in order to base the content on it and optimize it. Example: If I want to trigger an action like clicks or conversions with my content, a corresponding Call-To-Action (CTA) must be present.

Content Dilemma - the challenge in social media/content marketing

Platforms like TikTok live off their algorithm, which follows the so-called content graph. This means that content that is rated as good by the algorithm for its content and style, is played out to a large audience - no matter who the content comes from. So everyone has the same chances on TikTok - whether mega influencer or small unknown start-up to go viral and reach a wide audience with his content. Here, it is equally important to create a certain frequency alongside good content (on TikTok for example, it is recommended to post at least 1 video per day).

From large corporations to small start-ups: everyone is asking themselves how they can meet these two important prerequisites if they want to run a successful social media profile. Especially since corporate content is often penalized by the target group because it is seen as too unnatural and rarely integrable into the user's personal feed. Brands often do not have the necessary budget or capacity to constantly and up-to-date (TikTok is still very trend-based and fast-moving) produce content. Production is often outsourced to agencies or production houses. But let's be honest: especially small and medium-sized companies do not have these possibilities (Source: Hot Air Marketing). Some approaches on how to quickly get good content are found below:

Stock material

• Advantage: Relatively cheap, you can quickly get the content you need
• Disadvantage: inflexible content, usually only photo material and less video content, creativity is often limited

External agencies and production service providers

• Advantage: Professionalisation and scaling possible, usually own creative departments available, 360 degree service (from ideation to monitoring), content diversity high
• Disadvantage: Expensive, high dependency

 External Creators

• Advantage: They know trends, platforms and depending on the creator cover the same target group as my company, authenticity, you also buy a certain reach and production skills
• Disadvantage: High dependency, TKPs and fees of creators are continually rising, brand safety

In-house production/creator

• Advantage: Agility in content creation, relatively cost-effective, high brand fit, speed, proximity to the company and its insights
• Disadvantage: Dependence on one face, technical infrastructure must be available

What does an ideal process for creating content look like?

Many roads lead to Rome - or to perfect content. Companies or content creators often ask themselves: Where do I start? How do I come up with my content ideas? How do I fill my social media editorial plan? There probably isn't THE perfect way, but below is a possible approach:

Content Ideation

1. Ideally, some approaches/ideas should already be available. If you're starting at 0: No problem. Consider what topics and values you want your brand to stand for on social media? What USP does your brand or product have? Define your agenda-setting topics and create relevance. Why should users follow you? To inform themselves about you? To find entertainment? Ideally, you should develop your social media strategy in advance, upon which the Content marketing strategy can build.
2. Observe platform trends! There's almost nothing worse than not being up-to-date with your content. What are social media trends and topics that the target group is talking about? Trends can also be content styles like e.g. certain transitions or introductions, so-called hooks in videos. Being constantly on the platforms for which you produce content helps. What could be better than being paid to watch TikTok as a social media manager.
3. Based on this, you decide which formats on which channels are suitable for these topics. You're already getting closer to your content…
4. Next, you need to decide on the way of production: create it yourself (in-house content creator), work with stock material, engage an external agency?

Content Production

1. Once this question is clarified, you should block fixed shooting days in your calendar. Produce as many assets as you can in one day or across several days. The costs can be minimized if you try to bundle your resources for content production. When producing content, it is helpful to have a shooting schedule or action points: What do I want to shoot when with which actors, with which props with which content?
2. Once your content is ready (sometimes post-production is required - however, authenticity is important: no glossy production for TikTok, please. The platform lives from realness) it can already be published.
3. The content can be scheduled automatically in tools like Talkwalker or ContentStudio, especially helpful when a lot of pre-production is done.

Content Analysis

1. In the Business Managers of the individual platforms or through external tools, you can now analyse your performance. Important KPIs may include Watchtime, Video views, Reach, Impressions, Engagement Rate for moving image formats. For static formats also KPIs like Reach, Impressions, Engagement Rate or, for example, with media-driven content, the clicks.
2. Take your analysis results and incorporate them into the next content ideation phase. From these learnings, you can now decide which formats or content pieces work in your target group and which you will no longer consider in the next production.

Tip: Act quickly. Don't just let non-performing content run. On social media, you get very quick feedback on whether something is performing in the target group or not and whether your content is good or not. The mantra here is to try out as much as possible, get to know your audience in the process, and then deliver the best possible content that adds value. Content marketing tools help you to keep an overview with an increasing number of published content and to record all learnings in one place.

5 Content Ideas for Your Editorial Calendar

1. Memes:⁠For years, memes have been very popular. People never tire of chuckling over memes and they often trigger sharing the content piece with their friends/community (which in turn increases the engagement rate). It is important here to be relateable. Ideally, you should find a connection to you, your product or your brand, so that the branding of your content is not left out (and this does not mean photoshopping your logo into the corner).
2. Infographics: Complex and more detailed information can be well presented in infographics, which can also be animated. The content should be designed in a snackable way. The content should arouse the user's interest and generate traffic by linking to more detailed articles or your blog.
3. Sketches: Are especially suited for 9:16 formats. Comedy is one of the biggest interest fields on TikTok and Instagram Reels. Here too, you can create a connection to your product or your brand through storytelling and entertain the users in the process. Examples could be: imitating conversations between a man and woman, where the two people are played by one creator but filmed from different perspectives.
4. Quiz: They are especially good for a recurring format. Particularly in Instagram Stories, they can generate engagement using Instagram’s design features such as voting buttons. Now however, there are also voting functions for TikToks and Reels, so you can bypass the limitation of your reach in Stories by using reach-strong formats such as Reels.
5. Follow-me-around/Insight „xy”:What is especially meant here is the showing of (as far as possible) company internals. This can be showing office spaces, interviewing individual employees, filming challenges within colleagues, just preparing first-hand information that one otherwise did not know about the company or the brand. This not only has an advantage for your employer branding activities, it creates approachability and authenticity.

Conclusion

In summary, it can be said: The dilemma of having to deliver good content to the platform at a high frequency in order not only to serve the algorithm but also its target group is omnipresent. This article has shown ways how this dilemma can possibly be solved.

Especially companies that do not necessarily have the appropriate resources for continuous play can consider the following two essential tips: Hire a student assistant, intern, etc. who enjoys creating content and ideally is not shy in front of the camera. Schedule fixed production days. It's best to do this in-house (often there is no need for an expensive rental of studios - smartphone cameras and ring lights are usually sufficient) in order to keep production costs low. Plan regular fixed shooting days, where you plan X assets for the day in advance and shoot them in one go.

The costs per asset remain manageable and you have a lot of and ideally high-quality content for your channels in a short time. Because the advantage of an in-house creator is not only his agility and speed in production (especially relevant with viral trends) but is close to you as a brand, thus represents the values outwards and can deliver the appropriate insights depending on the goal of the content.