
Content Strategy for Social Media: What Works Now
The social media content landscape is constantly evolving, but several core strategies and content types consistently drive the best results right now.
1. Prioritize Short-Form Video
This format continues to dominate algorithms and user attention.
Best Practices:
- Authenticity over Polish: Raw, unpolished, and spontaneous content often performs better than overly-produced ads.
- The Hook: The first 2-3 seconds must be highly engaging to stop the scroll. Start with a bold statement, a question, or an element of surprise.
- Value in Short Time: Content should be entertaining, educational, or inspiring. Focus on quick tips, life hacks, behind-the-scenes glimpses, or relatable humor.
2. Embrace Authenticity and Humanization
Audiences want to connect with people, not just logos.
- Show the Human Side: Share behind-the-scenes content, employee spotlights, and company culture stories. This builds trust and relatability.
- Be a Real Person: Adopt a conversational, human tone, and use a human voice, not a robotic "brand voice." Respond to comments and DMs promptly and genuinely.
- Leverage Employee-Generated Content (EGC): Encourage employees to create content, which often feels more genuine and expands your reach.
3. Focus on Community and Two-Way Interaction
Engagement metrics like comments, shares, and saves often outweigh vanity metrics like likes.
- Encourage UGC (User-Generated Content): Ask followers to share their experiences, photos, or videos with your product/service. Resharing this content is a powerful form of social proof.
- Interactive Content: Use polls, quizzes, Q&A stickers in Stories, and "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) posts to get direct feedback and boost engagement.
- Be a Good Responder: Actively monitor and reply to comments and messages to build a loyal community.
4. Implement a "Value-First" Content Mix
Avoid making every post a sales pitch. Follow a ratio like the 80/20 Rule: 80% of content provides value, entertains, or educates, and only 20% is promotional.
- Educational/Informative: Mini-tutorials, myth-busting, industry insights, or "how-to" carousel posts. This establishes your brand as a thought leader.
- Entertaining/Relatable: Memes, trending audio, humorous takes on industry problems, or relatable day-to-day posts.
- Inspirational: Motivational quotes, stories of customer success, or before-and-after results.
5. Strategize for Discovery (Social SEO)
Many users now search for information directly on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, not just Google.
- Optimize Captions: Use relevant keywords and phrases in your captions, not just hashtags, to make your content searchable within the platform.
- Use Niche and Broad Hashtags: Mix general tags with specific, niche hashtags to help the right audience find you.
6. Platform-Specific Optimization
Don't just cross-post the exact same content everywhere.
- Tailor the Format: A long thought-leadership post is great for LinkedIn, but the same idea should be condensed into an image carousel or short Reel for Instagram.
- Choose Wisely: It's better to be excellent on 1-2 key platforms where your target audience spends their time than to be mediocre on all of them.