Social media can be a tough nut to crack for many marketers, so it’s only right to look to the experts for help when you’re stuck. At the Online Influence conference in Bristol recently, we heard from one such expert, the head of social for BBC Wales, Owen Williams.
With over 120,000 active and engaged Twitter followers and 95,000 Facebook page likes, BBC Wales is certainly doing a thing or two the right way.
Williams had some good, basic tips for getting your followers engaged on Twitter in his talk, Be Brave.
Quality, timely content
It goes without saying that your Twitter feed is going to be pretty silent without great content and news. The quality of your content rather than the volume, however, does matter very much, noted Williams.
“You need great quality audio and video and that’s what I tell my colleagues when I arrive every morning,” he explained.
So ditch grainy images and shaky, poorly lit video; good quality original content is achieved so affordably these days that there is no excuse for poor execution.
Being ‘in the moment’ is also very important when it comes to being heard on social media. Twitter, in particular is about what’s happening ‘now’ and you need to be quick off the mark to capture specific moments.
If you can’t always produce content off-the-mark however, use feautres such as ‘Quote Tweet’ to add your views to someone elses’s thoughts or content, Williams advised.
Exclusivitiy
“I go to conferences all the time, and tell people: You have pictures in a drawer in your back room no one has ever seen. Nostalgia is enormous, especially on Facebook,” Williams said.
Exclusive content is at your fingertips, and if you have pictures or content about, for example, your product or local area, sharing posts such as these is one way to drive engagement.
But while nostalgia is a ‘thing’, don’t forget when tweeting about something new to include a recent and relevant picture to what you are discussing.
“The worst thing is when the image has nothing to do with the text in question,” according to Williams.
If video is your thing, however, remember that you can’t just ‘dump’ video you have already made for another purpose on social and expect it to work: editing is required. Most people don’t watch video with the sound on via social media, so overlay some text or use subtitles to give your video some context.
How does the BBC do it?
It’s perhaps not a well known-fact that the BBC’s biggest day on social and online in general is Pancake Day, due to people looking up recipes on BBC Good Food. But the BBC are certainly aware and plan for it every year; something Williams advises all marketers to do.
“We capitalise on moments. We have content at the ready via calendars and look at what the key moments are throughout the year,” he said.
In addition, if you think about what the reasons are for people to share content, before you create a social post, you can try to hit all three boxes and increases your chances of getting that retweet, like or comment.
It’s no big secret that if someone identifies with a piece of content personally, they are more likely to share it, or gather information about the world around them. But the top reason people share content is down to how it makes them feel: the content’s emotional value.
Making sure your social practitioners are prepared and have full understanding of the content you are producing is also a really good idea, Williams added, to ensure they are fully engaged with what they are putting out there.
As this is just a brief overview of Williams advice, we’d recommend taking a look at BBC Wales’ social channels for yourself for some great examples of good brand engagement.
