This is a hard truth for businesses on social media but we have to talk about it. Your content is beautiful and that’s why it’s failing.
It seems counterintuitive. Beautiful content should be a good thing, right? It should be the gold standard. We should all strive for beautiful content. For excellence, right? But there are a lot of layers to this statement, so we’ll break them down and tackle them one by one. I’ll also tell you what to do about it (and how you can achieve a happy medium) so that you can feel good about what you create AND you can get engagement.
The first mistake is by far the biggest and that’s having the corporate and boardroom mentality while creating content for your business. “If it’s not perfect & highly produced, it doesn’t reflect the company’s values.” This type of content comes with specific fonts with specific kerning and a logo pasted on it somewhere because “branding” or “content stealing” or whatever the reason is. It also often comes with a lengthy approvals process and micromanagement of the content producers.
We all know that the boardroom is watching every post on the feeds (because they tell us what they’re seeing in every detail and/or it comes up in meetings). They believe content needs to be created with the best camera, studio lighting, and editing software available and has to be highly produced with graphics all over it and an elaborate graphic open that says “tada! We are this company and here is our logo and following this beautiful graphic open that takes up the first 5-10 seconds of the video, you’ll see our very produced video.” Video in this case is often horizontal (16×9), but even if it’s not, there’s a million fancy transitions in between each shot with graphics whooshing in and out.
The problem here is that the content is overproduced. If it looks like it would be on a big screen at a launch party, a convention, or at an end-of-quarter presentation, it’s too much for the 3-second brains that are what social media is right now. It looks like an ad and people scroll past ads. But even bigger is the fact that just because it looks pretty on the feeds and for the management team who sees it, doesn’t mean that people engaged with it.
I hear statements all the time like, “Our content is so gorgeous!” Followed by lots of patting on backs going all around. Because people worked so hard on it! But then I go look at the analytics of their posts: NO ENGAGEMENT! Few views, few likes, and the only shares they got are from people within the company.
But how can that be? It’s gorgeous content, right?
Here’s what that content is missing: Connection. Storytelling. Relatability. Authenticity.
You have to meet the people where they’re at. Produce the content the way that they are consuming it.
Gone are the days of perfectly curated Instagram grids. If the content doesn’t make someone laugh, cry, say “GET IN MY BELLY,” or “take my money”, make them FEEL SOMETHING, anything, make them say “omg that’s ME!” because it made them feel like they were called out personally, or make them feel like their life can transform in some way, they’re scrolling. It doesn’t matter how gorgeous the content is, and even worse, how long someone worked on it, if no one is engaging with it.
SO, QUICK STORYTIME.
When I worked in the digital department of a TV news station as the social media content lead, there were times we had to push back on the corporate styling on social media and find a happy medium. Social media is social media and TV is TV. Shoving a TV style onto social media simply did not work. It got zero engagement. (The exception was breaking news.) The DATA told us. We analyzed every single post, the timing, the wording, the editing, everything about the post. Because it was my goal to become the best in the market in social content (and we were – we were one of the most engaging news pages in the country, in fact.)
Because I figured out that there was a TV way to tell a story and there was a social way to tell a story. In order for the video or photo to perform well, I had to take the television version and tell it in a “social media” way. That meant changing the format (16.9 into 9×16 – horizontal to vertical.) That meant using fonts that are recognized on social. It meant looking at the drafts on mobile before they’re posted to make sure everything was visible and text was large enough. It meant using captioning so that people watching with the sound off would stay.
It meant if we used watermarks, we reduced the opacity and put it low in the corner to make it more shareable – people just don’t like to share massively branded photos & pictures.
It meant putting the BEST SHOT at the beginning or using something that HOOKED people in and kept them watching – increasing the watch time.
The biggest key in engagement, though, was LISTENING to our viewers and our followers and finding out what mattered to them most. Finding out who they were.
We found that out by analyzing what performed well. Analyzing the comments. Looking at how they shared our content. What they said about it. Who shared it and talked about it.
Great things came out of this – not only reaching people well outside our television viewing area (and drawing people in to watch our livestream) but creating TV segments from our viral moments. For example, we started using our own hashtag that became incredibly popular to people who lived in our little pocket of Florida, #WeLiveHere. Here, we shared the beauty of where we lived, but it wasn’t just about the beauty, it was about the bond we shared with the people in our community. It became part of our brand. It became the subject of full TV segments.
What was popular on social for us actually went on TV instead of the other way around.
But the people above us on our management team had to trust us. Allow us to go off the beaten path and away from the perfectly curated graphics & overproduced videos. And allow us to post without long approvals processes so that when something was topical we could hit it at that moment instead of getting it out there too late when the moment was gone.
You can have both.
You can have beautiful content that performs well, AND content that resonates. You don’t have to sacrifice professionalism for likes.
There are industries (usually based in the arts or design) where the aesthetics are super important. I do get that. But for the majority of industries, a six-second video with words on the screen can perform better than a 1-2 minute overproduced video that looks like a production company put it together. Companies generally overthink their content strategy and even spend way too much money on the equipment to execute it when the answers are right in front of them.
So, how can you create visually pleasing videos for your company that gets good engagement?
- Find topics in your industry or niche that matter to people. What is keeping them up at night? What questions are they asking you all the time? What will their life like after they experienced your service or product? If all you’re doing is talking about your service or product, using industry language that your ideal audience doesn’t understand, you’re an ad or a billboard. I call it “megaphone marketing.” You’re literally yelling to people about yourself and that’s it.
- Go totally off topic every once in a while.Talk to them about things that are going on (not politics or religion.) Get into a conversation that is bigger than your immediate industry. Example: Look at how the brands participated in April Fool’s Day. Gasparilla promoted an “ultra ultra run” which was really really really far and funny (and also fake). Tampa International Airport started calling itself by the name of its giant flamingo.
- Create a template in your brand colors on Canva or with your designer that you can use for your quotes, memes, text posts, carousels etc. If you want to keep the font consistent, that’s fine too, but LOOK first at what’s doing well on social – what styles are working – and pull inspiration from that. Create several different styles so that you can have some branding in there, but it doesn’t look overproduced. The words on the screen should be big enough to see on mobile and the background should not drown out the words. Instead of a logo, try a social handle instead. When I work with clients, we make templates that they approve of so that not only do we have approved branding, but it’s easier to create batches of content at once and not from scratch each time. Keep it simple though, a background with an area for text. Templates for quote graphics, tweet-style, text graphics, carousels are helpful. Try not to put photos on a graphic background – let the photos speak for themselves.
- Look at how PEOPLE are doing social videos. Really take some time to research this. Go use your industry keywords and find consumers of your niche and see what they’re engaging with. Find out who they are. Look at how simple, yet impactful short videos can be. One or two shots with text on video. A POV.
- Really LOOK at the analytics. Don’t be afraid to step off of the overproduced stuff and simplify. I’ve gotten 5 million views for a client with one 6 second video shot on a cell phone. That same video doubled sales and quadrupled web traffic. Because the message MATTERED.
- Ditch the big dramatic 20th Century FOX musical open! Ditch “hey guys!” at the beginning of the video. Instead, get right into the message like you’re in mid conversation. You have three seconds tops to hook people in! Use the best shot first, use a verbal or visual hook that keeps people engaged and watching, and take advantage of the fact that less is more right now. The messaging and the feelings people get from watching your video mean more than anything! (ps. one of my best performing videos was a video of me walking down the stairs in terrible lighting with a funny message on the screen. Obviously you don’t have to do that, but….)
- You don’t need tons of high-tech equipment. I had access to fancy TV cameras and my best performing content was shot on my phone. I have a rechargeable phone light, I have a wireless mic that cost me $4.99. I have a full list of tools, apps, and programs I use here.
- Don’t make your approvals process so lengthy that your social media manager misses viral moments because they’re hung up in approvals. Hire someone you trust enough to be your brand’s voice. This is where someone with more experience is better than your brother’s co-worker’s cousin who is “on social media.” Plus, when you micromanage them, they get stuck in their heads and are afraid to do anything. And when content is created from fear, it shows in the post engagement! Truly! Finally, it doesn’t allow them to take risks, and every once in a while, you need to separate yourself from the pack to get seen. Let your creators create.
- Polished isn’t better. It just isn’t. People aren’t consuming overly polished content anymore. They like brands who are people first.
- Finally, REALLY get into the topics that your audience cares about. The content and messaging come FIRST. The branding and the execution come second. If you don’t have messaging that matters, you don’t have content that engages. Have you ever wondered why some of the ugliest graphics get the best engagement? I’m not saying have ugly graphics. I am saying the messaging matters more.
I can’t reiterate how important it is that your content not look like a production company video and how simple it is to create meaningful content that connects. I just opened office hours so if your business is in need of a social strategy or direction, book a strategy session here or a VIP workshopping session here. Or fill out this form to see how we can work together based on your company’s needs.
Ps. In the meantime, get started with my Simple Content Creation Guide for Businesses.
