4 ways to balance sales and entertainment when creating content
When planning your social media strategy for business and thinking of the types of content you want to create, we’ve mentioned it before, but don’t only post sales content... or even just about your brand! Instead of talking about your brand all the time or constantly trying to sell, remember to keep things social as well, you should be looking for a sweet spot of providing both entertaining content and more sales focused content... The great thing is, content can be a little bit of both!
So, how do you figure out that balance between entertainment and sales? Here are 4 ways to balance sales and entertainment when creating content for social media.
Use Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories last only 24 hours so they give you the opportunity to share content that you might not regularly post on your Instagram feed. The possibilities are endless in terms of the type of content you can share to Instagram Stories and you can actually use it for both sales posts and for entertainment. You can even use it to get feedback on your business. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
For Sales: Share published static posts or content you created specifically for Stories to talk about your services and products. Use the interactive link sticker to create a button that will lead directly to your website or individual product pages. You can also label the link sticker with a Call-To-Action, for example you could label it something like “Click here to learn more,” “Shop now,” etc.
For Fun: Using Instagram Stories to share more fun and entertaining content is an easy and great way to balance out the more sales focused content. For example, you can do polls, create content based on fun holidays like “National Donut Day,” and more. Check out what other brands are doing, check out the available stickers, experiment, and have some fun!
You can even use Instagram Stories for self-improvement by using the poll sticker or question box. For example, you can ask your audience, “What would you love to see from us?” and hopefully they’ll answer!
Memes as marketing
Creating and sharing memes is a great way to factor in some entertainment. A meme is something (often an image, video, or phrase) that is copied and spread online. Usually spread quickly, users often vary it slightly to make it more personal. You can work them into your editorial calendar (i.e. share one every other week or once a month) or since many memes go viral overnight and for a short period of time, you can create them on the fly as they go viral... Not sure how to find trending memes? Check this out. Have you seen memes but aren’t convinced about using them for your business? While they may not be right for everyone, they can be great for the right brands (i.e. beauty, lifestyle, food and beverage, clothing, etc.). Not only are they entertaining, but regular marketing graphics typically yield about 5% engagement on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, while memes typically yield 60% engagement and increased reach.
Plan your posts
If you want to create a balance of entertaining content and more sales focused content, planning your posts is a great way to keep yourself on track. Create a guide for yourself and plan around that. For example, for more entertaining posts, you may want to share something fun on Monday (like a motivational quote), Wednesday, or Friday/the weekend. Then on the other days, you can plan posts like every Tuesday and Thursday you talk about a service or product you offer. Having a plan in place creates consistency that can help you in a few ways: like mentioned it can keep you on track when it comes to consistently posting and so that you keep the balance and it helps create a visible identity and let’s your audience know what they can expect.
Find a way to mix entertainment and sales
Who says your content can’t be both entertaining and promotional at the same time? They key here is finding a good mix of the two, but here are some examples...
Food, beverage, alcohol brands: You can create recipe videos (great for Instagram Reels or TikTok) that feature your products. Also, during holidays like Christmas you can share hosting guides that feature your products.
Beauty or clothing brands: You can share styling videos or tutorials and how-to guides.
If you’ve tried these things and still feel like you need a little extra help, whether that’s with consistently creating and sharing balanced content, or even figuring out a balanced strategy and putting together a guide, you can hire a professional to help guide you! Want to discuss these options? Book your FREE 20-minute consultation with us!