Subscribe to The Spin!

Stay up-to-date on the latest news and trends in the influencer marketing space with our bi-weekly newsletter, The Spin.

Jul 21 4 Ways to Extend the Lifespan of your Social Media Content

Stop speed dating your social media content.

 
Sometimes posting social media content is kind of like speed dating – you make a quick post, enjoy it while it lasts, and then you move on to the next suiter. Well, I’m here to tell you that producing social media content can be much more than one and done – with a few hacks and edits, you can commit to your content – longer term.

Sarah 1

One of the huge benefits of influencer marketing is that unlike most content production, content creation can be quick and inexpensive. In order to get the most out of the content produced in your influencer campaign, you need to think of clever ways to put that content to work for your brand in the coming weeks and months. And we’re here to help! Below are a few creative ways to turn your speed dating into a serious relationship.

Turn Your Fans Into  Your Creators

Social media content is like a seed – with the right attention and execution, something big and beautiful can grow right in your backyard. Expand and grow your content library by engaging your influencers with a call to action, and then rewarding them by posting their content to your pages. Bloggers, fans and followers are always eager to share their experiences, feedback, and creativity on social media, so it’s time for all brands to start taking advantage of that.

Free Guide: 6 Ways to Measure Influencer Marketing. Click here!

Sarah 2

Incentivizing is also a great idea. You can do this with free product, discounts, or gift cards, but it isn’t always necessary. For some the reward of being highlighted by a major brand is enough, which makes the cost to your brand next to nothing. Take West Elm for example, who has the hugely popular #MyWestElm hashtag for users to show off their impeccably decorated rooms. They even started using UGC in Facebook Carousel ads, and saw a spike in sales because of it.

Sarah 3

Start by brainstorming the high performing content your brand needs more of, then create a campaign with a simple hashtag, and sit back and watch the UGC roll in.

 

Edit, Edit and then Edit More

Videos to GIFs, GIFs to photos, photos to collages, collages to carousels… the list goes on, but you get the idea. The possibilities in the editing room are endless. Don’t let great content slip away by only posting it once. Video production is timely and often expensive, so get every post out of it that you possibly can by turning it into different media.

 

Stretch

You can extend the life of your social media content by stretching your content to as many platforms as the content will allow. Just be sure to adjust the copy, imagery, and goal of the post accordingly. If an influencer has written a blog post incorporating your product, go through the article and pull out as many sharable sound bites as you can. These can be tweeted and shared on Facebook. And the influencer will love the continued engagement.

A link post on Facebook can easily turn into a Twitter post with a couple less characters and a couple more hashtags. An inspirational GIF on Instagram can easily translate to a tip on Pinterest. A simple crop, caption change, or formatting can take little time, but make a big impact.

Below are some of the images created for the #RedNoseDay campaign that Carusele ran for Walgreens earlier this year. Walgreens was able to repost these images to different platforms with a varied message each time. Don’t miss the video here that allowed Walgreens to further stretch their content. Influencer images generated during the campaign were even shown during the People’s Choice Awards 2016 – talk about versatile, stretchable content!

Sarah 4

In Case You Missed It (#ICYMI) Is Your Friend

One of the challenges of effective social media execution is that platforms move at different rates. Twitter has a stream that’s virtually infinite which means that if your audience isn’t online at the time of your tweet, they probably missed it. Facebook and other platforms change their algorithms all the time (their recent change put friends and family first) so unless you pay to play, the audience for your posts is limited.

Sarah 5

Add this to the fact that there are billions of pieces of social media content posted on a daily basis. So much content in fact, that most users can’t even absorb it all. Between busy lives and busy feeds, your content is likely being missed by a good percentage of your audience. This may sound like a con, but it’s an easy fix that will extend the life of your social media content.

A simple repost with the #ICYMI can give new life to some of your best evergreen content.

When you run an influencer marketing campaign with Carusele, you get our proprietary “Box of Content” at the conclusion of your campaign. This content is social media ready so you can begin reposting right away.

We’d love to work with you to create some great content that you can repurpose to your heart’s content. Contact us today to find out how a Carusele campaign can work for your brand.