Writing for social media: Visual topic nets thousands of shares

Industry: Entertainment & ticket sales
Content: Blog articles
Highlights: Visual topic got thousands of social shares, hundreds of thousands of social views

Brand awareness is a growing priority in web marketing. As you work to make your company stand out from the pack as the leader in your space, you need to convey a strong identity through written and visual content.

Google has acknowledged its search algorithms reward businesses with recognizable ‘brands.’ And the search giant asserts that any company can become a brand if it provides valuable information to customers through web content.

“Over time, Google will care more about identity and social reputation.” – Google’s Head of Webspam Matt Cutts

Goal: Build brand awareness through social & gain exposure with target audience

When we partnered with a company that offers ticket sales services, the business had three top goals:

Build its customer base (i.e. get more people to sign up for services)
Increase brand awareness through social media exposure

Drive more traffic to the site

The marketing team wanted to create content that would show its target audience (dance studio owners) that it understands their challenges and can offer valuable solutions to a common pain point – event ticketing.

Strategy: Create engaging blog posts with attractive visuals

To establish the company as the premier ticket sales provider that customers could pick out of a crowd, it was essential to combine three elements:

- Value to the end-user
- A strong narrative that sounded like the brand
- Visuals that cemented the company’s identity

Brafton’s content writers worked with the marketing team to create blog posts that had high social appeal and would build the company’s presence on Facebook. This would increase exposure and drive more traffic back to the company’s website.

Knowing that social media users are scanning News Feeds for interesting stories, the strategy took on a decidedly visual focus. Since this client catered to dance companies, appropriate visuals were not hard to come across with costumes, hair and makeup, set design and more. The client’s marketing team agreed with Brafton’s strategists and writers that the best content marketing plan of action would be to cover topics that pair naturally with pictures.

We began adding inline pictures to the blog posts that would make eye-catching feature images when shared on Facebook and other social networks.

Results: Huge social impact driving brand awareness

The focus on the brand’s visual identity did catch people’s eyes online. An article created around a visual topic quickly became one of the most valuable pieces of content on the company’s social channels. It generated:

- Over 1,000 social shares
- Hundreds of thousands of social views

This visual topic was increasing the company’s exposure on social channels and establishing the brand’s identity, but it was also supporting the client’s traffic goals. In addition to posting impressive off-site metrics are, the blog was providing real value to the business’ website.

It was a top-two overall traffic driver for the business quarter, and was also second in bringing visitors from social channels to the website. This is a win, because this is where viewers will learn more about the company and what it offers.

“One of the best parts about this strategy is that I’ve built a strong relationship with the marketing director at this company. She’s always helping me brainstorm timely topic ideas and providing constructive criticism on articles that don’t quite hit the mark. On the other side of the coin, she lets me know when an article is performing well and expresses her gratitude,” said content writer Camryn Rabideau.

Make your business a brand with visual content

There was once a time when businesses could get by without being ‘a brand,’ but those days are over. People are regularly shopping for products and services online, and they want to buy from a company they recognize and trust. By creating a cohesive brand identity through consistent style, voice and visuals, you build a presence that consumers will recognize immediately when they come across it – whether they run into you on social media, in search results or right on your website.