A huge part of managing social media accounts for businesses is aligning your business with others who share your values. Articles can be blog posts that you share on, say, your business Facebook page.
For instance, as a graphic designer I might share an article by AIGA that inspires me or has relevance to my business. At the end of the day, it’s all about creating content that provides meaningful connections for your audience, be it your customers, professional acquaintances or prospective clients.
Here are my 5 tips to keep in mind when sharing articles:
1) Consider the Source
I subscribe to an insane amount of newsletters and daily updates from a variety of organizations and companies that align with the brands whose content I manage. It’s critically important that I source articles and content that are reputable and hold the same values as my client.
If I were managing an account for a Catholic nonprofit, and wanted to share the latest news about what’s happening in the Catholic Church here in the United States, it’s more likely I would want to share an article from the National Catholic Register rather than, say, the New York Times if I am searching for something from a Catholic perspective. This is because I, as a diligent content manager, know that the National Catholic Register is supported by EWTN News, the official, USCCB approved Catholic news source in the United States.
2) Pick your platform
Just because you’re managing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts for your clients does not mean that you need to be posting the same thing across all platforms. In fact, if you ask me, it’s better to diversity your offerings across platforms. That all to say, if you found 3 great articles to post on a Monday, it’s critical to experiment to see on which platforms your audience will engage with that content. For some of my clients, articles are a home-run on Twitter, and they will receive dozens of likes, comments or retweets, yet for others it’s all about Facebook. Remember, it’s up to you as a content manager to know what your audiences like on each of the platforms you engage.
3) Don’t Post for the sake of posting
There’s a common misconception that you need to post anything and everything on social media as a business. This is probably the worst thing you can do, in my opinion, both professionally and personally. But let’s just consider the professional perspective for now.
A few years ago I was speaking with an account executive from digital agency here in the metroplex, and we were discussing the similarities and differences in our approaches to social media management and content management for our clients. I checked out a few of their clients’ Facebook and Instagram feeds and was mortified at what I saw. This agency was posting 3-5 times per DAY everyday for the client, with generic graphics that had meaningless text on graphic backgrounds, none of which had anything to do with the client’s actual business. (Think “Wednesday is HumpDay!” followed by “Spring is in the air” followed by “It’s a good day to have a good day” on, say, an auto mechanic’s Facebook page. See the disconnect?)
Can you imagine following or liking a page that posts that often with irrelevant information and uninteresting visuals? You’d probably unfollow and probably won’t engage with that content right? It comes across as spammy and disingenuous.
This is especially critical for articles. If you’re managing a business page for, say, a health care organization, your audience probably wouldn’t want to read an article about cryptocurrency unless it has immediate relevance to your brand or the topic of health care.
4) Be prepared to engage
Something I learned very quickly, specifically with managing Twitter accounts for non-profits, is that as a brand you must be ready to engage. Whether positive or negative feedback (and 75% of the time, it’s probably going to be negative) you as a content manager (or the PR manager) MUST be prepared to speak on behalf of the brand for anything that you share.
There are so many examples of this that come to mind, but I will say that the best advice I have is to create a bank of answers. An answer bank will help you engage professionally and you’ll have the answer documented in case a similar comment or questions comes up again in the future. Better yet, if you’re able to collaborate with your client to vet your answers, you can ensure everyone is on the same page on how your organization communicates with its intended audience and with the outside world.
5) Don’t become dependent
Although sharing articles are great because they can provide connections between your brand and others in your field—experts, influencers, thought leaders—you should be wary of solely sharing content created by others. If you as an organization, brand, or product have something to offer your audience or prospective customers, share it in your own words. Consider blogging once a month and sharing that on your social media accounts. Don’t be afraid to whip up a quick post in Canva and a brief caption that provides your audience with something relevant to your brand. At the end of the day, your audience followed your page because they care about what you as a brand have to say.
I hope these tips are helpful, and if you have some tips that you’d like to share, feel free to include them in the comments section below. I’d love to know your go-to tips for content managing and sharing articles.