6 Ideas to Energize Your Social Media Content

The last time I wrote about social media, I made the case for storytellers and content creators to listen before they do any brand promotion online. Observing your online network should’ve given you some insight into what topics interest your neck of the digital woods.

And now that you’re ready to talk, what do you say? Here are a few easy ways to package and deploy that insight to benefit your social media strategy.

Create a social media calendar

Timeliness is next to godliness online. Make a calendar of holidays, annual awareness campaigns and events you can leverage to promote your work. At the beginning of the week, I also make a note of upcoming project/product launches and deadlines that need to be promoted. This saves me time during the week and ensures MediaStorm’s social media content serves our business goals.

This Father’s Day, we presented “A Shadow Remains” to our fans and followers. The film premiered online in 2012, but Phillip Toledano’s story of taking care of his father during his last days expresses a timeless emotion.

Give behind-the-scenes access

People are nosey. Seeing the final product isn’t enough. We want to know what’s really going on: How did it get made? Who made it? Why did they make it? Share stories and photographs from events, meetings and your work process. It’s a great way to promote your work and stoke curiosity.

On Instagram, we gave followers a glimpse of our motion graphics team capturing artwork for our then unreleased series for ICP’s Infinity Awards.
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Read more about the article The First Step in Your Social Media Strategy Isn’t What You Think
Aly, Cortney & Samia - The women of MediaStorm get social. Photo: Shameel Arafin / MediaStorm

The First Step in Your Social Media Strategy Isn’t What You Think

Social media is vital to content distribution. Filmmakers, photographers and journalists who don’t use it are missing out on the opportunity to build direct relationships with their audience. But getting social online can feel overwhelming to storytellers who don’t use these tools in their personal lives. In our Methodology workshops, the first questions participants looking to get started with social media ask me are: which platforms are worth my time and what in the world do I talk about all day?

It seems daunting, but the answer to both questions is simple: Listen first.

It’s easy to overlook the value of listening when socializing online or in person. Our instinct is to just dive in. But that’s not a strategic way to build your business. As every great procrastinator knows, new social platforms and tools are debuting all the time and it’s easy for social media to turn into a time suck that steals productivity rather than a tool that promotes your work.

Aly, Cortney & Samia – The women of MediaStorm get social.
Photo: Shameel Arafin / MediaStorm

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Donald Pettit Luminance
Dr. Donald Pettit speaks at Luminance. Photo by Michael Treola.

Luminance Session Two: Photography’s New Frontiers

Cory West, engineering manager for Facebook photos started off the second morning session with a discussion about social photography. Some time back he was interested in the relationship between memory and quality of life. After coming across various articles about the way that we remember things (it turns out that as a result of having instant access to information, we've begun to optimize our memories by not remembering facts in order to better remember how to FIND facts), he decided to do a social experiment with his photos. He photographed 7,000 photos at 27 different social events and posted 950 curated shots on Facebook. He received 880 incidents of participation on 400 of the 950 posted photos. What he found surprising was that 55 percent of the activity was from people he didn't know. When he looked at the data, the numbers did make sense, as he had many more friends of…

Continue ReadingLuminance Session Two: Photography’s New Frontiers