Content Marketing Beginner’s Guide: Are you bodybuilding or running a marathon?

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Some companies are pretty “ripped” when it comes to social media. They post frequently with a good volume of quality information. The production quality of that information is impressive. Yet, other companies take a leaner, organic approach.

In a business-to-business social media content marketing landscape, what’s right for your organization? Does performing like a distance runner or bodybuilder on social media fit your strategy?

The Marathoner

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First, you need a specific social media marketing strategy and business plan. Let’s say you’re an online content marketing specialist working to lengthen your organization’s social media stride. You don’t have a big budget, so you rely on organic, or naturally-occurring growth, rather than paid advertising.

You’re getting posts up at the frequency you want and can handle (see one content marketing guru’s recommendation on post frequency). With this approach, you’ll get stronger on social media. This is a Paula Radcliffe approach, not a Chris Hemsworth approach.

Oftentimes, you’ll see a company dump a great deal of information on social media then go dark for days or weeks with no new posts. It’s this odd “clean and jerk” move that is so jarring to social media followers. Like a distance runner, a social media manager must keep a frequent social media posting schedule. Failure to do so is a recipe for injury to the brand and a pathway to underperformance with the target audience.

But let’s also say you’re doing a lot of things right. You’ve opened accounts on your targeted top two or three social media accounts for B2B engagement (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook), uploaded the info, and watched the likes roll in. However, if you haven’t posted since the company had its big announcement of this year’s new products, you’re not nurturing a followership. Engagement from comments and likes quickly die off. Relevance recedes. Putting in the miles on social media is a long-term commitment. Are you able to go the distance? 

The Bodybuilder

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Think about your approach to social media like bodybuilding—volume, frequency and intensity. Volume means the amount of work done, such as reps per exercise, or in this case, the content you’re putting up. Frequency is how often you do the exercise, meaning number of Tweets/posts per week. Intensity means how hard you train. For you, this means how much work it takes to prepare the posts—whether you create videos and work with management and employees to get great quotations and visuals, tell stories or the like.

Intensity also means how much production you put into posts. No grab-and-go curation for you. You assign a graphic designer to polish images. With these behind-the-scenes exercises in place, you show your strength with paid social media advertising.

How to Get Any Online Workout Started

To establish any kind of B2B social media program, most content marketers follow these four rules:

  1. Set a calendar—be committed to regular posting on your social media channels. For recommendations on each platform, you can find a variety of advice. Remember, post no more than two to five times per week on LinkedIn, one of the world’s most popular and widely used B2B social networking platforms.
  2. Post quality content—make it relevant and engaging with a good ratio of information from others (curation), content from you (promotion) and something that shows your organization’s human side (personal). Here’s one great perspective on different post type ratios.
  3. Interact—follow up and respond to likes, comments and all the fun that comes with being social. Here’s a charming example of a humble, small-town fire department giving its all on social media.
  4. Analyze your trends—watch the numbers on successful and not-so-successful posts, and look for ways to improve.

Example: 

Here’s an infographic showing how mining giant Rio Tinto created social support for its financial report:

As you can see, Twitter Ads was used to upload and push viewership of the video, which means the company put some intensity and resources into the post. With more than 64,000 followers on Twitter, nearly half a million followers on LinkedIn and more than 67,000 followers on Facebook*, Rio Tinto is an industry bodybuilder on social media.

Compare that to Rio Tinto’s subsidiary Kennecott Copper, which has just over 2,400 followers on Twitter and just under 9,000 followers on Facebook*. Kennecott takes more of a marathon runner approach—organic, frequent and regular posting—and a presence that is there for announcements, events and playful facts.

Kennecott posts as @kennecottutah on Twitter with 1,570 tweets, 2,441 followers* and a post rate of approximately 10-12 times per month. The company posts as @RioTintoKennecott on Facebook and does copycat content posts on this channel. While repeating content isn’t considered a best practice by social media gurus, it gets the job done when there aren’t a lot of resources to supply dynamic variations of content among social channels.

The Takeaway

Staying fit on social media means:

  • Keep social media posts FREQUENT. Set a schedule that you can live with, but it doesn’t leave your social followers running with another pack.
  • Develop enough VOLUME of quality content. This takes work in advance. It takes some graphic design. It takes regularly brainstorming content ideas with your team.
  • Add INTENSITY. It will come more naturally once your frequency and volume are established. Fight for a budget that will support your strategies.

As you marry your company’s strategies with solid, strategic social content marketing goals, you’ll strike the right balance. You’ll discover how in shape you are for running the long race that is conveying your organization’s social presence and how to powerfully cut a social media image packed with strong messages that are unmistakable and defined. 

Marti Money is an experienced professional communicator with expertise in writing and strategic communication. Money works as a professional communications consultant enhancing clients’ social media presence, public/media relations outreach and integrated communications goals. She was part of the transportation communications team for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and has worked for public, private and non-profit organizations in New Jersey, Texas and Utah. Money is a graduate of Weber State University and a native of northeastern Oregon. 

*Follower counts as of September 2019

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