What makes content king?

The bane of every content creator’s existence is the content itself. In a fast paced and ever evolving digital world creating eye catching and creative content is becoming increasingly more challenging. Social media has forever changed the market of how content is used, viewed, and consumed.

In the spirit of Social Media Week 2016, we decided to take a look at the special report Digital in 2016 (#SMW16) collated by We Are Social. According to the report, the UK accounts for 38 million active social media users which is 58.54 per cent of the total UK population. That’s over half of the UK population with an active social media account consuming content on a daily basis. Understanding these statistics is so integral to understanding what kind of content your organisation should be sharing.

There is no ignoring that of those 38 million social media users, 86.84 per cent are active mobile social media users. This figure makes it more obvious now that you not only need an active and creative social media account, but that your content should be viable and fitting for mobile devices too.

This is an area that is constantly changing and growing. Since last year, there has been a 3 per cent increase in active mobile social media users as 71 percent of the UK population owns a smartphone.

Even more important, perhaps, is the type of content you share. Previously, photos were the most consumed content on social networks, but overtaking that now by a landslide is video content. According to social media analytics platform, Shareablee, video content grew from 2014 to 2015 by 255 per cent. This makes video content shared nearly four times more than any other content type.

A big mistake made by organisations is feeling the need to be present on every social network there is. It’s worth looking at your demographics and looking at each social network individually to see if it’s a viable source of sharing content and getting your name out there. While Facebook is the most popular social platform in the UK for people between the ages of 20 and 39, with Twitter right behind it, perhaps it’s not the best platform for your business to use if your demographic isn’t in that age range. It’s possible that Instagram isn’t the best choice of social platform for a business that has no visual content to share.

Once you’ve got your platform of choice figured out, the next step is deciding how to portray the content you want to share. The research undertaken by Shareablee has shown that women and men share different types of content, but a common factor in both is that they ultimately want to share content that makes them look good. For men this means they want to look funny and have excitement in the content they share, but for women they want to look intelligent and have happiness in their content. When looking at age, however, people over the age of 35 will share content when it’s telling a story.

Ultimately, what makes content king is a number of factors that need to be tailored to your audiences. Most importantly, staying on top of the tech industry and social networks will keep your content flowing to the right people.