Social Media Roundup

5 Ways to identify quality social media content

The key to maintaining an effective social media presence is creating and identifying quality content. The more effective you are at posting interesting content, the easier it will be to expand your social media audience and your organization’s social media reach. Here are five ways to identify quality social media content.

#1. Watch trends #2. Set up news alerts #3. Monitor Q&A sites #4. Identify what content performs well #5. Ask your audience for input

Agenda

#1. Watch trends There are multiple resources that help

social media managers evaluate trends. Resources like Google Trends and the

Trends box on the left side of the Twitter pages show social media managers what people are talking about. You can also click on the #Discover tab on Twitter to find additional conversations.

Trends can help your organization create content that contributes to a larger conversation.

Google Trends and the Trending section of Twitter also allow users to research trends in a specific region, so you can determine not only what people are talking about, but what people in your organization’s community are talking about.

Twitter provides a list of trending topics on the left side of all Twitter profiles. These trends can also be adjusted to look at more specific regions.

Google Trends shows how often a particular search-term is entered. Google Hot Trends is an addition to Google Trends which displays the top 20 fastest rising searches of the past hour in the United States.

#2. Set up news alerts Setting up email alerts can help you collect content related to a specific topic

your audience is interested in. Examples include “U.S. Wounded Warriors,” “Army Homecoming,” “Army Veteran,” “U.S. Army National Guard,” etc.

Search engines like Google and Yahoo provide users with the option to set up an email alert so whenever a news story with a specific term is identified, the link is sent directly to your email inbox.

News alerts help your social media team identify unique and shareable without spending a lot of time searching multiple terms.

http://www.google.com/alerts http://alerts.yahoo.com/home.php

#3. Monitor Q&A sites Quora, Ask.com, Yahoo! Answers and a number

of other websites allow users to post and answer questions.

Question and answer sites are an excellent place to get inspiration for social media content. If you notice that a lot of people are asking about your organization or a lot of people are asking about a specific mission related to your organization, then you should work to develop social media content that addresses these questions.

Question and answer sites not only help your organization get a better understanding of the kind of information people are looking for, but they also help you identify what misinformation might be out there as well.

#4. Identify what content performs well The Internet is packed with social media best practices. You should monitor sites

like Social Media Today, Social Media Examiner and Ragan.com to see what kind of content is well-received or performs well on social media.

You should look through social media presences similar to your organization’s presence. Identify posts that resulted in strong audience engagement, look at Tweets with multiple retweets and then try to duplicate that success.

Identifying how other organizations are successful using social media can help your organization develop higher quality content.

#5. Ask your audience for input Your audience knows the kind of content it’s looking for the moment they elect to

“like” your Facebook page or follow your organization’s Twitter account. They may not tell you what they’re looking for, but they know what they’re expecting.

Sometimes it’s easier to just ask your audience what kind of content they expect out of your social media presence.

You don’t want to ask your audience for input all the time, but every few months, it’s effective to reach out to them directly and ask, “What would make our social media presence better?”

Contact information

Have questions? Please feel free to reach out to us at the Online and Social Media Division

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF PUBLIC AFFAIRSPENTAGON

5/1/2013

Email:Ocpa.osmd@us.army.mil

To review and download past editions of the Social Media Roundup, visit our Slideshare site at: http://www.slideshare.net/usarmysocialmedia. All Social Media Roundups are authorized to be distributed to a broader audience.