Here’s a horse that’s been beaten to death, resurrected, beaten a few more times, been ridden into a minefield causing a massive explosion of limbs… reconstructed and beaten again:  “Content drives social media”.

If you don’t believe me, check out this case study on how a single piece of content regarding the Nestle fiasco on Facebook created a storm of traffic.  Read it here

Back with me?  Those are some amazing statistics, but those statistics have less to do with how the content was pushed and a lot more to do with what was being pushed.  Social media has a lot of room to be a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  At its heart, what you can really get from it is that it’s a persuasion engine.

What I mean by that is that with every post you make and every piece of content you publish you are persuading the people reading it to do something.  At least you should be.  Dial that back even more though and you can break it down into specific words and sentences.  Each sentence you craft, especially in the form of a microblog where space is limited, should be engineered to persuade your reader to a specific action.

There’s something you don’t think about every day:  Engineering content.  We don’t often think about the content we put out as something that is engineered or put together by a craftsman.  If you want to persuade people to action then you must craft, or engineer a piece that does just that.

I had a discussion recently with a female associate, and we were talking about sales pages.  Not the condensed little landing pages that are like a gravitational swell for traffic.  I’m talking about those long sales pages; the ones that are over 3,000 words.  Part of me has always been boggled by those.  They’re like those long infomercials for the slapchop and other hyped products on television.   I told her that I understand the power behind them, and they work, but I just don’t perceive how people can make it through that content; it’s a tidal storm of info… and yet still be interested in buying.

It’s a paradox to understand the nature of the sales page yet not understand the nature of why, in God’s name, people read them.  But they work.

Her response was surprising, and at the same time came to me as a “duh” moment.  She stated that when she has found herself on those pages she will take the time to read the content, but only if it’s interesting.  If it’s interesting and informative, and flows well with short paragraphs, she reads all the way to the bottom of them on many occasions.

It’s fun to get the perspective of someone who isn’t involved in this business because when you take all the technical construction and extra fluff out of the picture with the production of a sales page you have a pretty simple process:  engineering interesting content.

With those pages that she’s read, the content was interesting enough that it persuaded her to read on.  With a sales page, it’s simple.  You just need to keep people scrolling down the page to the great big CTA for a purchase.  In social media, it’s a little more challenging.  All your accounts have to work together.

You should have all your sites linked together into a beautifully crafted sales funnel that circles itself.  This loop is the engine, and your content is the fluid that sustains it.  This engine will eventually lead people to the ultimate goal of a purchase or an acquisition in some manner, but in order to get them there they must travel a well-lubricated circuit that will keep them interested, educated and entertained.  When you have a breakdown in the content, the entire process will seize up.  No forward motion, no conversion, just a heap of useless scrap.

Your social media strategy and the content laced throughout should be carefully engineered, as much so as an engineer constructs a vehicle with all the integral parts being considered.  Thankfully, social media isn’t as difficult to master as building a car, and the mechanics aren’t quite as precise.

The primary thing you need to know is how to talk to the people that you’re targeting, and what they want.  In order to do this you need to develop targeted profiles of the people who shop with you, follow you, network with you, etc.  That’s a topic in and of itself so I won’t get into sorted detail however those profiles are key.

Once you understand who you’re talking to, you then can decipher how to talk to them and what to offer.  That is the point at which your content becomes valuable, because it speaks to them.  This content keeps the attention of those you’re targeting, and will allow you to transform your social media accounts into something a lot more powerful than a “hey, we’re launching a new toy” network.

It becomes a persuasion engine built for performance.

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