In the ever-evolving world of social media, staying ahead of the curve is crucial to maintaining an engaging online presence. As we head into 2024, it’s essential to know which types of social media content will resonate most with your audience. Here are the top kinds of content to prioritize in your social media strategy:

1. Educational Content

Educational content, sometimes not as exciting, has still consistently been a powerful tool for engaging and retaining followers. It provides value to your audience by offering useful information, solving problems, or teaching them something new showing them that you are the experts in your industry and can be trusted. Here are some effective forms of educational content:

• How-to Guides: Create step-by-step guides to help your audience achieve specific tasks or learn new skills. 
• Tips and Tricks: Share expert advice, shortcuts, and tips related to your niche.
• Checklists: Offer checklists to help your audience stay organized and on track.
  • Ex: Nonprofit organizations, checklist to closing out 2023
• Explainers: Simplify complex topics by breaking them down into easily digestible explanations.
  • Ex: We’ll get into this later but a great way to do these types of content is through a video. It’s interactive, and you can use words on the screen to highlight the most important talking points.

By regularly sharing educational content, you position yourself as an industry authority and build up that trust we talked about earlier so your followers can rely on you.

2. Interactive Content: 

Interactivity is key to keeping your audience engaged and fostering a sense of community. Here are interactive content types to integrate into your strategy now and into the new year:

• Polls and Surveys: Ask questions and invite your audience to participate in polls and surveys to gather insights and opinions.
  • Ex: ask them what they like about the content your provide, what more do they want to see from you, get to know your team (Q & A, two truths and a lie), anything to help them get to know you as a brand and resonate more with them
• Quizzes: Create fun and informative quizzes related to your industry or niche, about the clients you work with, your products, etc..
• Giveaways: Run contests and giveaways to incentivize engagement and reward your loyal followers.
• Live Streams: Connect with your audience in real-time through live streaming sessions where you can answer questions, share updates, or host events.
  • Ex: When we host some events, there are moments or speeches that happen in more intimate settings and we sometimes go live to show the audience or viewers a sneak peek into what happens in real time at those events. We love to do it during the shotgun start of our golf outings to hear about the cause as well as the humorous nature of the outings. 
• Webinars: Host educational webinars to delve deeper into specific topics and provide in-depth knowledge. This can also allow your audience to grow deeper with your company or your team who would be hosting the webinar. 

Interactive content fosters a sense of community and encourages active participation from your followers which we should largely be taking advantage of in this world today with the lessening amount of human interaction.

3. Visual Content:

Visual content continues to dominate social media platforms, capturing attention and driving engagement the most. Facebook and Instagram still heavily favor this type of content and it’s not going anywhere in 2024. Here are various types of visual content to consider:

• Infographics: Create visually appealing graphics that convey information, statistics, or data in a concise and easy-to-understand format. *Less is more*
• Videos: Share video content, such as tutorials, product demonstrations, or behind-the-scenes glimpses.
  • We know reels have hugely taken over as a popular content type after TikTok launched with all its success. Incorporating these often will help your online success.
• Images & Graphics: High-quality images and custom-designed graphics can enhance your posts and make them more shareable.
  • *Something to note* The view of your “grid” on instagram should have a nice mix of graphics and images. This is the first visual people see when they head to your main page. Make sure it isn’t too graphic heavy and flows in a way that’s visually appealing to the eye and interesting to your potential audience. 
• Memes and Humor: When appropriate, incorporate humor and memes to connect with your audience on a personal level. It can give your audience an insight into your personality.  People relate to people.  If you can bond with your audience and grow with them on a more personal level, this will be very meaningful in the long run. 
• GIFs: Use GIFs to add movement and personality to your posts.

Visual content is highly shareable, making it a valuable asset for increasing your brand’s visibility. USE IT OFTEN!

4. Storytelling Content:

People connect with stories, and storytelling content can help humanize your brand and build emotional connections with your audience. Consider these forms of storytelling:

• Customer Stories: Share success stories and testimonials from satisfied customers.
  • Video testimonials are a WIN if you can turn them into a reel, even a montage of a group of testimonials.
• Employee Spotlights: Highlight your team members, showcasing their roles and personalities.
  • Examples from Valiant: we always showcase employees birthdays, every now and then a fun fact, and of course their role at our company. It helps you all as an audience get a sneak peek into who’s behind the scenes and the “brains” of the operation. 
• Behind the Scenes: Offer a glimpse into your company’s day-to-day operations or the making of your products/services.
  • We love to post stories and reels as we are in preparation for an event, the before and after arrivals of our guests, and anything else that will give our audience some insight into what it takes to prepare and get ready for all our events. 
• Brand Origin Stories: Tell the story of how your brand came into existence, emphasizing its mission and values.
  • Ex: Have your founder record a quick video about the foundation or company, how it started and you can add in B roll intermittently on top of the voiceover to add more visual to give you audience some context to what they’re talking about. 
• User-Generated Content: Showcase content created by your customers, celebrating their loyalty and creativity.
  • Instagram just launched the “reply to comment” option similar to TikTok so we now have more ways to leverage customers feedback and opinions about your company. (Highlight positive feedback, respond to questions, use your creativity to engage with your audience.)

Storytelling content helps create a strong brand identity and fosters trust and loyalty among your audience. If you have your audience engaging with you, USE IT!

Heading into 2024, a well-rounded social media strategy should incorporate a mix of educational, visual, interactive, and storytelling content to help you maximize on the potential opportunity that is out there from your audience and customers. Tailor your content to your specific audience, and consistently analyze the results to refine your approach. We know there is much more to come on the analytics side of Instagram in the next month that should help even more but in the meantime, look at all the tools Meta has provided to you now. By doing so, you’ll not only keep your audience engaged but also stay ahead of the social media game in the coming year. You got this!