The goal of social media content

Editor's Notes

• #2 I like art. I don’t know why I like visiting art galleries to see art, I just enjoy it. There’s something about wandering around art galleries that I love. There are some pieces of art that I could literally look at for hours.   I like art. But it’s something that I’ve never completely understood. I’ve always questioned the existence of art. Is there a point of art? What is the point of art?   I never understood the goal of art until I visited Mona (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania just last year. These pictures are of Mona.   While I was at Mona, I learnt a powerful lesson for me. That was, the goal of art.
• #3 There’s a plaque in Mona that states “The goal of art is to capture and reward one’s attention.”   That particular quote really resonated with me. I thought it explained everything. I was thinking about it for weeks after.   “The goal of art is to capture and reward one’s attention.” - It made sense to me then. It’s presenting me with such a simple explanation on what could be so complex to explain.   This is why I’m attracted to some art, this is the purpose of art - to attract my attention, a good piece of artwork stops me in my tracks. It gets my attention and it rewards it, by captivating me. A good piece of artwork can evoke emotion.     So, let’s step back a moment. You’re probably thinking ‘what this has to do with what I do.   Ross asked me to speak today about social media. I thought a good place to start would be to teach you what differentiates a good social media post from a bad one?   A relatively simple topic. People have had trouble articulating the answer of this.   I could make it complex. I could spend hours talking through case studies, and we could dissect posts from best practice brand examples to take you through what works and what doesn’t. But, we don’t need to do that.   Instead, I wanted to find a common denominator. Something that could be a short, simple but powerful lesson for you all today. So, what is it that differentiates the good social media content from the bad?   If the goal of art is to capture and reward one’s attention then...  
• #4 The goal of social media content would have to be the same. In a nutshell, the goal of social media content is to capture and reward one’s attention. The concept is exactly the same as the goal of art!   Here’s why.
• #5 Take a second and consider why you use social media? (p) The most common reason why people look at social media sites so frequently is because of an intrinsic fear of missing out, otherwise known as FOMO.   The second, to interact with friends and family, you might use social media to be entertained, or you might want to learn something, or be informed.   You generally do not use social media to interact with brands - unless you’ve had a poor experience with them and want the world to know it.   On the flip side    
• #6 In the case as Dairy Australia (or any brand for that matter), consider why brands use social media. We use social media to draw attention to our programs and initiatives, to build communities, to enhance our reputation and perception of the industry and to monitor the sentiment of our audience – are they feeling positive or negative about our brand, or our industry.   It’s important for us to engage our audience.
• #7 When you put the two together you’ll find a big gap. There’s no overlap with any of these reasons. We need to create a bridge. The bridge is to Add Value.  If you think of why people use social media, why you use social media, keeping in mind that you don’t want to interact with brands - what will make you stop in your tracks and want to interact with us.  We need to provide people with a reason to interact with our brand.   So we need to adjust the presentation of our content. We need to transform the way we communicate in a social media context. We need to think about how we can add value.   How can we make the experience better? Generally that means (at a very high level) we need to entertain people, make them feel proud, inspire them or educate them.
• #8 Exhibit A. This is a post on Facebook that we did for the Dairy Farmer Winter Update. As you can see, not a whole lot of likes, or shares. In other words….
• #9 Yawn.
• #10 But when you take that same content - the Dairy Farmer Winter Update. Transform the way the content is presented. Add a joke, a new image, and look what happens. We’re entertaining people. We’re adding value! We are capturing and rewarding people’s attention and making them want to not only interact with this piece of content, but share it with their friends.
• #11 Take a look at Exhibit B. One of Mark’s pieces of creative. This piece of creative was produced to promote the body condition scoring app. Again, we’re adding value. We’re entertaining people - we’re capturing and rewarding their attention. But does this actually work, are people clicking through to the website and downloading the app? Let’s take a look under the hood - Google Analytics
• #12 As you can see here, we posted this once on Facebook. Over a three day period we received more visits to the bcs page than ever before.   Approximately a quarter of all traffic to that page over the last 6 months was over that time period alone generated by a Facebook post alone.   But does this mean people are downloading the app as a result of this Facebook post?
• #13 Yes! The app received around 30 new users over the three days.
• #14 Here are some other examples how we provide value
• #15 Mani’s manufacturing scholarships last year we promoted by using a series of cartoons. Mani received over 300% more views to his page from 600 the previous year to around 2,200 views this time around.
• #16 But a good post isn’t always humourous - we provide value, we can educate or inspire as well.
• #17 We had DIGITAL AGENCY DT deliver an independent review last year monitoring how we are going on Social. Year on Year results show that we’ve seen a 129% increase in brand mentions. Dairy Australia represents a share of voice of 78% of that of all R&D Organisation and 77% share of voice of all industry orgnisations. 63% have a positive sentiment about our brand.
• #18 That concludes my presentation today. Keep this in mind for the future. Remember that the goal of social media content is to capture and reward one’s attention.