Both long-form and short-form content have their place in successful content marketing. What helps drive their success online is the platform they’re posted on. From Instagram to LinkedIn, each platform and their respective audience is what drives its success. Nowadays, even a beautifully written long-form piece can be nothing without its respective special media post because they go hand-in-hand. The long-form piece needs a good post to drive its online engagement and without that long-form content, there would be nothing to post about.
Once the long-form content has been written, how does one create a successful short-form piece on social media to drive traffic to the website to read there? It’s at that point that a social media manager needs to consider the purpose and audience of each platform.
I, for instance, recently wrote a long-form piece titled “Rolling into the roleplaying world of Dungeons & Dragons,” which dived into the father of tabletop roleplaying games and discussed how anyone could pick up a 20-sided die and begin their journey into the game, regardless of their experience level.
Since the long-form content had been created, the next step was creating its companion social media posts. In considering what the piece was about, I needed to then think about the different types of social platforms and how I could drive the audience of each one to the same story. For the purpose of this piece, I opted to post on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Twitter:
Twitter is the platform I use the most: both as a social media manager for my company and personally. Because it has a 280-character limit, you need to be short and concise, while still being creative enough to get the audience to click the link. My goal was to create a tone that was fun and imaginative and use an original photo taken during a D&D session that showed how colorful it was. The picture is an accompaniment of the “rangers, wizards and clerics” that I’m referencing on the post. I also used Bitly to create a shorter URL, which makes the post look cleaner.
First brought to Twitter in 2007, the hashtag is now synonymous with platform. They are a handy tool for grouping and categorizing tweets. They also help people follow the topics that they’re interested in. For the purpose of my Twitter post, I used the hashtags #TTRPG and #DND to signify tabletop roleplaying games and Dungeons & Dragons. Both are popular hashtags for people in those circles, including myself who follows both on Twitter.
LinkedIn:
Of the three social media sites, LinkedIn is the platform I use the least, but I know there’s a huge market for professionals. For this reason, I chose to go with the “workplace skills” angle on my post.
I wanted to focus on the benefits of playing the game and how it can connect to a person’s professional career. With this in mind, I hoped it would act as an option for professionals who wanted a hobby they can also get something out of.
The goal of using a quote as the first part of the post was to give those who are curious about the game a blurb from an actual professional who was able to get real-world skills by playing the game.
I chose that photo because those who are playing are enjoying themselves during a social interaction while engaging in teamwork, which is huge in most office settings.
Facebook:
With 81 percent of U.S. moms on Facebook, it was the clear choice to focus on the “quality time” aspect of the game.
What also adds to this post was the image I used. In it, you see an engaged father playing the game with his excited daughter. It gives the audience the ability to see genuine reactions from both players. It’s a friendly image parents would be more inclined to share on their own pages. Its goal is to make the audience, specifically parents, think “I want to play this with my kids!” It inspires a sense of inclusivity.
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The content you post on each platform is vital for the success of meeting your desired objectives. This is why it’s important to understand the audience of each platform and how to target them using the correct content.