Coming Up with the Best Social Media Content Ideas
With everything involved in the day-to-day operations of a business, coming up with the best social media content ideas can be tough. Who has the time for that? And even if you have great ideas, how do you execute all of them in an efficient way?
But coming up with the best social media content ideas is vital to the success of your business because social media is marketing — it’s how your customers learn about what you have to offer, what sets your business apart from others, and why they should patronize you. So if you want to communicate all of these concepts to your followers (and who doesn’t?), here are a few ideas on how you can come up with good social media content.
Consider your audience
This one’s obvious. You want your social media content to appeal to your followers. What do they need? What do they want? You know some of this based on what your business offers and what you hear from customers every day. Are there frequently asked questions you hear? Use all of this to create social media posts. If you’re stumped, don’t hesitate to do a question-and-answer session, either via live video or simply via text posts. Encourage your followers to ask you anything and then answer their questions.
Have a social media calendar
If you don’t have a social media calendar yet, you need to start making one. This will ensure you have an idea of what you’re posting on each day, saving you from the desperate scramble of coming up with something on the spot because your Facebook page has been inactive for the better part of the week. It also helps you make sure that your content isn’t too repetitive, that you aren’t posting too much filler content in succession, and that everyone on your team is in the loop about what’s being posted and when.
Repurpose old material
If you have a great photo that was wildly popular on Instagram a year ago, why not do a #throwbackthursday post? Or if you have content you thought was great but it just didn’t get the engagement you were expecting, you could share it again with some additional info and the tag #ICYMI, an abbreviated form of “in case you missed it.” Creating the same message with different medium is also a great way to repurpose your content.
Show off the personality behind your business
Your followers want to see what goes on behind the scenes. Post some pictures or video from your office Christmas party, or from career day you participated in at one of the local schools, or from a business development seminar some of you attended. Give them a behind the scenes tour of your business. It’s an easy post, and it gives people a better sense of the people who make your business run.
Consult community partners
Talk to people who have relevant insight to share and could be of interest to your followers. If you’re a retail shop, have a video of a customer talking about their favorite product. If you’re a tutoring service, have a local teacher submit a guest post for your blog about good study habits. By bringing in outsiders, you’ll expand your reach — after all, these people have their own followers who will be happy to see them — and you’ll get fresh ideas you didn’t think of yourself.
Tap into news and updates relevant to your industry
If something makes the news that is relevant to what you do, make sure you find a way to share it with readers. The next time the CDC recalls lettuce for some sort of viral outbreak, your restaurant can post about where it sources its romaine and why you won’t have Caesar salad on the menu for a little while.
Hold a contest
This is a fun way to come up with easy content for several days at a time — and probably garner some additional followers while you’re at it. Announce a grand prize for anyone who participates. It could be as simple as a gift certificate for your own business. Then lay forth the way people can play. Maybe they have to submit a photo every day for a week, or they have to answer a trivia question you’re posting. Sharing photo submissions or posting trivia questions will give you a guaranteed post every day for a week (or however long you choose to run the contest) and will elicit plenty of engagement from your followers.
Stockpile content
Finally, don’t be afraid to stockpile content. If you have some great ideas for social media posts, particularly for media like photos and videos, you don’t want to exhaust them all at once. If they aren’t of a time-sensitive nature, you can spread them out over the course of a week or even a month, depending on how many ideas you have. Then pad them out with filler content. Your followers will prefer to see one or two great posts a day with a few filler posts rather than 10 great posts in the same day followed by filler for the rest of the month.
If creating content seems too daunting for you, please reach out to the ASMM Digital team to learn how we can help you.