Need inspiration for your social media content? This article offers 10 ideas for creating engaging and shareable content, including user-generated content, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and more.
Managing social media marketing requires a unique combination of creativity and organization. Many social media managers will feel as comfortable managing spreadsheets and schedules as they do coming up with new, fun content ideas. Strategically managing the kind of content you create and post requires that you also strategically manage overall social media schedules, the time of day you post, where you post content, etc.
However, most social media managers will find that deciding what kind of content you create and post often takes up the most time and creative energy. So, for some of our less creative-minded social media managers, we’ve decided to compile a list of social media content ideas to fill your content library that nearly anyone can use and repurpose. Let’s dive into some ways to come up with successful social media content ideas.
When you first start brainstorming social media content ideas, think about why you’re making this content. What’s the purpose of the content you’re making? Most good social media content will be focused on the Three E’s: educating, entertaining, or engaging. Educational content will be used to help your audience learn a concept and use it for themselves, bettering themselves and/or their business. Entertaining content is funny and light-hearted, typically used for social influencers or brands to build awareness. Engaging content is used to drive people to your website or somewhere that they can engage with your products or services.
Social media engagement mostly means likes, shares, comments, etc. on the content itself. But, in this context, we’re referring to engagement as trying to get someone from social media to further engage with your brand or personality. Good social media managers will use a combination of educational, entertaining, and engaging content to attract different people at different times of their buyer journey. Your social media content ideas need to feed into a larger strategy — one dedicated to increasing brand awareness, trust, and ultimately, revenue.
All kinds of social media content need to be driving engagement. Whether you’re educating, entertaining, or engaging with users deeper in your marketing funnel, social media content ideas should be interesting and useful to your audience. For instance, educational or entertaining content could find someone higher in your marketing funnel but still provide value to this person — leading to more likes, shares, comments, followers, etc. Then, further in the funnel, you can find these same people with engaging content that leads them into a sale, a trial, or a conversation with your sales team.
This is why most content creators push out so much content. More content is required to consistently build this pipeline of followers, subscribers, etc. More often than not, people won’t follow a profile the first time they see content they enjoyed — these users need to be nurtured and persuaded into becoming followers and subscribers. Just like your overall marketing funnel, your social media content ideas need to focus on top, mid, and bottom of this more micro social media engagement funnel.
With all of this in mind, let’s take a peek at some top social media content ideas and examples to help you drive a more complete strategy:
Show someone using your product, sharing their positive experience with your company, etc. Posting or sharing someone else’s content that shows your brand in a positive light will show others that you’re a trustworthy company. Success stories, case studies, and testimonials are a quick way to show how your product or service benefits customers in a fun way.
Let people know the people behind the brand. Showcase employees, tell personal stories of why the business started, team events, etc. People buy products because they solve a need but they build brand loyalty over time because of the people supporting that brand. Social media is a place to be social — connect the people from your team with your customers.
Hosting live events, going live on your social platforms, or doing anything interactive with your followers is a great decision. Going live allows your fans to directly ask questions, chat with you, and helps you better understand your audience. Going live doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing a live video — you can do Twitter chats, live streams on Youtube or Twitch, etc. Being approachable and direct with your audience allows you to engage and learn more from your followers faster.
Be genuine. Share things you like, share tips and tricks that work well for you. Become a thought leader in the space you’re trying to own and start creating conversations. Be opinionated and show your prospects and customers how they can improve certain aspects of their business.
Don’t be shy — ask other brands and influencers to work with you. Whether your goal is lead generation or simply driving brand awareness with entertaining content, partner campaigns on social media can be mutually beneficial. Ask your partners what they hope to gain from a content idea and if their goals line up with yours, get out there and make some cool content!
Infographics are a little more straightforward and boring, but they’re effective. A visually appealing way to show important industry information can attract the right audience quickly while providing them with useful data.
Same as real-life conversations — asking questions creates a give-and-take, interesting conversation. Creating polls and asking questions on social media will allow your audience to interact with you and bring up new topics for conversation. Getting your followers engaged and chatting with one another is always a win for your brand.
Similarly to partnering up with other brands and influencers, you can have a customer or partner take over your social profile for a day, or have them provide guest content. Getting outside perspectives on your social channels can help keep your content fresh and introduce your audience to a wider range of subject matter.
Giveaways and other competitions, as well as custom hashtags for company-specific events, can help drive a ton of engagement. Of course, your audience likes to engage with your brand more on social media when they have the chance to win something. Custom hashtags allow people to follow along with the conversation and improve the organic reach of your content as others start to share their own content too.
Video content is intimidating and takes more time to produce. But, people tend to spend more time watching and engaging with video content on social media than any other post type. So, coming up with creative video content ideas for social media can drive more engagement with your posts, leading to more followers, leading to more business.
With all these content ideas in mind, you can start to build an editorial calendar for your social profiles. As you plan your calendar, you can think about how you balance between different types of posts, different content ideas, and how they fit into the three E’s of social media marketing.
Balancing your social media calendar with content that serves people who know nothing about your brand as well as users deeper in your social media marketing funnel will help you engage with everyone. Don’t be afraid to test new kinds of content when coming up with new ideas — the best way to discover social content that works is through experimentation. Hopefully, our top 10 social media content ideas have provided you with some useful takeaways to help you grow your own social following.
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