After you create the perfect site that showcase your products in the best way, how are you going to get people to go visit it? Well, using social media is an effective way to drive new traffic to your website, connect with your audience and remind previous customers to return. But how do you capture the attention of social media users when new content floods their feeds every second of every day? The key is to share different types of eye-catching posts your audience will appreciate and want to interact with. The challenge then is coming up with new social media content ideas when you’re already on there posting every day. To help you figure out what kind of content to post, you’ll find 11 suggestions below.
Develop how-tos/ tutorials
Share tutorials and practical tips for key areas of your industry with your audience. Social media gives you the chance to quickly guide them step-by-step in real-time and provide that value that maybe your competitors aren't doing. Platforms like YouTube or Instagram (IGTV and Reels) allow you to record lengthier how-tos, but you can easily share bite-sized tutorials on other social media platforms too. We recommend definitely creating these kinds of videos over onto Instagram as currently (in 2021) Instagram is favouriting video content over photos. Point two covers videos in a little more detail, check it out!
Create engaging videos
Video is a very user friendly way of sharing content on your social media accounts. For one, auto-playing videos do a great job capturing people’s attention as they scroll. What’s more, it’s much easier for users to watch a video than to try and read a bulk of text about you and your business. Furthermore, funny or entertaining videos are appreciated by users and are a great way to spike your view count - show the personality in your videos - it's that personal touch your customers appreciate. Bonus tip: add subtitles to your video content. Yes people are more likely to stop scrolling to watch a video rather than read a post, but sometimes they are not in a situation where they can hear what the video is about (i.e. on a busy bus or procrastinating at work). So add subtitles to include as many people as possible at the chance to watch your content.
Make announcements
People generally are nosey and like to know the goings on - so tell them. Announcing things like a new product, newbies to the team and the direction of the business are good things to announce. Just don't over do it - if it's all the same kind of stuff, your audience will lose interest and scroll past your content all the time. Letting anyone interested know exciting changes can help with building buzz, generating excitement and even boosting sales.
Share your blog posts
Regularly publishing the new blog posts from your site to your social media helps give search engines, like Google, more proof of your website’s relevance and authority. This, in turn, can improve how well your site ranks on search results and positively encourage how much traffic heads that way. However, it’s never a good idea to strictly rely on search engines to bring in all the traffic. By posting your great written content on social media, you can exponentially increase your overall reach and get more engagement. When sharing informational blog posts that are helpful and well researched, you will provide a lot of value to your audience and you will be seen as the business to go to when people have questions, concerns or curiosity.
Conduct an interview
Interviews, like articles or videos, are a great source of content to add to your social media. So find other people in your industry or even ask your employees questions and interview them like you are Graham Norton or Holly Willoughby, and post it on your socials. But where should you post this kind of content? If the interview has been videoed (and subtitled remember), upload it to YouTube and post little (intriguing) snippets to other platforms like Facebook and Twitter but add a link to the Youtube channel in the post so they are directed to watch the video in full. LinkedIn is a great platform for interviews in the format of an article as its character limits aren’t as strict as the other platforms you're familiar with (i.e Twitter).
Show off your personality with memes and GIFs
Whether you create custom GIFs yourself or repurpose popular memes you've already seen on social media, adding the occasional touch of levity to your page is a great idea. In just a few seconds, you can tell your audience a lot about your brand’s personality and overall style. These types of content are very engaging for those seeing your posts so why not give it a go and show your funny, personal side. GIFs, for instance, are a lot like videos in that the motion encourages people to slow their scroll and see what’s going on. Great for you!
Give your customers the behind the scenes scoop
Again, people like to be nosey so why not give them some behind the scenes footage or scoop that they'll want to see. There are a lot of things people are interested in getting a peek at (the workplace setup, the people behind the product, the new machinery in the warehouse, the day to day goings on, the set up of an event etc). If you feel like it’ll enrich their understanding of what it is you do and why, or just be a fun thing for them to see, feel free to share it on your socials.
Run contests and giveaways
Your website isn’t the only place you can reward customers and provide an incentive for them come back for more. A common social media marketing tip is to run contests or giveaways that your customers, followers, and random social media users can participate in. Like with any social media content you share, it needs to be on-brand and on-topic. It also should be something people care about. Do that and you'll see an increase in the people you reach out to and the possibility of boosting your sales!
Host and promote all your events
As people spend more time surfing the world wide web, it only makes sense for businesses to host more of their events on social media. With platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, it’s easy to schedule, promote, and host live events (like Q&As and webinars).
Team up with others
Companies often partner with other brands to enhance their offering and overall authority in the industry. If you have an established partnership with a brand that’s also active on social media, it’s not a bad idea to hook them into your online content strategy. One reason to do this is to boost awareness of a partner’s involvement in your brand—especially if its mission is something that people gravitate towards or the brand is already an established household name that you want to be associated with. Another reason to partner with another brand is to broaden your reach on social media. You could reach a whole new audience by partnering up with another brand. Definitely consider it as you look into your option for boosting your business online through social media.
Share influencer content
If influencer marketing is part of your social media strategy, make sure you’re making the most out of the content they produce. It’s a huge bonus to have them promoting your content to their large and engaged audiences, again reaching out to other audiences you may not have done otherwise. This is going to be a more fruitful and meaningful partnership if you promote their images and videos on your channels as well. If you can show that the influencer isn’t just in it for the money, and your brand isn’t just doing it for the clout, this partnership will mean a lot more to your target audience.
