Attention business owners: Do you have this problem with your content and social media accounts…
You’ve got great intentions and you’ve scheduled some time to sit down and create your social media content … content for LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus and YouTube – and all the others!
You’re all fired up and ready to go.
You can see it all come together in your mind and it looks mighty fine if you do say so yourself.
But when you sit down at your computer to create, write your plan and content … NOTHING HAPPENS.
You brain goes blank, your mind cluttered, too many ideas, no ideas, don’t know what to write or produce, don’t even know where to start…the enthusiasm you just had is becoming a distant memory.
What happened, you ask yourself. I was just so into it and now I have nothing. Zip. Zero. Crickets.
Now I don’t even know what to write. <face palm moment>
Don’t worry you are not alone. This happens to the best of us and still my team and I come up against this challenge.
It’s a common content problem.
But with content marketing still being more effective than paid advertising … 3x more effective in fact (just in case you wanted the statistic on the subject!), we need to make sure we are creating content consistently and regularly.
As a business owner, you need to be active on social media almost every day … depending on the platform. Let’s have a quick look at each platform, so first of all you know where you stand.
How often to post to social media:
- Facebook: Once a day for business and 3-5 days a week for your personal account
- LinkedIn: Monday – Wednesday – Friday one post a day works well … share valuable content and curate content
- Instagram: You can post stories as much as you like and you can post valuable content and pictures 1-2 a day, every day including weekends
- YouTube: Go for once a week
- Google Plus: is in the process of being shut down so forget about it
- Twitter: As much as you can and be on hand to reply back…up to 5+ posts a day is OK on Twitter
Now, it’s all very well for us to say you need to post this amount, but in reality, this requires a lot of time and writing and creating.
Plus, it means a stack of content. But one of the biggest problems facing business owners is coming up with content and ideas for content.
So how are you going to get around that problem we just talked about if you need to create all this content?
How about, we break down the types of posts you need and how to create them? OK, here’s the lowdown on creating content easily and efficiently.
10 ideas for social media posts that get engagement
- A photo of your office and work area
Don’t worry if it’s messy, show people what you are up today and even write out your to-do list. You can post this across multiple platforms, you could also create an Insta story and a YouTube video for this.
You might also like to turn it into a before and after … before it was messy and unorganised. Now it is clean and tidy.
If you’re not keen on video, then you can do a collage of the pictures. If you need to go out to the stationery shop, take a couple of pics of what you are buying while you are there.
Tell people a story.
- Selfie
OK, this one may not work for LinkedIn but this can be a very engaging post and for some reason we are having a love affair and an addiction to selfies!
So why not jump on the band wagon? One of the things you can do in Facebook groups and even on Instagram (it will take some planning and asking people to send you their selfies do you can post them into your stories) is to have a “selfie-a-thon”.
Popular posts include … “Stop what you are doing right now and take a selfie!”.
Watch what happens! ENGAGEMENT!
- Top tip
People love tips! They are quick and easy to digest. So, let’s give the people what they want! You are a plethora of information … an expert in your industry, so let’s get you sharing all the cool tips and tricks you have that will really help your audience navigate their way through <insert your industry here>.
Make the time to write down 52 tips, that’s one for every week and, hey presto, creating content just got a whole lot easier, don’t you think?
- Ask a question
One of the most engaging pieces of content you can write … is to actually just answer a question.
This could be a burning industry question or just a common (frequently asked) question. One of the best to answer though is a client question. What questions do you get asked all the time?
- Share a piece of content
What have you been working on lately? A blog post, video, eBook? Share it out to the world and your audience with a note on how it will help them if they take the time to download and read said piece of content.
Your audience on LinkedIn will especially love this form of post.
- Invitation
Invite your followers to an event or a workshop you have happening…make it interesting and personally invite them. It might be to a speaking engagement you have. It could also be a retreat you are attending.
It doesn’t need to be your event, it could be a networking event you are going to. Ask people to join you.
- Introduce your team
Just like your office post, your clients and audience enjoy knowing what you are up to within your business. So why not introduce them to your team?
If they are dealing with or working with your team more than you, this is a great way for everyone to get to know each other and put as fact to the name.
Not only is it a great piece of content to create but it’s also goes a long way for your customer experience and satisfaction.
- Video interview a customer
The social media channels are loving video right now; it’s one of the biggest trends to hit the social stratosphere this year and isn’t likely to go anywhere. Most of the social media platforms are favouring it, so it’s in your best interests to favour it too!
If you don’t know where to start when it comes to creating video content, why not just start with a quick interview? Interviews are easy to pull together.
All you need to do is write down 3-5 questions and then find a willing subject.
One of your customers (or even your team) will be easy to find. You can do it face to face or online and record it and then post it. You can go live to do it or pre-record it.
It can be as long or as short as you like! Just give it a go!
- Share your business story
Every business and business owner has 100 stories to share! But one of the most engaging and intriguing to your audience is how you started your business…what happened?
You can also make this as long or short as you feel necessary. For a social post, it might be 100 words. For a blog post, go for 500+ words, for LinkedIn (with some other info added into it) 1500 words, or a 2-3-minute video for social and YouTube.
The biggest part you want to cover is why you started your business. Why do you get up every morning ready to serve people? Why is your business worthwhile to you and your customers?
- Share something random
This can be anything you like a statistic, fast fact, inspirational quote, something that motivates you … anything at all.
These are the most fun and engaging post because people love random information and these types of post are memorable.
Content creation doesn’t need to be hard, it’ doesn’t need to be time consuming and it certainly doesn’t need to make you stress out because your ideas suddenly go up in a puff of smoke when you sit down to the computer.
Just bookmark this post and come back to it at any time you need a dose of motivation, ideas and inspiration.
SOMETHING MORE?
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- Grab our free 4-Week LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Course
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- Work with our team privately
If you’d like to work directly with us to create new marketing opportunities send us a quick message Click here … tell us a little about your business and we’ll organise a time for a deeper chat.