Content Ideas for Social Media

Need help coming up with Content Ideas for Social Media?

Have you ever posted what you thought to be the worlds greatest status update on your social media business pages, only to find out no one seems to care? You’re not alone. Many social media content providers, managers and every day business owners posting on social media are still using the “dart board” approach to managing their social media postings.

Always coming up with delicious content to serve up on your social platforms can be difficult – especially when you need to balance your posts with what is happening in and around your business, in and around your industry and being a little entertaining at the same time.

Getting your left brain and right brain to work together to come up with content ideas for social media is most often easier said than done.

Fear not, here are some content ideas for social media designed to help spark a little creativity and help with coming up with engaging status updates.

Photos

Pictures, graphics and images continue to be the the most engaging posts on social media. Why? Because our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter and the information available on social media is growing and growing. People scan through their social feeds and when an image grabs their attention, they stop and look. Take advantage of trends on social media such as #TBT (Throwback Thursday) and #FBF (Flash Back Friday) – these are popular hashtags that cover both Facebook and Twitter – people searching on these hashtags are likely to stumble upon your content as well! Don’t overlook staff photos, company event photos, and even videos (as long as they aren’t too long).

Infographics

Infographics are still quite popular – search out ones that match your industry and repost them.

Polls

Ask questions for your audience to provide answers to. “Happy Monday, what’s in your coffee today?”, “TGIF – Plans for the weekend”, “We are creating a new widget – what color would you like it to be”, etc. Create some “fill-in-the-blank” questions that go along with an image – “This car would look best in my ___________.”

Tips and Tricks

Quick tips and tricks can make for engaging posts. Don’t be too wordy.

Quotes

Quotes about the industry you are in are general well received by your audience, they generally don’t spark much engagement per se, but usually will garner a few more “likes”, +1, or retweets.

Hashtags

These can be effective little tools for engagement but word of warning: Don’t over do it! There are many people on the social web coming up with what seems to be hashtags for nearly everything #MyDogIsCute, #HashtagsRule, #EatingPizza, etc. No one is really looking for these terms. You can assign hashtags to part of your company name or ongoing events you hold. Get people used to using those hashtags when they tweet or update their status – if the events are ongoing, these hashtags will start to spread throughout the social sphere.

Articles and Blogs

One of the often overlooked benefits of social media is its ability to drive traffic to websites containing contextual information or blog articles. In order for this to be effective, come up with a catchy status update that will inspire the reader to click through the link and land on the article. Most people use “Click here to read our last blog post” (boring). Try this instead “Got a minute? We have 7 easy ways to help you create social media content.”

Dick Fisher is the founder and Chief Social Officer of e-Merge Online Marketing – providing social media management, coaching and training for businesses.