Engage Your Followers with These Social Media Post Ideas
The world of social media is extremely competitive. Anyone can make an account, write, and share posts. Due to this, no matter who you are, there are a ton of accounts out there who look just like yours.
What social media ideas will make you stand out against the competition?
The key is to listen to your followers, engage with them, and post the kind of content they want to see. These social media post ideas will help you create a content calendar that both you and your followers will love.
As a business owner, the idea of finding social media post ideas every single day can seem like a pretty daunting process. There are social scheduling tools you can use to streamline this process and schedule posts in advance! Our personal favorite tool for scheduling posts is Hootsuite. Here you can schedule a month’s worth of posts in no time with the free version of the tool. Which means we have more freedom to focus on responding to followers throughout the whole month.
If you’re planning out your social calendar now, you may be wondering, “What should I post?” Well, there’s plenty of content to share that your followers will like and also engage with! Here are some examples of the content your followers want to see.
Share Your Blog Content on Social Media
If you’re not doing this already, you definitely should be. Your team puts a lot of time and effort into maintaining your business’ blog, so why not share that valuable content with your followers? It directs followers to your website, educates them, and may compel them to contact you about your services/products.
The content you choose to share should almost always be the “top of the funnel” (TOFU) kind of content. It’s the content meant for the awareness stage of the marketing funnel. It is intended for people who are either new to your business, or people who are familiar with your industry and want specific tips/information. However, it is important to recognize that sharing white papers and brochures will not be as effective on social media (most of the time).
Share Other People’s Social Posts on Social Media
The reason why your followers like to see you share other people’s social posts is simple: it makes you seem more genuine! It looks less like you want to sell to people (even though you do) and more like you want to provide your followers with resources. The guidelines for this includes a couple of rules. Don’t share direct competitors’ social posts and always make sure the post is relevant to what you do.
If your business is location-specific and community involved, share a few posts about things going on locally! Create a space in the community for your business. This helps to create a sense of customer loyalty and it shows your followers that you care about your town/city.
Share Visuals on Social Media
Today’s social media users rely heavily on visuals while scrolling through their newsfeed. This includes high-quality pictures, graphics, GIFs, and videos. Your followers are much more likely to stop and look at a video or image than a plain text status. As a matter of fact, every single one of the posts you share to social should have a visual attached along with it.
Videos and pictures relating to your business, location, products, and team members give your followers a sense of who you are. Graphics and infographics are great resources for followers that are easy to digest and share.
As a rule of thumb: if you have a visual to go with a post, you should absolutely use it.
Low on high-quality pictures? Here is a list of free use stock photo websites to use on occasion.
- https://www.pexels.com/
- https://unsplash.com/
- https://pixabay.com/
- https://stocksnap.io/
- https://www.reshot.com/
- https://freestocks.org/
- https://gratisography.com/
- https://skitterphoto.com
Need some free-to-use GIFs? Here are a couple of great resources.
A lot of these GIFs are easily found and accessible on Facebook plugins too. Use them to react to followers in the comments or as part of a status! The purpose of GIFs is to be funny and show your personality as a business.
Royalty-free stock video is a bit harder to come by, but Pexels has a gallery of stock video footage you can use however you want.
Post Business Promotions on Social Media
Don’t get it twisted. Just because your followers may not want to be “advertised to” doesn’t mean they don’t want to know about deals. If your business has a promotion going on, be sure to share on social so your followers know!
This also serves as an incentive for your followers to keep following you. They get valuable industry information, they’re entertained, and they get exclusive deals. Perfecto!
Post Questions for Followers on Social Media
Another thing that followers want is to be asked questions. Posting questions to followers on social media engages your audience and shows that you care about their opinion. For example, if you were a candle making company, you could say:
“Collins Candle Company is looking for new candle scents! What’s your favorite scent combination? Comment below, and we’ll pick our favorite in the comments to make next.”
Here, you can either choose to keep it as is or add in an incentive like this:
“Whoever’s scent combination is chosen will receive the first candle made, on us!”
Lastly, asking your followers these important questions teaches you more about your customers. As “Collins Candle Company”, it would teach you what smells your followers like. Did most of your followers share earthy scents like pine or sandalwood? Now you know and you can use this information to inform future candle making decisions.
So, there you have it! Follow these social media post ideas to publish social content that your followers will love. Keep it educational, visual, and fun! Your followers will love it, and it will compel new people to get on your bandwagon and follow you too.
If you have any questions about these ideas or would like to talk to a social media specialist for some help, reach me below!
Kelsie Collins
Content Writer and PM
kelsie at heartbrain dot marketing
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