Most businesses today understand the importance of having a social media marketing strategy for SEO, brand building, and customer engagement, but coming up with new content ideas time and again can be a struggle.
Photos, graphics, and videos are an important part of the mix, but sometimes you just want to write about something, and your readers want you to write about something.
[Tweet “Stuck for something to say on social media? Here are 20 simple ideas to get you posting again…”]The following list of ideas covers a wide range of topics and should keep you inspired for a while to come.
- Quotes. Inspirational, funny, or thought-provoking – quotes are a simple yet effective way to strengthen your brand’s image and provide short-form content that is easily digestible and shareable.
- Ask your audience questions about your products and services. Think about what you want to learn. What questions can you ask that will give you an insight into consumer behaviour? For example, “What can we do to improve our service? Send us your ideas, and the best idea will receive a free…”
- Ask questions about your audience to show you care about what they think. You can use the feedback to learn about the profile, opinions, and motivations of your target audience, and tailor future content to fit in with their needs.
- Recommend a free tool or resource you think your audience would find useful. For example, a book that’s relevant to your products or services, a helpful white paper, or an app that your customers could use.
- List your most popular products. Recommending some of your top-selling products – especially if you’re an ecommerce site – is a simple way to market your products without the hard sell. You’re just telling your customers what your best-sellers are, after all.
- Write about a more creative or surprising way to use one of your products. You might have to ask your followers for ideas on this one.
- Post your expert opinion on an industry topic. Whatever thoughts you have about a topic within your industry – tell the world about it (within reason!) It helps strengthen your credibility and lets your audience know you’re not just a faceless business.
- Be controversial, or play devil’s advocate. Is there a controversial topic related to your industry? Tackle the issue head-on. It’s a great way to start a conversation around your brand.
- Share a selection of links to other great pieces of content related to your business, products, or services. Perhaps you’ve read a great blog post by a leading industry figure. Share your thoughts on the post and then post the link.
- Write about breaking industry news. Use Google Alerts or other marketing tools so that you’re up to date with the latest news and events.
Google Alerts is a great too to keep you in the loop with what’s happening online
- Share company news. Is there something new happening with your business? Perhaps you’re hiring for a new department, or you’re releasing a new product? Share it with your followers.
- Write about your employees. You could do a set of employee interviews as a series of Facebook posts, and in turn, show your customers the real people behind your business.
- Publish a series for your social media channel, like a blog post series. For example, do a five-post series from Monday to Friday, with a similar theme throughout.
- Speculate about the future direction of your niche or industry.
- Do you have an event planned, like a trade show, conference, or webinar? Let all your readers know about it, even if you’re only attending.
- Share with your audience the ins and outs of your working day. Whether you’re a designer, writer, manager, or MD, giving people an insight into your daily routine is a great way to build trust.
- Post a tip of the day. Think about the problems your target audience may encounter with your products and services, and offer useful solutions.
- FAQ. Do your customer service team have a question that comes up time and again? Do you get regular emails asking a similar question? Put the answers out there in the form of an FAQ for your social media followers.
- Monitor your social media comments regularly and respond to as many as you can. It’s important for reputation management, and useful to know what your audience is thinking.
- Ask your readers what they want to know. What topics do they want you to cover? As well as showing you care about what they think, it’s useful for generating more content ideas.
Conclusion
When you have a social media presence on one or more channels, you can discover content ideas just from listening to your own readers’ comments and exploring other social media pages in your niche.
Hopefully, these suggestions will add to your arsenal of content marketing tools and help you deliver meaningful content to your social media audience for years to come.
Your Say!
If you draw a blank, how do you come up with new ideas for content? Do you have any suggestions that we haven’t covered? Please share your ideas in the comments section below.