f you asked us which three rules you should follow when doing social media for your business we’d happily tell you it’s all about:
- Creating and sharing high-quality content
- Being consistent
- Not taking shortcuts
Doing social media consistently isn’t easy, though! Especially so if you’re running a startup or a small business and you don’t have a team dedicated to running your social media. However, even if you are a creative power behind social media accounts of large companies and you have a team to work with, you’ve likely experienced a day when it feels as if it’s impossible to come up with a fresh new idea for a social media post. On such days, it’s nice to have something to fall back on.
With this article, we aim to help you out through tough times – when you’re drawing a blank and have no inspiration whatsoever for crafting social media posts. These 13 social media post ideas for your business are meant to drive engagement and net you a healthy amount of likes and shares from your fans and followers.
With minor adjustments, you can use all of these ideas on Twitter, Facebook, Istagram and other social media sites.
Show your followers what happens behind the scenes
Your fans and followers on social media are there for a reason. They like your products and they have chosen to invest themselves in your business the moment they hit that “like” or “follow” button on your profile page. This is exactly the reason why behind the scenes posts tend to receive a lot of engagement. There is already curiosity and a sense of fondness for your brand there – it is now up to you to make the best of it.
Your company and the process of creating the products your followers love are an asset you should learn use in order to promote your business on social media.
Even if your day-to-day seems repetitive and mundane to you, to people outside of your organization it is all new and interesting. Satisfy their curiosity and be ready to answer questions from curious fans as they come rolling in!
Pro tip: When taking behind the scenes photos think both as a photographer and a business owner. Naturally, you want to capture engaging and beautiful photos, but you also want to make sure you take photos of your business process and products you feel comfortable sharing with your followers – and your competitors! Because let’s face it, if your competitors know what they are doing they are following you on social media.
Aim to inspire
In general, inspirational quotes can be a hit or a miss depending on a number of factors. When done right they can gain you a lot of engagement but being too cheesy or deviating from your core message and philosophy can backfire and make you look desperate and cheap.
Inspirational quotes are not something you want to share too often, but once or twice a month is a safe amount of times to go inspirational.
To find out what the best day of the week is to share motivational quotes and posts, check out our recent article, ““A hashtag a day” – popular hashtags and when to use them”.
Whenever you decide to go motivational, remember to only go with quotes that relate to your business or products. If you are a company making or selling sporting goods find quotes about sports, athleticism or health. If you’re doing social media for a makeup company, find quotes about beauty, fashion or style!
Pro tip: Most inspirational posts shared across social media are simply words on top of a high quality stock photo. This is a viable solution when you are pressed for time and websites such as Canva (one of our personal favorites!) are a great way to quickly create a beautiful graphic to share on your social media.
However, this is also an approach most people and companies take every day. If you want to stand out consider doing something a bit more creative. Take a photo of a quote that resonates with you whenever you see one or make it your mission to seek one out! By doing something different than the majority you will gain more attention for your post and your brand.
Spotlight your fans – they are your brand ambassadors
One of the most effective ways to get your fans to engage with your brand on social media is by pulling them into your world and rewarding their loyalty and dedication. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is by spotlighting your biggest fans on your social media pages.
Your fans are your brand ambassadors online and offline and they will be delighted to be spotlighted on your page. Invite them to send in photos of themselves using your products, showcase their talents or even reach out to conduct a little interview with them whenever you have a chance!
By seeing people they can relate to spotlighted on your page, your followers are gaining insight into what – and who – matters to you as a brand. There is no better social proof than genuine photos of your fans shared across your social media pages.
Pro tip: Your fans and followers are talking about you and your products on social media all the time. The easiest way to monitor social media posts about your brand on Twitter and Instagram, simultaneously, is with Wallery. Our free plan enables you to track one hashtag of your choosing, and if you’d like to track more, we offer a couple of packages to choose from. With Wallery, you will never miss a great social media post from an appreciative fan ever again!
Share their best work
On Facebook, you can quickly share posts from your fans. Be it a smaller company or a startup looking up to you or a fan showcasing their work on their Facebook profile – as long as the post you are sharing in some way relates to what you do, sharing it with your audience is a kind gesture that will mean a lot to those you choose to give a “shout-out” to.
Again, keep in mind you don’t stray from your brand voice and message. If you are an IT company it makes little sense to share makeup tips, after all.
Twitter is even simpler to manage, as it is a platform where you should already be retweeting and showcasing other people’s work. For best effect, choose to “Quote” a Tweet rather than simply “Retweet” it. This will give you that extra space where you can, in your own words, explain why you chose to share the tweet you are sharing and perhaps even prove your authority on the subject.
On Instagram, things are a bit more complicated. As a platform, Instagram does not offer a way for you to easily share other people’s content, not even if they are your fans. Simply – there is no “Share” button. The philosophy behind this decision made by Instagram is that Instagram is a platform which aims to help you create beautiful content, not share it.
But the community has gotten around this via third party apps and some creativity. You can share Instagram posts from your fans by screenshotting their post, then cropping it and posting to your account, or with a third party app – of which the most popular right now is Repostapp.
Whichever way you decide to go about it, make sure you reach out to your fans and get their express permission to share their content. Simply DM (Direct Message) them and explain why you’d like to feature their photo. In most cases you will get a positive response but if you don’t – no worries! There are plenty of fans out there who will happily give you consent to sharing their Instagram photos.
Pro tip: Even after receiving express consent to share their posts, make sure you credit the fan whose work you are showcasing in the description field underneath the image.
Show off your products
We’ve already established your followers have chosen to follow your social media accounts because they are fans of you – and of what you do.
Give them more of what they love by sharing high quality photos of your products on your social media! There is no need to hire a professional photographer to take good photos of your products. These days it’s enough that you have a fairly new smartphone and some free time.
Find a well-lit area and take a couple of shots of your products. Instagram is full of wonderful product photos taken by people who aren’t professional photographers but have figured out what works for them and their brand. Use their experience as inspiration for your own photos and don’t be afraid to experiment!
Pro tip: For best results, take photos of your products in use, or try and suggest innovative, alternative uses for some of your products. Inspire your followers to use your products in ways they haven’t thought of before!
Introduce your staff!
Often times, your staff members are the face of your brand. In some industries, they are who your customers interact and engage with each time they enter your store. In others, they work behind the scenes but with the same goal – to deliver the best possible service to your users and customers.
Give them some love and show them off on your social media pages! (If they feel comfortable with their pictures shared across social media channels, of course)
Snap a photo of them and explain their role in your organization. Highlighting your staff members is a great way to show your corporate values and it also helps your fans connect with your brand on a more personal level. As humans, we connect with people much better and quicker than we do with ideas and brand logos. This is why a staff spotlight, when done right, can make for a powerful social media post.
Pro tip: For best results, showcase your staff in their natural environment. Photos of staff against a white background are fine, but a photo of your staff members working or interacting with customers will be visually stimulating and communicate their role in your organization in a much better way!
Show me your workspace and I’ll tell you who you are
For some of us, our workspace is our desk or our cubicle. Others have more exciting and versatile workspaces. No matter what we do and where we work, we each have something unique and interesting to show to our fans and followers.
Showcase your workspace as a whole or feature a desk of one of your employees. Capture the personalities of your employees by including all of the things they hold dear in the photo. From the favorite mug and their potted plant to those lego figures they display on their desk and the assortment of colorful pencils they use to take notes. If it’s on their desk it means it matters to them, and those details that matter are exactly what will make for a beautiful photo.
Pro tip: Remember to take photos in a well-lit area and make sure there is nothing in the photo that could potentially be embarrassing, or considered a business secret. Make sure you take these photos together with your employees so that they can decide which items they want to display on their desks and which (like family photos) they would prefer to hide from the eyes of the public
Share the industry news
In case something interesting recently happened in your industry you are in luck! Share industry news with your fans and followers and help them keep up with what is going on in your niche.
Sharing industry news will help you establish yourself as a reputable source, and if you can spare time to share your thoughts on what is going on this will further prove to your fans that you are a thought leader in your industry.
Pro tip: To further engage your followers, use opportunities like these to ask your followers what their thoughts are on the news. Are they excited? Worried? Invite them to talk to you and share their thoughts and experiences. It is at times like these that you can learn a lot about your community and connect with it on a more personal level.
Host a giveaway!
Who doesn’t love winning free stuff? A giveaway is not only a great way to increase engagement on your social media posts – it is also a wonderful opportunity to increase your social media reach and gain new followers.
Organizing a giveaway takes a bit of pre-planning and definitely shouldn’t be something you resort to on a day when you can’t come up with a good post for your social media channels. You will need to read up on the terms of service of your preferred social media sites before hosting a giveaway and put some thought into planning it all, but in the end all of your hard work will be totally worth it. Not just for you – but for your fans and followers, too!
Pro tip: When hosting a contest or a giveaway, try to reward creativity. Consider a photo contest or give your fans a writing prompt and see where their creativity takes them. All out of ideas? Ask your fans why they love your products or ask them what type of content they would like to see more of on your social media pages.
This way, you are not only making your contest more fun for those participating (and spectating!), but you are also gaining earned content (when hosting a photo contest, for instance) and valuable feedback from your fans. (when asking them to answer questions in order to enter the contest) You can later use these in your social media posts, and to further improve your products and services. Everybody wins!
Run a caption contest!
Caption contests are another fun and popular tactic of getting your followers to engage with your brand. All you need in order to run a caption contest is a funny, interesting or otherwise engaging photo and you are good to go! The fans do all the work here.
You can choose to reward the winners of your caption contests but often times people will play just for the fun of it. The more interesting, funny or shocking the photo you choose to share is – the more people will choose to play the game. So get creative and have fun with it!
Pro tip: You can use any photo for your caption contest. From funny animal photos to movie screen grabs – anything can make for a fun caption contest. However, the best thing you can do when running a caption contest is to feature your own product or team photo. Use the fun nature of this contest to promote your products and services to your followers and wider audiences!
Share tips and tricks about your products
Whichever business you are in, we are sure you are getting asked hundreds of questions about your products each day. Take note of the questions your customers tend to ask more often than the others and turn to social media to answer those questions. Depending on how complex your answers are you will choose which social media platform to go to.
For more complex solutions and advice, post on facebook. If you have a quick tip or would like to share a little-known trick that will make your customers lives a bit easier when using your product – turn to Twitter or Instagram.
Pro tip: It is no secret visual content tends to do better on social media. Photos will gain more attention and engagement than word posts and videos tend to perform even better! Whenever possible, try and attach a relevant photo, or even a how-to video that explains in more detail the tip or a trick you are sharing about your product.
Create and share infographics
Infographics are a wonderful mix of engaging images and interesting information all wrapped into one easily shareable and simple to understand package. It’s no wonder audiences of all profiles simply adore them!
You can share infographics you run into online, or create your own. Don’t worry if you don’t have an inhouse designer or a budget to hire one in order to create beautiful infographics. With tools such as Piktochart and Canva anyone can create an infographic! Piktochart and Canva both offer premade templates, but if you’re feeling like creating something from scratch – you can!
As to what to make your infographic about, it is best to make it something related to your business or industry. You can find interesting facts about your industry by simply Googling them.
Pro tip: Keep in mind which platform you are sharing your infographics to, and adjust them accordingly.
Share your infographics in full size on Pinterest and Facebook, but consider making different, smaller versions for Instagram and Twitter. Make content-lighter versions of your original infographic by displaying only a couple of facts and linking to the large, full version in the description when posting to Instagram and Twitter.
This is because Instagram and Twitter will resize large images, and your fans will have issues reading an infographic once it gets shrunken.
How about a weekly roundup?
Weekly roundups are usually presented in a form of a blog post or an article on a website. They are a quick roundup of the articles and news the author found the most interesting and notable that week.
If you have time to create a weekly roundup in form of a blog post, you should definitely go for it! Your followers will appreciate you curating the articles and industry news and they will often get into a habit of visiting your website on weekly basis if they find the content you are sharing is truly the best content put forth that past week. Curating weekly roundups is a great idea and can help you gain even more exposure and become more influential as you briefly share your thoughts on the top articles of the week.
In case you don’t have the time to sit down and write out the weekly roundup – don’t despair! You can share the week’s best and most interesting news and articles on your social media channels.
Pro tip: To make things easier for yourself when the time for a weekly roundup comes about, consider creating a Google document or dedicating a Slack channel and sharing it with the members of your team. Encourage them to share links to interesting and extremely well-written articles in your niche and by doing so – to help you curate the weekly roundup!
Let recurringly popular and evergreen hashtags be your inspiration
Recently, we’ve published an article in which we listed off recurringly popular hashtags each week – and taught you how to research and find evergreen hashtags.
Use these two types of hashtags for a quick dose of inspiration for your social media posts! Post motivation posts on Monday, jump onto that nostalgia train on a Thursday and so on. There is always something to post when you have your daily hashtags at the ready.
A quick cross-promotion
Some of your Twitter followers might not be following you on Instagram. Perhaps you have a large number of Facebook fans, but are struggling with Pinterest growth?
Cross-promotion between your channels is a great way to get some of your followers, who are already invested in your brand, to start following you on other social media networks as well. Take a screen-grab of your profile on the network you’d like to direct your fans to and provide them with a link to get there. Tell them why they should follow you and watch the magic happen!
Pro tip: Your followers are more likely to start following you on more than one social media network if you manage to provide value they otherwise wouldn’t get following only one of your profiles. This is why you should post different kinds of content on different profiles. When they come from Facebook and land on your Twitter page, will they see the exactly same content there? If yes, they likely won’t care enough to follow you on Twitter as well. And why should they – if all they will see is duplicate content?
Different social media networks should be the home to different types content.
Having a strong social media presence has never been more important for brands than it is today. We at Wallery know the power and importance of social media and with this article, we aim to help you create fun and engaging social media posts to share with your fans and followers. Let us know how they worked for you, and feel free to share your own! You can reach us on on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.