Are you wondering what to post on social media?
If you are looking for more engagement, likes, shares, and followers, you will need to ask yourself what kind of content give you the most value. Content is the center of your social media strategy – the key ingredient to how businesses can connect with prospective and loyal customers.
Here’s a newsflash: People don’t follow you because they want to be sold to! They follow you to be educated, inspired, or entertained. Posting a wide range of engaging content assures you will keep your loyal fans happy and attract new ones!
Here are 8 social media content types that will wow your fans every time!
Informational/Educational
An essential category if you consult, coach, train, or teach, allowing you to share small bits of information to showcase your expertise and build trust with your audience. Once they get an idea of your experience, they’re more likely to invest in you and your services.
Here are a few smart ideas to share:
- Answer a FAQ – Answer FAQ’s on a recorded video, image post, or link to your website.
- Ask Me Anything – Jump on Facebook live and answer questions about your niche.
- Blog Post – Share your recent blog post, or a relevant industry post, with a thoughtful caption.
- Infographic (mini) – Share an industry-related graphic and a clever caption. (Check out 7 infographic types here)
- Tips – Share a tip that would be helpful to your audience.
- Tutorial – Share a tutorial video or Facebook Live/IG Reel of something related to your products or services that would be an easy win for your followers.
Entertaining/Engaging (Humor, Interesting)
If there is one thing you should take away from this blog post, remember why your customers are on social media in the first place: to be SOCIAL! People love to enjoy themselves, so be the one to entertain them and attract new followers with some fun content.
According to Buffer, “Content that entertains is often funny, frequently highly shareable, and often can quickly transform a “company” into a “group of people just like me.”
How about these ideas to start:
- Caption This – Share a fun photo and ask your audience to “Caption This” – usually something funny!
- Holiday (National & Non-traditional) – Wish your followers a happy holiday. (traditional or non-traditional)
- Humor/Joke – Share a funny quote or joke with your followers related to your industry.
- Meme – Share a funny meme that reflects your personal or business humor.
- This or That – Share a fun this or that post. (ex. Baked or smoked? Facebook or Instagram?)
- Throwback – Share a fun throwback picture of a team member with a funny caption.
Emotional (Sentimental, Motivational, Inspirational)
Inspirational content is one of the first types of content used on social media. A good inspirational quote can go viral simply because it rings true with so many of your customers that they can’t help but share it!
However, you don’t always have to share a motivational quote to achieve virality. After all, you want to relate it to your business somehow, right? Buffer says, the best kind of inspiration often comes in the form of case studies, customer testimonials, and stories of failures and challenges that successful people have faced along the way.
Check out these examples to get started:
- Good Morning – Share an inspirational or motivational post to wish your followers good morning. This post type creates engagement on both Facebook and Instagram.
- Good Night – Share an inspirational or motivational post to wish your followers good night. This post type creates engagement on both Facebook and Instagram.
- Gratitude – Share an inspirational or motivational post to express what you are grateful for. (Ex. Share thanks to your customers and/or partners, or motivational/faith-based quote)
- Quote – Share one of your favorite quotes. Include a thoughtful caption about why you like the quote to connect further.
Personal (Human, Storytelling)
Storytelling is one of the best ways to make your content rise above the rest. This isn’t a story in the traditional sense, like in a book or other literature, where you tell the story of a character. Instead, storytelling on social media means you are telling your brand’s story. The primary goal is to make connections.
- Taps into our emotions
- Stays with us since the story taps into memory
- Influences our behavior
It’s no wonder that storytelling is such a powerful marketing tool! Take a look at these examples of how to tell your story on social:
- Behind-the-Scenes – Show your audience on Facebook Live, Reels, or a LinkedIn video post, a look behind the scenes of your business. (e.g. photo shoot, videos, etc.)
- Day in Your Life – Similar to behind the scenes share a typical day for one of your employees via video, Facebook Live, Reel, or recorded video on how it relates to your products and partnerships.
- Fan of the Month – Interview or share a quote/bio from one of your faithful followers. (hopefully one of your successful partners or retailers)
- Testimonial – Share a glowing testimonial from a former or current customer or partner, showcasing how your product or service helped them.
Promotional (Freebies, Sales, Discounts)
You’re probably asking yourself, yes, all of this content sounds great, but when do I actually get to promote my business?
Here’s what you’ve been waiting for. YES, you definitely need to promote your business on social media! It’s why we’re all here, right? Here’s the catch: on social media, it’s generally acceptable to directly promote your business 20% of the time. This means that 1 out of every five posts can be a direct promotion.
Here are promotional ideas for your content calendar:
- Coupon – Share a coupon or discount on one of your products or services.
- Freebie – Share a post about one of your lead magnets/free download/etc. (ex. 20% coupon, Free Guide)
- Giveaway – Share a post about a giveaway or contest you are hosting.
- Offer – Share a direct promotional post about your offer.
- Product Promo – Share a post that directly promotes your product.
Social Proof (Testimonials, Reviews, Awards)
Social proof is leveraging the point of view of third parties (users, buyers, supporters) to highlight everything great about your brand. On social media, social proof can be an image of your product in use, a review from someone who used your service, or an award from a trusted organization. Social proof has the power to convince someone to buy simply because of the influence of the person espousing it.
According to Social Media Examiner, here’s why:
- It builds trust. Social proof confirms that other people, businesses, and credible industry figures have used and gotten value from your products or services.
- It creates a fear of missing out (FOMO). Social proof that shares impressive numbers of customers or users encourages more new customers to get on board.
- It establishes authority. Social proof that comes from trusted industry sources can help you position your brand at the top of its niche.
You can get started with social proof creation with these ideas:
- Award Announcement – Announce a recent recognition with a post
- Case Study – Share a case study of one of your past or current wholesalers. Highlight how your partnership benefited them.
- Customer Review – Share a testimonial of one of your happy clients and/or partners
- Quote – Share a direct customer quote with your followers.
- Recommendation – Share a recommendation relating to your product, or just share a personal recommendation of yours that your audience will relate to. (Ex. this can be community-based and not necessarily directly related to your products)
- User Generated – Re-share a post where you were tagged and shared on another account. Tag the original user
Public Relations (Corporate news, Employee Stories)
The purpose of PR is to generate positive buzz around your brand. Gaining positive press around your business builds awareness, and there are many ways on social media to not only share the word but help generate it.
Here are a few ideas to generate positive PR around your brand:
- Company Updates – Share what’s going on in your company.
- Employee Profile – Highlight one of your teammates in a post.
- Event – Share a recap about a recent event you attended or an upcoming event. (ex. Industry conference)
- Guest Blog Post – Build authority by publishing content on popular industry blogs. (and share it on social media!)
- Employee Publishing – Encourage your employees to share on LinkedIn. Their profile will lead viewers back to your company.
- Testimonials – Encourage your users to share about your business through video, images or simple text posts.
- Engagement – Interact with journalists and publishers on Twitter. (share their articles with a @mention)
Customer Service
People are on social media daily, so businesses must go where the customers are. Because so many of them already communicate through social media, using it for customer service makes sense. You can address customer problems quickly and efficiently through a dedicated social media channel, helping you create and maintain a loyal customer base. For example, Hubspot, a large CRM platform, uses Twitter to support its customers.
Check out these tips for providing customer service on social:
- Respond to issues quickly. According to Convince & Convert, 42% of consumers expect a response to a complaint on social media within 60 minutes, and nearly a third of customers expect a response within half an hour.
- Create a hashtag around your support issues so users can follow and react accordingly.
- If you have an angry customer, address the user publicly so other users can see you address the problem, but then request take the matter to a private conversation.
Read on for customer service ideas for your business:
- Tips – Share a tip that would be helpful to your audience.
- Customer Issues – share the solution to a common problem your users have faced.
- Upgrade Announcement – Share updates about upgrades or version enhancements to your product or service
WOW Your Fans with Social Media
We’ve reviewed 8 types of content you can provide for your customers and followers on social media:
- Informational/Educational
- Entertaining/Engaging (Humor, Interesting)
- Emotional (Sentimental, Motivational, Inspirational)
- Personal (Human, Storytelling)
- Promotional (Freebies, Sales, Discounts)
- Social Proof (Testimonials, Reviews, Awards)
- Public Relations (Corporate news, Employee Stories)
- Customer Service
Which ones do you think will work best with your audience?
If you’re struggling to come up with content ideas, we’ve got you covered! Download 30 Days of Content Prompts on our website today! If you’re ready for a partner to help you tackle social media, contact us for a free consultation.
