Do you struggle coming up with social media marketing content ideas for your social media channels? If yes, then you’re not alone. Content is the gasoline for social media marketing. Lacking social media marketing content ideas can ruin your social media presence. However, many marketers face this challenge of coming up with novel social media marketing content ideas.
Also, the content they create, doesn’t get desired level of audience engagement. This article will spot some of the finest tips, tools and strategies for creating social media content ideas that helps you humanize your business conversations.
First Questions Yourself
- Why my audience should click on this?
- How it brings audience closer to my brand?
- Would I like or share this?
When you ask these questions to yourself in an objective manner, you will end up posting content which is contextual to your audience and your business. You need to mix up a variety of social media marketing content ideas to engage your audience. I have made a list of top social media marketing content ideas that have spruced up my social media presence.
Here Are Top 25 Amazing Social Media Marketing Content Ideas Which Can Be Used To Find And Create/Re-Use Valuable Content For Your Social Media Marketing Efforts:
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Reach Out to Influencers in Your Industry
Make a list of top 3 leaders in your industry and reach out to them by a tweet or comment. Starting a conversation with the right influencers in your industry can get you higher brand visibility. Put a question or ask for opinion on certain topic that is common to both of you as well your target audiences. This is a gradual process however if done properly, it can be one of the best source of content creation for your social platforms.
2. Post Memes or GIFs
Before I talk about the Graphics Interchange Format (the GIF’s short, formal name) and Memes, first, have a look at some of the key numbers:
- 23 million GIFs are posted to Tumblr every day.
- Facebook Messenger sees more than five million pass through daily.
- Slack counts more than two million GIF integrations each month.
Astonished?
I am not! They are getting popular day by day. Even organizations like NASA uses GIFs of satellite imagery to transit important information, and Buzzfeed recently used GIFs to explain Greece’s debt crisis. Go ahead and create your own GIFs or Memes. You can also find GIFs with the latest and newest hashtags here! Search, discover and share your favorite Memes GIFs.
“It’s easier to be funny with a GIF than with your own words,” – Adam Pash
Adam Pash is a developer, writer, and formerly the editor-in-chief of Lifehacker, one of the internet’s most popular web sites. Pash developed the record-your-own-GIF app And Then I Was Like. Try it now.
3. Leverage Your Blog Articles
Share your blog posts on social media channels. This will work both ways for you – your blog will be promoted automatically and the best way to get your blog seen is to share it on your own social media platforms. Evercoast keeps sharing its digital marketing blog posts on social media channels that is relevant for both its business and audience.
You know it’s relevant to your business because it came from your business only.
4. ‘Appealing Question’ Post
Use different aspects of communication and ‘questioning’ is one of the most potent among them. To engage your audience, ask them questions.
Such posts provide your audience an opportunity to showcase their knowledge and gratify their curiosity. Question can be asked through a contest or poll. You can even ask them to predict a result of related event or give them multiple options.
5. ‘Did You Know’ Trivia Questions & Answers
People love to know interesting trivia about their related filed. You should post engaging content and help people know new perspective.
There are always many interesting facts and figures about any topic / industry / geography /event. Just Google it and use these facts in creative posts.
6. Answer the Client’s Potential Objections
Make a quick cheat-sheet with possible objections raised by clients in your industry. These objections may be their pain points, current trends, industry dynamics, validation of your solution or much more. Write down the answer in a crisp manner (would be better if it is supported by some data). Start posting these answers on your social channels. These posts will be a great way to tell your audience that you’re an expert in your field and how you can help your clients grow their business. It’s a potential source of content creation for social media channels as well as a tool to establish your thought leadership. Just be careful that your answers should not smell ‘sales’ in any form. If it does, it will back fire. Hence, try to be a reliable source of insights and information. Nothing Less. Nothing More.
7. Customer Testimonials and Reviews
It’s important to blow your own trumpet and let your light shine. And there is no better way to do that than using authentic endorsements of your business by your customers. However, the truth is – testimonials are one of the most underutilized marketing assets across B2B and B2C businesses. Social media channels are one of the best way to do that. Start promoting your customer testimonials and reviews on your social media channels. Create a great design with customer’s feedback and post it. Ensure that you position / promote the testimonials with an attitude of gratitude.
And, last but not the least, don’t forget to include your customer’s name/handle!
8. Post Solution / Product / Services Videos
Admit it – the buck stops with your product / solution / services. At the end of the day, it’s your solution / product /services you want to sell to your customers. So, start creating short duration videos for your niche and post them on your social media channels. Visuals are eye-catching when your audience is scrolling through their news feed. It’s been proven time and time again that visuals help improve engagement, but what about videos?
Recent studies shows that:
- Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined.
- 51% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
- Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users.
Not Convinced Yet?
Don’t worry. Your will get convinced sooner than later by seeing your competitors doing the same.
9. Curated Content
Content works like an oxygen for social media marketing. Not just any content – You need original content, interesting content, engaging content. However, creating original content is a long and tedious process. In Content Marketing Institute’s 2015 survey, the top two content marketing challenges that B2B marketers face were:
1. Producing engaging content (54% of marketers)
2. Producing content consistently (cited by 50%)
The reality is that most brands don’t have enough unique content to fill up their entire social media calendar. This challenge can be met with curated content.
80% of marketers share 3rd-party content to improve company visibility and buzz.
For the uninitiated, here is a quick brief on Social Media Content Curation:
Social media content curation is the process of organizing and sharing top-quality content from around the web on your social media platforms.
You can curate content from a wide variety of online sources, including trade publications, social media profiles, blogs, scientific journals, news outlets, and more.
Here is a quick list of content curation tools for you:
- Klout
- Feedly
- Startafire
- Trendspottr
- Google Alerts
- Curata
- Storify
10. Celebrate a Day
There are famous holidays, festivals and national / international days. Create engaging posts around such occasions and days. Wishing your fans on Thanks Giving, Diwali or New Year can make the page more humane and alive.
Such posts can instantly connect with your audience and encourage them to engage with your brand in subtle ways.
11. Post Career Opportunities
Use social media smartly to promote your brand through showcasing job openings in your company. It shows that your business is growing.
You can use your existing fans network to find out your next employee. Through your fans’ extended network, your company can reach out to much wider audience.
12. Highlight Newly Hired Team Members
You’ve completed your hiring process and have found the right candidate.
What next? It’s time to highlight the new team members in your post with their brief bio and interests.
This will not only help you introduce and welcome your new employees to the world but also gives a human touch to your business conversations.
13. Go for Infographics
This is visual age – less text and more pictorial. And nothing can be better than an info-graphic to tell a long story in concise yet appealing manner. People just love going through the highlighted statistics in a graphic form. It not only saves lot of time for them but also, it’s easy on the eyes. If you can create in-house info-graphics that would be great. Otherwise, you can use curated info-graphics to attract people’s attention.
14. Showcase Your Company’s Work Culture
Every organization possesses a certain personality. Your social media channels are perfect place to showcase it in positive light Post the photos of the fun events held for employees. Cover any kind of award & reward ceremony and publish the company’s star performers.
Talk about any upcoming event(s) that your company is going to attend. Try to build some engagement around it in advance. Promote any charity work taken by your company or your annual event. Anything that throws some positive light on company’s work culture is worth sharing with the world.
15. Share Quick Tips
The modern user is burdened with too much information. He needs content that can be scanned quickly and still do the job.
That’s where ‘quick tips’ can help. Focus on key areas of your business around which you build a list of most important ‘Quick Tips’ or ‘How To’. Ask yourself – is it really an important tip? If yes, am I presenting it in a quick manner as promised as a Quick Tip?
16. Run Contests
Contests are the best way to create some buzz for your brand and re-activate your idle fans.
Create an interesting contest with some freebies offered as a reward and encourage fans to participate. For maximum participation, keep the contest rules simple and straight.
17. Industry News
Keep an eye for latest industry news and trends in your business. Make a comprehensive but contextual list of such sources – social pages / websites / publications.
Such news and articles are good fit to be shared on social media marketing and they get highest engagement from the audience. Follow these accounts and engage with them. Share or retweet their posts on your channels.
18. Answer the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Your Industry / Business
Make an all-inclusive list of frequently asked questions related to your brand, business and industry. Keep the answers concise and if possible, support them with some data. Try to present them in some creative manner. This will also help you create a repository that can be used on multiple online platforms.
19. Share Podcast Episodes
Podcast is an innovative way to engage with your social media fans. Topics for podcast can be varied but they should focus on customer-centric issues only. Create a podcast today and if you need some guidance on how to do it, check this postto get started.
20. Post Live Videos
Believe it or not – there can’t be anything better than a ‘Live Video’.
And social media has played a huge role in making them so popular. Almost every major social media platform has launched this feature of posting ‘Live Videos’ in last one year or so. It’s up to you to choose the right platform and start posting live video stories around your business. You can even mix this type of post with another type – Quick Tip or Did You Know.
21. Endorse Newsletter / Webinars Sign-Ups Posts
We all need to build our subscriber base. That can be done through promoting the sign-ups forms across all online mediums. Then, what is stopping you to use social media to promote it?
Post/Share the sign-up link for your newsletter, webinar, event, product demo on social media platforms.
This will not only help you build your subscriber list but also promote your brand in subtle ways.
22. Post Inspirational Quotes / One-liners
Everyone loves inspiring quotes. They always work.
Try to strike a balance between typical inspirational quote posts and quotes form industry leaders.
The quotes from your industry leaders can be about current trends, changing business landscape, industry pain points or success stories. Such quotes will have strong connect with your audience than a generic quote.
23. Host A Twitter Chat
What is a Twitter chat?
A tweet chat is a live Twitter event, usually moderated and focused around a general topic. To filter all the chatter on Twitter into a single conversation a hashtag is used. A set time is also established so that the moderator, guest or host is available to engage in the conversation.
Twitter chats offer social media marketers an opportunity to network better. It revolves around one hashtag – relevant to your brand, business or industry. Try to find out / create a hashtag that you would like to use for naming your Twitter chat. But avoid using any active hashtag used by another brand.
“Twitter chats are business networking events – minus the dress code.” Buffer App Blog
If leveraged properly, your fans and their network will see this hashtag and may engage with your brand though this hashtag. It ensures higher brand visibility for your business.
Key points to follow when hosting a Twitter Chat:
· Create a clear and succinct hashtag related to your brand
· Pick a day and time for executing Twitter chats
· Introduce a relevant topic and prepare a list of questions around it
· Start promoting your Twitter chat
24. User-Generated Content
People love to share their opinions, comments, feedback for the published content. This is called ‘User-generated Content’. It’s up to you to pick out the right content form the heap of this ‘User-generated’ content and promote it on your social media channels. You can even promote such fans’ content to present them as your social ambassador to garner better brand visibility and engagement.
25. Post Client Success Stories
Talk about your company’s case studies / client success stories on social media channels. Create a smart post that briefly showcases client’s challenge, your solution and business impact. Such posts will have more impact compared to typical posts as they talk about real life business situations and their solutions. Hence, create and post the most of them.
Summing Up
Now, you have come to understand different type of social media marketing content ideas that can be posted on your social media channels. You can mix up the variety of these social media marketing content ideas and then find out your most popular content types. The goal is to deliver content in diverse forms and get the best ROI out of your social media marketing efforts.
Have you used similar kind of social media marketing content ideas on your social channels before?
What was the impact?
Are you ready to jump in and mix up the social media marketing content ideas to great extent?
Let me know in the comments section below or tweet me @iamnitinmalik.
