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When I deliver training, I’m always asked “how often should we be posting on social media”. While there’s no definitive answer to this question, whether I say eery day or every week, the answer usually results in the business groaning at the thought of creating that much content.
How can they possibly come up with that many content ideas?
Content idea generation can be tricky for sure. Quality is definitely more important than quantity. But what if you struggle to think of even one good post a week?
Here are 10 things that will help you generate content for social media.
1. BRAINSTORM
Grab a piece of paper and in the middle write down the main topic of your business (e.g. mine would be social media). Set yourself a ten-minute timer and in that ten minutes, branch off from that topic with everything you can think of about it that could be turned in to a social media post. It may be that some of these ideas can be branched off from again with more posts (e.g. I could branch off with Instagram and then branch off from this again with 20 posts I could create about Instagram).
Have a look through your ideas, cross out those that won’t work and tick those that will. I bet you’ll have at least 10 content ideas within those 10 minutes!
2. RESEARCH HASHTAGS
What are the key hashtags for your industry? Search these hashtags on the platforms you are present on and see people are talking about with these hashtags. For example, if you were a personal trainer, you might search #weightloss or #fitness. Jot down all the content you see that has had a good response, with lots of likes and comments. This shows that it has resonated with the audience.
The key is to not then plagiarise and copy this content. It is to have your creativity sparked with ideas that you could turn in to your own posts, in your own voice, with your own take on that topic.
3.FOLLOW INDUSTRY INFLUENCERS
By following industry influencers, again your creativity will be sparked by their content. Again, pay attention to the content that is resonating particularly well with their audience. And, once again, don’t plagiarise, but use their content to spark your own ideas. It’s also a good idea to not share similar content to them on the same day. Create somewhere, such as your notes or a content calendar, to write down content ideas to share in the future.
4. HAVE A GOOGLE SESSION
You can’t beat Google for when you get really stuck! Simply Google a topic area that your customers could come to you for help with (e.g. an accountant might Google “how to cut costs in my business”) then look at each point that comes up in Google as a potential post.
5. REPURPOSE BLOG POSTS
Why reinvent the wheel when you may have already created the perfect content? A blog post like this, with 10 individual points, offers the opportunity for 10 individual posts. Look through your old blog content and create individual posts out of blog posts that list a number of points. You can also link people to the blog post at the end of the post to allow them to read it in full.
And what should you do if you don’t have a blog on your site? Add one!!!
6. WHAT DO YOUR CUSTOMERS ASK?
What are the typical questions you get from customers? If you customers are asking these questions, your potential customers probably have the same questions too. Create content that answers these questions.
7. JOIN FACEBOOK GROUPS
On a similar line, join Facebook groups that have your potential customers in. Even if you don’t participate, these can be a goldmine for understanding what potential customers need help with that you could provide in the form of a social media post. You can search groups for topics to go straight to questions relating to your industry.
8. READ INDUSTRY ARTICLES DAILY
Be ahead of the game by knowing what is going on in your industry. Make it a habit twice a day to have a quick check in with industry news. Is there anything breaking or any new developments that your audience need to know about? If you only hear about them yourself a few days after the news broke, someone else will have already let your audience know.
Reading industry articles is also great for sparking ideas for future posts. Add those to your content bank and it’ll soon get full!
9. LOOK AT WHAT CONTENT HAS WORKED WELL FOR YOU IN THE PAST
There is no harm in resharing content you have previously shared. Especially if that content went down particularly well with your audience and generated a lot of engagement the first time round. It’s probably a good idea to change it up in some way, maybe with a new image or a change in text. You can also share videos from the past, and add that, while the video was shared a while ago, the points raised in it are still completely valid.
Look through your insights and analytics from the past year and see which content performed best, then think about how you could recreate that audience. If it was a while ago, chances are a good proportion of your audience didn’t even see it the first time round.
10. KEEP A PLACE FOR CONTENT IDEAS HANDY
Yep, we all get our best ideas in the shower. But it’s not ideal for jotting down ideas is it? I also tend to get great ideas when I’m walking the dog, so I’ll always have my phone on my and will add the ideas to the notes section straight away. The way, I also have the ideas on my MacBook. Have somewhere handy that you can jot down ideas the minute they come to you so you don’t forget them next time you have a pen and paper to hand.
And if you find you are still struggling for content ideas, why not get my free download of 100 CONTENT IDEAS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA. Work your way through the list of 100 ideas, tick those that could work for your business, cross out those that won’t, and you’ll make a great start in coming up with lots of content ideas!
You can get your hands on the download HERE!
