Social media is a wildly effective medium for customer engagement and brand promotion. However, social media marketers often struggle to come up with fresh ideas.
In fact, creating click-worthy content is the hardest part of any social media marketing strategy. It doesn’t help that social media followers are constantly hungry for new content.
So, don't recycle old posts over and over again and hope for clicks. Instead, use the social media content ideas below to boost your brand:
Run a Poll
Social media channels like LinkedIn and Facebook feature in-built polling capabilities to gather feedback from fans. Naturally, people love participating in conversations and sharing opinions. Thus, polls are excellent social media post ideas to get followers excited about a new product. For instance, you can ask, "Which of our products do you love the most?" or "what features will you appreciate the most in our new line of products?"
Open-ended questions draw the most attention. For example, a restaurant can ask followers which recipes they want to learn at home and use the feedback to create content. Yes or no polls like those are on Instagram stories are great for quick polls. You can customize the responses to advertise your product catalog or engage followers in fun quizzes.
Keep it short and sweet when using polls on social media. Also, don’t bore your audience with frequent polls as it quickly becomes repetitive. Instead, use interesting polls once or twice a week to boost engagement.
Host Contests
Everyone loves free stuff. For this reason, giveaways are great content ideas for social media. Typically, businesses use contests to multiply profits or gather customer reviews and testimonials.
Before running a contest, pick the prize that will excite people the most, like money, coupons, gift cards, and products, and plan how long the contest will run. To reap the most benefits out of giveaways, ask followers to tag friends, use specific hashtags, or like your posts to enter. Finally, announce the winner by a blog post or by tagging them in the announcement.
Although contests are excellent social media posts, adhere to the contest rules of the chosen platform. Equally important, set the terms and conditions to prevent unprecedented issues along the way. If you want to run a giveaway every few months, set a budget at the start of the year.
Create Videos
Social media video content drives engagement and captures attention better than static images. Visual content is particularly effective in advertising, as 80% of users remember a video ad they saw in the past 30 days. What’s more, 45% of people scroll through Facebook or YouTube videos every week for more than an hour.
There are many ways to use visuals on social media. For instance, employees can take followers behind the scenes for a sneak peek into your production process. Another type of content is how-to-videos which showcase new ways to use your products.
If you want to build trust, use live video to show real-time highlights or invite guest speakers on Facebook Live to make things more exciting. Lastly, turn a well-performing post into a vibrant infographic and share it on social media platforms.
User-Generated Content
If you have run out of in-house social media content ideas, your followers will save the day with user-generated content (UGC). Essentially, user-generated content is the images, videos, memes, or other content your audience creates for your brand. For example, a shopping mall can encourage shoppers to share pictures under a specific hashtag as they dine and shop. Then, the mall can repost or retweet the photos on their own accounts.
User-generated content is effective because it builds a community. In particular, people are more willing to use your products and services if their social media circle vouches for them. However, ask permission before you repost a user’s content. Also, don’t repost all posts with your campaign’s hashtag. Instead, choose the best content with high-quality visuals and engaging captions.
Where to Show Off Your Social Media Content
Now that your epic social media content is published, it is time to promote it in other avenues. First, add branded social icons on the company website for your audience to discover the social media channels you are on.
Then, promote your best social media content on email newsletters and tell people why they should engage with your social media. Common incentives include updated industry information, discounts, and promotions.
Social walls on digital signage displays are another great way to promote social media. For this, you need powerful digital signage software. With this digital signage tool, you can collect content from different social media platforms and even share real-time feeds. What's more, interactive signs let customers participate in social media contests, hashtags, and games.