Social Media platforms like Instagram and Facebook are important marketing tools for your business. Using a content calendar, or at least a content strategy, can help you plan ahead and improve social media engagement. That’s why I’ve created these 25 social media post ideas that target five popular content strategies.
When and Where To Post
There are many schools of thought about when and where to post your content. Do you share the exact same posts from Instagram to Facebook? Do you post daily? Do you post at the same time each day? The answer is: it depends.
As a rule of thumb, I don’t promote sharing the exact same content on your Facebook and Instagram accounts. While some of your follows will be unique on each platform, many of them will be the same. As you grow your online communities, you’ll get a feel for the types of content each platform prefers.
To help determine the days and times that work best for you, look at your insights. Both Facebook and Instagram show you the days and times that your personal followers are most active; work with that! As an example, my Facebook followers are active several hours earlier than my Instagram followers. My Facebook posts do better when I post daily, but my Instagram posts do better when I let each post breathe a little so I post only a few times each week.
Watch your analytics as you begin using these content strategies in order to refine your content. When you find a type of post that works better than others, schedule more of those!
Five Content Strategies
One of your main business goals should be to grow the know/like/trust factor with your audience. Your social media platforms are the perfect place to do just that while utilizing two-way communication. Blog comments aren’t nearly as popular as they used to be, but Instagram and Facebook are the perfect places to build community. I’ve broken down my content strategy into five types of social media post ideas:
- Relationship
- Community
- Value
- Promotion
- Fun
Relationship Posts
The first type of social media content is all about YOU. Relationship posts are designed to introduce you (or your brand) to your audience. For many small business, YOU are your brand so these posts will be about you as a person. However, this strategy can also work when your business has its own identity.
Examples:
- About You as an Individual: share a photograph of you. The caption will focus on YOU as a person. For me, these posts share that I’m a wife, mom, teacher. Let your audience connect with you as an individual outside of your business. I keep some of my About posts in this Instagram highlight.
- About You as a Brand: If your small business has its own identity and you as a person aren’t part of that, the about post could be a photograph of your boutique, your logo, packaging, etc. The caption might focus on the goal or mission of your brand.
A few more relationship post ideas:
- video
- behind the scenes
- your story or why
- thank you
Community Posts
The second type of social media content is all about engagement. The goal of these posts is to get comments and make connections. You should meaningfully engage with the responses of each one.
Example:
- Question: Think of a common problem in your niche, provide one of your solutions to the problem, and then ask your audience to comment with the solutions. For me I primarily work with moms who work from home as small business owners, so I might ask for their best scheduling tips that help them #doallthethings every day.
A few more community post ideas:
- shout out someone else in your niche
- encourage your audience to share a tip
- fill in the blank
- share another one of your social media accounts
Value Posts
The third type of social media content should is to give free value to your audience. Of course as a business you want to monetize, but sharing free content also grows the know/like/trust with your audience.
Example:
- Freebie: Freebies can get a bad reputation, but when done correctly and in moderation they can help promote your business. You don’t want to give everything away for free (you are a business, after all), but what you do give away needs to be of value and represent the quality your audience knows and expects from your brand. If you have a freebie that everyone can grab, great {psst, here’s mine that I cycle back through my social media accounts periodically}! But if your business model doesn’t really work for that, consider holding a giveaway where you’ll draw a certain number of winners instead.
A few more value post ideas:
- solve a problem
- answer a FAQ
- favorite resources / websites / etc.
- currently trending article / post / etc. from someone else
Promotional Posts
The fourth type of social media content can feel uncomfortable for many new business owners, but it’s an important part of growth. The key is striking a balance; if you’re sharing lots of the other types of social media content then an occasional promotional post shouldn’t turn off your audience.
Example:
- Review: I loooooove reviews from my clients. Designing someone’s website + branding is a collaborative process and turning over a completed project makes me feel like a proud mama. I almost always hear how easy and fun the process was from my clients; many of whom expressed that they were nervous or had no idea where to start before we began working together. Sharing testimonials from happy clients helps build the trust factor and encourages other new business owners to make the leap and work with me too. Including a call to action on the review helps too.
A few more value post ideas:
- website / blog link
- email list opt-in
- discount / promo code
- advertise product / service
Fun Posts
The fifth and final type of social media content is a reader favorite– fun! Let’s face it… all work and no play can become pretty boring. I have said from the start that I want to keep the social in social media. Sprinkling in just-for-fun posts that are related to your niche can be a great way to increase post engagement.
Example:
- Info Graphic: Info graphics are super popular and even if you aren’t great at making your own, you can share (with credit!) a great graphic from someone else. If you aren’t sure what this would look like, here’s one of my shares.
A few more value post ideas:
- quote
- humor
- fun fact
- throwback
Download
Want to keep these social media post ideas at your fingertips? Download the cheatsheet here.
Learn More About Content Pillars
Utilizing content pillars helps you consistently publish relevant content, which in turn will drive more traffic to your business and strengthen your SEO.
The best way to understand content pillars is to think of them as the foundations for your business. They are used to build your content strategy, determine what information to post, and are overall the basis for all the content you create. You will use these content pillars in your blog posts, email marketing, podcasts, YouTube videos, social media posts, etc. This blog post has more information about creating content pillars.
