As a social media manager, it can be really tricky to constantly come up with new ideas to keep your audience engaged. But with everyone in the market pulling out all the stops to post new exciting content, how can you break the social media algorithm and stand out from the crowd?
No fear! We’ve put together some fresh, real-life examples of how you can jazz up your feed and make your posts stand heads above the rest.
Social media posts for business
1. Let people take over!
If you’re lacking ideas, why not let someone else come up with them for you? Give yourself a bit of a break, and get involved with social media takeovers.
Choose an influencer that aligns with your brand and give them free rein (almost) of your brand account for a day. This could simply be a feed post or some how-to stories. It’s great to provide your audience with a fresh new face, but it can also help to get your brand seen by some new eyes too.
If you’re not keen on handing over the baton to someone from outside of the business, you can do this internally! If your marketing team are usually the ones behind the camera, why not get someone from your product team to take the reins?
Fenty Beauty has famously allowed influencers to hop on their stories to show off their skills.
2. Share others’ posts
Again, let others do the talking… and share their posts! If you see something you like posted in your industry, share or retweet it rather than creating a post about it yourself. It’s a great way to take the pressure off, but also share exciting and relevant content that your audience will want to see.
Take a look at how Sprout Social share Ad Week’s blog on LinkedIn.
3. Make use of the platform’s features
As each social media platform continues to introduce new features, why not make the most of it? If you want to overhaul your content plan and give your audience something new and exciting, try out all of the brand new toys.
On Instagram you’ve got Reels, IGTV, Stories and Guides to play with – not to mention all of the new features being added to each of these.
Across each of the platforms, you also can create live videos. With 80% of consumers preferring to watch a live video than to read a blog, it would be silly not to make the most of the feature. Try an open discussion around a content piece you’ve just published, or an improvised Q&A session.
4. Create videos
Fed up with posting the same old branded graphics and images? Get stuck into videos!
Get colleagues doing how-to videos or short, silly clips. Or create an animation on a tool like Canva. With these tools, you don’t have to be a designer to make it look good! Your audience won’t be expecting a Hollywood movie. Simple shots are often the most authentic.
Trial shooting them across live video, IGTV and stories as well as the feed.
Take a look at this super simple animation by The Guardian.
5. Repurpose your own material
If your blogs aren’t performing well on your social feeds, try distributing them in different ways. Take a quote from it to post, make a video version or create an infographic. It doesn’t have to be fancy! Take a look at this handy graphic made by the United Nations.
6. Make a meme
If you want to create relatable content for your audience to share with their colleagues, friends and family, then memes are on the money.
Shareable and engaging, they’re a social media gem if they fit in with your brand’s messaging.
Follow in Netflix’s footsteps, who are notorious for sharing short clips of their tv shows and films alongside a funny caption.
7. Commit to a daily, weekly or monthly series
Have your audience come to expect the same sporadic blog content posted across your channels? Create frequent content at a cadence that they can rely on. Building a weekly series of shoutouts, Q&As or AMAs (Ask Me Anything) is a great way to give your audience something to look forward to at regular intervals. Even better if it’s something they can take part in! If weekly is too much of a commitment, monthly will do just fine! Just give your audience a frequency that they can count on and look forward to. Take a look at this fantastic example from Bill Gates on Twitter.
8. Post polls!
If you really want to get your audience involved in your posts, give them something to answer. Create polls on Twitter to ask for your customers’ or clients’ opinions on an industry topic, or head to your Instagram stories for some speedy poll engagement.
Your customers will be clicking through stories in their downtime and people love to engage with quick questions that are fun and relatable.
In this example, Lowe’s Home Improvement simply asks a cheeky, relevant question to their house-proud customers.