50 Ideas for Social Media Posts
It can often be a real challenge for business owners to find something new to post across various social media channels on a consistent basis. However, it is vitally important to keep your channels fresh and interesting for your audience to keep them engaged.
My number one tip for social media content is to switch from the mindset of “creating” or “generating” posts but instead consider documenting life inside your business. If you start documenting, you’ll find it much easier to come up with content as everything you do could form the basis of a social media post. Think about what you do, every day, that could be interesting to your audience, and find a creative way to document this online.
To help get you started, I’ve created a list of 50 actionable social media post ideas. Each should work well on any of the major social media platforms.
People Posts
We’ve all heard quotes such as “people buy from people”. The same is true to a certain extent on social media. Generally, posts that include photos of people related to the business often get more engagement and as a result a bigger reach. Below are some ideas for people posts that you can incorporate into your social media strategy.
1. Photos of your employees
Your employees are an easy place to start. If your business is particularly public facing this will be even more effective. Your employees represent your brand and can often be familiar faces to your existing customers. Make the most of this and include them in your photos. Just make sure you get their permission to do so, preferably in writing.
2. Introduction to new employees
Another quick win is to introduce new members of your team to your audience on social media. As the business owner, it gives you some extra content, the new employee will feel valued within the team and your customers feel informed about what is going on at your business.
3. Awards achieved by you or your team
Everyone loves a success story. If you or a member of your team pick up an award or new qualification be sure to shout about it. This not only gives the employee recognition for their achievement but also strengthens your brand in the eyes of your customers.
4. Celebrate team members birthdays
Most businesses do something to celebrate their employee’s birthdays. Showcase this culture on social media by taking a photo of the team member with any gifts they’ve received in the workplace.
5. Employee testimonials/quotes
This point is especially important for companies who recruit often. Showcasing your working culture with genuine testimonials from your happy employees is a great way to highlight your business as a great place to work.
Photos and Videos
On most platforms, I’d recommend that you use a photo or a video for everything that you post. Posts that include either of these tend to get more engagement as they stand out more on people’s newsfeeds. Even if you’ve not got a photo to accompany your text, I’d suggest putting some text in a graphic format to catch the eye.
6. Post photos of your pets
Most people love pets. If you’ve got an office or pub dog, crafting posts for social media that include pictures of them will always get a good response. Some businesses even go as far as creating dedicated social media profiles for their popular pets.
7. Post photos of your surroundings
Photos of your office or business location are always a winner for some quick content. If you run a pub, for instance, a quick photo of the outside on a sunny day will get a good response and possibly entice people to pay you a visit. You could also document events such as new additions to your workplace, including new equipment or renovations.
8. Viral video bandwagons
Jumping on viral video trends can be a great way to increase your reach quickly. If you want to go down this route, my advice would be to act quickly and shape the trend around your own brand, product, or service.
9. Post photos of the town/city you work in
Photos of the town or city that your business is located in is another good source of content. This will be even more effective if you live in a picturesque or well known location. You can also make the most of tagging businesses that are nearby.
10. Post a funny story or photo
Humour works well on social media. Sharing a funny story or photo will result in good engagement from your followers. If this isn’t something that you can create yourself, sharing posts from other sources that are related to your industry can be just as effective.
11. Go live on video
It has never been more popular to go live on video with most platforms now offering this facility. This could be a great way to reach your existing followers quickly with a real time news update or upcoming promotion related to your business.
12. Post seasonal photos (Christmas, Easter, New Year)
Showing off your holiday spirit can go a long way. As an example, if you decorate your business premises for Christmas, showcasing these decorations with photos on social media would be a great move. These types of posts are often quick and easy to create and tie in with the theme of documenting day to day life at your business.
13. Before and after photos
Before and after photos the perfect way to illustrate the difference your product or service can make. The more obvious the difference is the better. It is the perfect opportunity to showcase what potential clients can expect to achieve from working with your business.
14. Create infographics
If you’ve got a talent for creating eye catching infographics, they will almost certainly gain traction across social media channels. They are a fantastic way of visualising larger chunks of information and often capture people’s attention. If you’ve not got the resource to create your own infographics, there is always the option to share others that are relevant to your industry.
15. Make the most of Facebook and Instagram Stories
Stories are a popular feature on most social media channels. They are very popular on Instagram in particular and appear at the top of the app, meaning they are very visible to users. They can also be stored as highlights, which almost act as a sub navigation on your profile. If you’ve got an Instagram profile, having a stories highlight section is something I’d highly recommend looking into.
16. Share time-lapse videos
Time-lapse videos are a great way to illustrate a lengthy process in a very short video clip. This is an ideal opportunity to show off your skills to your followers. As an example, a hairdresser could record a hair transformation that took an hour to create but speed it up into a one minute video.
17. Photos of you at industry events
If you regularly attend industry events, grabbing a quick selfie for social media is a quick way to generate some fresh content. This is even more effective if you’re exhibiting at the event or are fortunate enough to be a speaker.
News
News related to your business is a good route to go down for social media. It will allow you to quickly keep your customers up to date about your business, almost in real time.
18. Links to your latest blog posts
If you’ve got a blog on your website then social media is the perfect place to drive traffic to it. It should be relevant to your existing followers and hopefully written in a way to provide value to them.
19. Exclusive social media previews
If you really want to make your social media followers feel special, consider launching exclusive previews of new products or company news across social media. Your followers will quickly learn that taking notice of your social media channels is the best way to keep them informed about the latest news within your business.
20. Upcoming events
Social media is a good place to raise awareness of your upcoming events. Facebook offers a robust platform for advertising events and can easily be tapped into by business owners.
21. General news about your business
Anything newsworthy within your business would be right at home on social media. This could cross over with some other ideas such as welcoming new recruits to your company or posting your latest blogs. People like to feel like they are being kept up to date, so anything new and exciting is always going to work well.
22. News within your industry
If you spot any relevant news stories within your industry, share them with your followers. The chances are, if they follow you, then anything newsworthy in your industry is likely to be of interest to them as well.
23. Share posts from other businesses
Sharing posts from other businesses can be a quick and easy way to fill any gaps in your social media calendar. It will also build online relationships with these businesses who may return the favour and share your posts in the future.
24. National Day/Week posts
Posting about “National Day/Week of…” is another good content filler for your social media schedule. Keep relevant to your industry and don’t go too overboard with them but they certainly do the trick for keeping your pages ticking over.
25. Link to your latest podcast/video
Any content that you produce for your business is great for social media. Video works very well as it can often be uploaded directly into the platform and often get even more engagement than photo posts. It is also a good idea to mix up the types of posts so video is often a nice break from too many photos.
26. Press mentions
Positive press coverage is certainly worth sharing. You could share this directly from the source or link to the article in question. Either way, you’re showcasing your brand in a positive light to your followers.
Add value
One of the fundamentals of standing out on social media is to add value to your audience. Create content that can help to solve their problems and link this to your product or service. If you know your audience well, these kinds of posts should be easy enough to achieve.
27. Share your favourite tools/equipment
This is a quick win for providing value to your audience. If you’ve got tools or equipment that you find useful within your profession, share them and explain why they are useful. You are best placed to share this knowledge as you use the tools day in day out in your job. Your audience is likely to use similar tools and will appreciate you sharing your experience.
28. Solve customers problems
Find the problems that your customers face that are related to your business and solve them with your posts on social media. This will enhance your reputation as an expert in the area.
29. Create tutorial or how to videos
Giving away your best advice for free is a great way to add value to your audience. Consider making videos that explain simple processes related to your industry. These will be valuable to your audience and when they have a bigger problem to solve, you’ve already established yourself as an expert.
30. Reuse old content
If your content has proved popular in the past. Update it and use it again. The chances are most of your audience won’t even notice that it has been repurposed and you already know it has a high chance of being successful.
31. Interview other people in your industry
If you already podcast or make videos, invite other people within your industry to take part in an interview. If you target people who have a good following this will generate great content for your channels but you will often find yourself put in front of the interviewee’s audience as well.
32. Link to free useful resources
If you come across a useful free resource of information, link to it from your social media channels. If you find it useful, the chances are your followers will as well. The more value you can provide for them, the greater chance they will keep an eye out for more of your posts.
33. Break down blogs into smaller chunks of content
If you’ve taken the time to create some long form blog content, break this down into smaller chunks of actionable tips for sharing on social media. This will effectively make your content go further without creating any additional work.
34. Share interesting statistics
People generally love data and statistics. You can make these more interesting by creating infographics or sharing smaller stats in graphic format. Equally, if you see an interesting statistic related to your business on social media, share it.
Engagement
Engagement is an important part of any social media strategy. There is very little point in having a profile on any platform if your posts are not getting seen or responded to. The more people who engage with your posts, the more likely they are to be seen by a larger audience.
35. Run a competition
Running a competition is a popular way of picking up new followers and improving the reach of your post. If you’ve got a good enough prize people will enter and share your competition. It’s worth noting that it is against Facebook’s guidelines to ask people to like your page or to tag their friends in order to enter the competition so be careful how you set them up.
36. Post fun quiz type questions
Not everything that you post on social media needs to be a photo or link back to your website. Occasionally asking questions will improve the engagement of your profile as people will feel compelled to leave a comment.
37. Share inspirational quotes
Inspirational quotes can be taken from your blog content to give short snappy highlights around the content that you’ve already generated. You could also share quotes from inspirational people in your industry. Whichever approach you take be sure to make your quotes visual using something like Canva.
38. Run a poll
People love to give their opinion. A poll is a quick and easy way for people to do this. You could even link this to your business to give your audience a sense of helping to shape the direction of your new products or services.
39. Answer frequently asked questions
If you find that your customers are asking the same question time and time again, answer these on your social media channels. This will save you time in responding to the same question time and time again.
Customers
Your clients can be a great source of content for your social media channels. This could be anything from reviews to photos of your clients using your products or services. Either way, showcasing that you’ve already got happy customers is never a bad thing.
40. Existing client reviews
If you’ve been in business for a number of years the chances are that your existing clients have already left some flattering reviews of your business. Don’t just let these sit on your Google My Business listing or hidden in the Facebook reviews tab. Create a graphic from them and post them directly onto your profile.
41. Ask for new reviews from clients
If you don’t have many reviews for your business, it would be a good idea to start asking for more of them. Your happy customers are likely to be more than happy to spread the word about how good your business is. Use these reviews to form posts on social media.
42. Post user generated content
Most businesses will have loyal customers who use their products or services and post them on their own social media profiles. These act as a great endorsement for your business. If you spot any of these, ask for permission to share them on your profile.
43. Link to a case study of your product or service
If you’ve taken the time to create more detailed case studies or testimonials for your products or services on your website, link to them from your social media channels.
Your business
I’ve placed these final seven ideas last on the list as I believe you should give away more than you sell on social media. However, you should occasionally promote your products and services to let new or existing followers know what it is you have to offer.
44. Celebrate milestones for your business
If your company achieves a big milestone, shout about this on social media. It could be that you’ve been in business for a certain length of time or that you’ve been nominated for a business award. Either way, make sure these milestones are celebrated on social media.
45. Post about your hobbies
Business owners often overlook the opportunity to drift into their private lives on their business channels. However, mixing up your content with the occasional post about what you get up to at the weekend can only enhance your profile by showing some personality.
46. Document behind the scenes of your business
Social media should be at the forefront of your mind as you operate your business on a day to day basis. Shift from the mindset of having to create perfect posts for social media to documenting day to day life in your business.
47. Showcase your new products or services
Don’t be afraid to remind your followers of the products or services that you can provide them with. After all, this is why your business was created in the first place. Just don’t go overboard by making too many of your posts sales related.
48. Mention sales and promotions
If you’re running any sales or promotions, be sure to mention them on social media. If you can make them exclusive to your followers, even better. Running paid ads on channels such as Facebook or Instagram is also an effective way to spread the word about any short term sales that you’re running.
49. Ask people to join your mailing list
If you’ve got a mailing list, promote it across your social media channels. After all our audience is unlikely to sign up unless you ask them to.
50. Promote other social channels
Finally, cross promote your social media channels between each other. This is a good way of getting new followers if you’re new to a certain platform. It also acts as a useful reminder for your audience to connect with you on multiple platforms.
There we have it, 50 ideas for social media posts that you can start applying to your business today. This should only be seen as the starting point for your social media strategy. Expand on the list and create your own ideas relevant to your business.
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