You’ve probably heard that consistency is key when it comes to growing your online following and it’s true. However, it can be difficult to keep coming up with new ideas, especially when you’re busy running your business and haven’t got endless time to put into social media.
Luckily for you, we’ve put together this article, containing a multitude of ideas for those times when the inspiration just isn’t flowing. You might want to bookmark this one for later.
Meet The Team
This one could be serious or more tongue-in-cheek depending on your business. If you have a team, then show them some appreciation by highlighting each employee and what their role is. If you’re the only employee, use this as an opportunity to show your audience all the different things you have to do to run your business.
Behind The Scenes
Show your followers what a typical day looks like for you. Show them the meetings you go to (or video calls you make), where you grab a coffee, how you unwind in the evening. Alternatively, if you have a product-based business, show your followers the process from idea to finished product.
Share Your Story
Why did you start your business? What did you do before that? How did you get to where you are today? Tell your followers about the history of your business and your career. Talk about your proudest achievements and the biggest problems you’ve overcome.
Holidays / Special Occasions
Celebrate national holidays like Christmas and Easter but also special days for your business like your launch anniversary. You can also take inspiration from more niche days which relate to your business such as World Emoji Day or World Chocolate Day.
Jump On Trends
Talk about trending topics and current affairs. Put your own spin on the latest challenge. Using trending hashtags can result in your content being seen by more users and could bring potential customers to your page.
Create A Template
If you’re a regular user of Instagram, you’ll have seen lots of ‘This or That’ and ‘Fill in the blanks’ posts on Stories. These invite users to post a template to their own story and choose which of two things they prefer or answer questions on a specific topic and then tag other users who they’d like to fill in the template. This type of post could also work on Facebook Stories or the newly-introduced LinkedIn Stories.
#ThrowbackThursday
Show people how far you’ve come by sharing a photo from the past.
Positive Feedback
Of course, you think your business is brilliant but potential customers want to know that other people do too. Share some of your best reviews with your followers.
User-Generated Content
Ask your followers to tag you or use a specific hashtag when they post about your products or services and repost your favourites to your own feed.
Competition
Everyone loves a giveaway so run a competition where the prize is one of your products or services. Beware users who will follow you to enter then unfollow once the competition is over though. One way to avoid this is to require more from entrants than a simple like/comment/follow. Ask your followers to get creative instead to show how much they want to win.
Q & A
Get your followers to send in questions then go through and answer them. You could even do this in a live video if you’re feeling brave.
Tutorials
Teach your followers how to use your product. Show them hacks or unexpected uses of your product. Give them recipes or instructions for projects they could try at home. Then you can ask your followers to send you photos of their attempts and you’ll have some bonus user-generated content.
Repurpose Old Content
Do you have a blog? Or a podcast? Is there a topic you’ve covered on Twitter but never on Instagram? Take a look at all the content you’ve created in the past and think about how you could present it in a new format on a different platform.
Motivational Quotes
Give your followers something to think about by sharing a quote you love. Or if, like me, quotes aren’t your thing, why not share a photo that inspires you? Or maybe share your favourite meme? You can even get your followers involved by asking them to send you their favourite quotes/pictures/memes and reposting some of your favourites.
Promote Your Business
This might be obvious but don’t forget that you’re trying to attract new customers so you need to give them the occasional reminder of what you offer. People don’t like to be sold to too much so try to stick to the 80/20 rule. 80% of content should be entertaining/educational/inspirational and 20% should be promoting your products/services.
Let us know in the comments if you have any more ideas which should be on this list.