No one cares about your breakfast and no one should ever know about your office gossip, at least not by way of your social media content. If your business has social media accounts and you are looking for creative social media content ideas, don’t look to personal and possibly damaging aspects of your day to inform and entertain those in your social networks. Instead, look to one of these nine bright idea starters to create your social media content.
1. Read mainstream news and industry news online. If you find a unique or informative article, shrink the link and post it to Twitter or Facebook.
2. Most professionals love nothing more than a well-written case study or white paper. Write a white paper, post it to your website, and then tell everyone about it through your social media accounts including bookmarking sites, Q&A sites, and LinkedIn.
3. Tell an appropriate joke, share an insightful quote, or repeat a line from a well-known film. Online readers like to be inspired and entertained. It’s okay to repeat what’s already been said, but do so sparingly and with tact.
4. Pictures can say more than 140 characters. See a funny sign or a beautiful sunset from your office window? Post the pictures online and share with your networks.
5. People want to offer up their expertise. Ask interesting questions on Twitter or Mahalo.com, but avoid sounding cliché. Questions such as “How is everyone today?” won’t go over nearly as well as “Looking for a Denver-area web designer. Anyone have a recommendation?”
6. Make a video about something your business does. Most video sharing sites allow users to leave comments, making it a conversation not a one-way broadcast. What’s more, once you have the video published on YouTube or another video sharing site, you can then post those links to your other social media accounts.
7. Comment, Re-Tweet, and vote. You don’t have to create new content every time. Give props to those who offer great nuggets of information on the social web by re-publishing (with attribution) or just by commenting on the information.
8. Pay attention to trending topics. Sites such as Tweetstats.com highlight current conversation trends on Twitter. Pay attention to those trends and jump in on the conversation. In Twitter, you can use the search function to find conversations using a hash tag. For example, search “#iphone” to see thousands of Tweets on the device.
9. Be an authority. Give free tips, advice, and links to more great tips and advice. Offer your business expertise for FREE through the social web. You may make more sales with goodwill than you will through hard sales.
About Sara Lancaster
Sara is The Condiment Marketing Co.’s founder and creative director. She oversees client relationships, strategic marketing plans, as well as a bit of copywriting and social media management.
