Social media is a hungry little animal. It's caused a whole new type of anxiety. It's a little like a modern day Tamagotchi: You need to feed it regularly or it will "die."
If you neglect to be active on social media, the attention you seek for your business will dwindle until you revive it. People will start to forget.
When I work with clients, the usual complaint I hear is, "I don't have anything interesting to say." This is especially true if you run a non-creative, celebrity or product-led business, and you don't have lots of pretty pictures to help you make your channel interesting.
The list below will show you that even the most tedious and "boring" businesses have a whole host of things they can do and share to show how interesting work life actually is.
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1. Go with the past
Maybe nothing happened this week, but if you had a brainstorming session you could probably pull out some highlights from the past. It doesn't have to be a "Throwback Thursday" for you to share an image with a caption detailing what happened back then. It can be any notable event, a milestone, a cause for celebration or a fond memory in your business or industry.
2. Answer FAQs
Ask anyone in your team: what is the question you get asked the most? Make a list, and create image posts with the captions and answers. It can also be a blog post answering all these different questions. You can grab attention using headlines such as "Three questions we get every time we start a project" or "Wondered about _____? You’re not the only one!"
3. What do people just not get?
Similar to the above, there are probably things you see your customers assume about your business or your industry based on their preconceived notions, rumors, common myths and misconceptions. And they just aren’t true! What is it people are getting wrong? Make a list, and with good design and well-written copy, each of these can be turned into a post, images, video or blog.
4. Who's on your team?
Look around you, and, hopefull, you will see your lovely team members and smile. Each one of them is special, unique, smart, quirky and good at their job. Each one of them has great insight and interesting stories. If you get professional photos taken for your team, a picture of them with a caption about their background, values, or contributions at work would make great personality-driven social media posts. They might also be great interview subjects for blog posts.
5. Favorite clients and partnerships
Off the top of your head, you could probably list three to five of your favorite clients. There will likely be things about the work you do with them or the reason you chose to work with them which are of interest to your followers. You can add details such as what brought you together and the success of your project or collaboration. And if you’re in doubt, ask permission, and run your draft posts by them. If you are complimentary about them and it adds more to their online brand, there is a good chance they will share it on their own social feeds.
6. Testimonials from happy clients
This depends on the nature of your business, but for the most part, businesses should be going around asking for testimonials from clients. A good way around is to ask them to leave you a review on Google, Facebook or LinkedIn. And once those are done you can use the same text as a snippet in a social media post or within a blog post. Permission is usually best obtained for this one.
7. Quotes that resonate
Perhaps you have noticed that one of the most popular things on social media is inspirational quotes. You may find them boring, but there is a lot of people who really enjoy them. Choose your favorites and have them designed as new images, with your own branding and your own captions.
8. Thought leadership articles
Ideally, you and your team relish the challenge of writing a good post about your area of expertise, giving advice and guidance to readers who would fit your ideal target market. If you write these, you will be building an archive on your blog and possibly your LinkedIn profile. This will add to the positive digital footprint your company has online. You can also share articles from other sources you agree with, and add a caption to go with it. For example, you can add your own thought leadership take on the original article.
9. Stats
Businesses by nature are made up of numbers. A pie chart that shows the different kinds of clients you work with, a map showing the areas you work in, numbers and icons to represent demographics, percentage growth, and the type of projects you work with – all of these can be visually represented in infographics or designed posts. These may not be news, but can give a round up of the last 12 months or the average trends you see within your business. Even the most "boring" businesses have many interesting stats.
10. Share what you agree with
If you subscribe to blogs and feeds from other quality businesses or news sources, then chances are a steady stream of good ideas, well-written headlines, and well-presented information are easy for you to pull up and skim through. Anything you like? Sharing this is still content that you link to yourself by sharing.
11. Comment on the news
A little bit more thinking will be needed here, but with any current affairs, there is usually an analogy you can draw on. Sometimes it can be controversial, so tread with caution. If you look at trending headlines, can you perhaps write a post or article along the lines of "What can you learn about [something related to your business] from [the newsworthy thing that’s happening]?"
12. Make the news
If your weeks are dragging on, same as the week before and the next one coming, perhaps it's time to grab that calendar and make some plans. Team trips, bonding days, leadership training – all of these not only make your team’s lives so much less boring, but also create so many opportunities for real life photos that can be shared. It’s far more likely to attract referrals and opportunities by showing a happy team than one that just sits at their desks tapping away at their PCs.