Killer content ideas for social media marketing success
It’s all well and good to grow your follower numbers on whichever social platforms you’ve decided to utilise for your brand. But bringing them in is only the beginning when it comes to effective social media marketing.
Think about it like this: you buy a ticket to a circus. You actively take yourself to where the circus is, walk inside the big top and take your seat. Then… nothing. No clowns (okay, maybe that’s actually a good thing), no ringmaster, no jugglers or acrobats. Nothing. You – and the rest of the attendees – would leave pretty quickly, right?
It’s just the same as your followers. They’ve actively clicked to like/follow your brand’s profile. They’re there, expecting to see some interesting stuff. And if they don’t, they’ll just as quickly leave.
This is why it’s so incredibly important that you come up with highly creative social media content ideas to publish and keep your followers engaged with your brand.
In this article, we’ll provide you with 10 content suggestions for your social media marketing and explain why having unique ideas is important.
10 Must-Try Creative Social Media Content Ideas
If you’ve been struggling to come up with your own creative social media content ideas, fear not! Here are just 10 of our tried and tested content types that should get your profiles buzzing in no time at all.
- Content repurposing
The first and foremost suggestion we have for you is to review all of your existing content to find anything that’s done well in terms of views, shares and/or post engagements. Once you find this content (that you know has already been well-received by your audience), it’s time to think about all the different ways you can repurpose it.
For example, if it’s a blog post you could consider repurposing it by:
● Cutting down the copy and adding imagery
● Turning it into a video and/or podcast
● Using any data within it to develop an infographic
● If it’s dated, update it with the latest facts and figures
Once you’ve finished repurposing, you can then of course share each of the new pieces of content across the relevant platforms. This is a great idea as you’re using content that already exists to garner fresh interest, which can be much more cost-effective and time-efficient.
- Run a competition
As we all know, people dig free stuff. And one of the best things about running a giveaway as part of your social media marketing approach is that it can be as easy – or complex – as you want it to be.
Sure, if you have a gap you need filled at the last minute – it can be as simple as posting a photo of a product you’re happy to give away as a prize, and writing up accompanying instructions on how to win it.
But if you have a bit of time, you can get super inventive on how the competition is run and make it incredibly engaging for your audience. Think of fun ideas – like planting a small image of a duck in 5 locations throughout your website and posting clues for your followers on socials, where the first one to email through all 5 URLs wins the prize for example.
- Memes
If you’re thinking about going down this road, you’d better know what you’re doing. Because if you end up publishing a misused meme, you’ll get absolutely torn apart by not just your followers but the darkest and most degenerate corners of the internet.
But seriously, memes are a great way to provide your audience with some lighthearted entertainment and, if done well, they’re super shareable too. It’s also a good idea to search up what’s currently trending format-wise if you want to give your meme the best chance of flourishing.
- Celebrate milestones
Whether it’s a milestone in terms of follower count, years you’ve been in business, products sold, or something else – using special moments related to your brand can help to better connect your brand with its audience and make them feel involved in your story. It also helps to show that there are real people behind the brand that customers can relate to.
This might be an image with some text, a video thanking your customers/followers for supporting you for so long or even a giveaway to celebrate the event.
- Share user-generated content
Are you getting a fair few tags from your customers? It might be time to bring them into the fold and share the content they’re making as a way to show the world how much you value them.
But if you don’t have much of that going on, that’s fine! It can be as easy as running a hashtag campaign that’s specific to your brand and collating all of the user-generated content you get through that. This might be through a competition or even just letting your audience know that you’ll be sharing your favourite tagged posts with your followers.
- How-to videos
They’re one of the most effective types of videos, so why aren’t you making them yet?! How-to or instructional videos where you provide useful information to your audience about something that’s relevant to your industry provide huge opportunities for social media marketing.
If you’re struggling to come up with topic ideas, you might even think about creating a post that puts the question out to your followers. Then, it might be the most liked/loved comments that are used as a jumping-off point.
And it doesn’t need to be 8K UHD with a boom mic, edited by Jeffrey Ford, and scored by Hans Zimmer. It should be decent quality, though, and with clear audio (considering you’re explaining something in it).
- Develop a recurring series
Instead of thinking one post at a time, you might want to think bigger. Like, ‘ongoing series’ bigger. But before you dive in head-first, you’ll want to test the water’s depth and make sure you’re not going to hurt yourself.
It’s all about walking before you run, so put out feelers by the way of a single piece of content (likely a blog post or video in this scenario). Based on how popular it is, you can then think about whether it’s worth turning into a series or not.
And when you do get onto something that works, you might think about bringing in guests every so often that can generate even further interest.
- A profile takeover
One of the most surefire creative social media content ideas to shake things up on your social presence is to partner with an influencer to ‘take-over’ your profile for a day or even a week.
As you might imagine, this will promote an exponential amount of engagements, bring in loads of new followers and drive a ton of sales provided it’s done correctly. But for the uninitiated, influencer outreach can be an incredibly confusing undertaking. From finding the right person to planning and developing an effective strategy, liaising about post content and optimisation, there’s a lot that goes into it that you might not realise.
If you’re not quite sure how to get the job done the right way, it’s strongly recommended that you speak with a digital agency with the expertise necessary if you want to make sure you see the best results (and don’t throw your budget down the drain!).
- Behind-the-scenes content
Customers love to see how things operate ‘behind-the-scenes’ at the companies they like. So it’s up to you to show them exactly that through your social media marketing strategy!
A great YouTube marketing idea is to create video content of people creating video content. That sounds a little confusing, doesn’t it? What this means is while you’re shooting a main piece of content like something for your weekly/monthly recurring series, you get footage of that happening. Edited in with candid, unscripted conversations between the crew and talent, and you’re cooking with gas.
It doesn’t even have to be video, though. For larger companies, it could just be a photo of a warehouse worker picking products to send to a store. Smaller local businesses might think about introducing a new staff member who’s part of the production process to their followers.
The bottom line with behind-the-scenes content is that there’s a heck of a lot of content that can be made, and relatively quickly to boot. So if you’re struggling to come up with something, it’s a great go-to in your content bank.
- Offer opinions on trending topics
This… takes a bit of care to make sure you don’t step on anyone’s toes, or put any of your existing followers (or the rest of the internet) off your brand in an instant.
The best way to avoid shooting yourself in the foot with this type of social media marketing is to pick a trending topic that’s fun and in no way political (at all, ever) and think about some additional lighthearted sauce you can put on it yourself.
This might look like taking a screenshot of an interesting article you find about something relating to your industry and posting it with some accompanying text that’ll make people laugh. You might even then prompt your followers to comment their opinions on the matter as well.
Bonus idea: Throw a bit of shade your competitor’s way
In Australia, we’re all about a bit of a ribbing and some good-natured, light-hearted banter. So if you’ve got a competitor you think will see the humour in it, put a post together to throw some shade at them.
Don’t take it too far, though. In fact, keep it as light as possible and wait for their response. If they’re up for it, you might find yourselves in a bit of an entertaining back-and-forth which can bring in new customers/followers for both of you.
Why unique social media marketing content is so important
One of the hottest digital marketing tips right now (well, it’s been around for a little while actually) is to make sure the content you’re producing is unique. Because of the saturation of brands and messaging across every single platform, consumers have fast become savvy about what’s being repeated ad nauseam across the internet, and if you’re doing the same they’ll quickly click past.
Publishing useful, authentic content is also the best way to demonstrate value to your audience and grow your brand authority and trust. As for more entertaining, funny posts you’re helping to build a meaningful relationship with your followers as well. Therefore, a mixture of useful, informative, and entertaining content is perfect for creating a social media presence like you’ve never seen before.
As such, the most effective social media marketing strategies, including Instagram and Facebook ads and the like, really do need to be thought about carefully.
But it doesn’t just stop at social media marketing. By creating original content on your website (blog posts, landing pages, etc.) you’re helping improve your SEO, and therefore increasing your site’s ranking on Google.
So whether it’s SEO, Google Ads, or social media marketing (Instagram, YouTube and Facebook ads, etc.), If you want to see the highest ROI possible, then originality is the key.
After more digital marketing tips?
If you’d like a whole lot more digital marketing tips about social media marketing, SEO, Google Ads and more, head to the First Page Digital Learning Centre, and search for whichever topic you’re interested in.
You can find out what makes good Facebook ads, how to come up with YouTube marketing ideas and even what TikTok services are available to advertisers – and how to use them.
If you’d rather skip the digital marketing tips and leave it all to the experts, we’ve got you covered there too. Our team will come up with creative social media content ideas you’re sure to love, plus we know SEO like the back of our hands and have experience across myriad digital marketing channels.
So give us a call today on 1300 479 226 or send us an online enquiry and discover how First Page can help your business.
