There are now almost 3 billion social media users in 2020, making it the biggest audience you can find anywhere.
Becoming a unicorn business is all about garnering people’s attention and building your audience through your social media content.
However, the problem for many brands in social media is knowing what kind of content to post that will get people engaged.
There’s no cookie cutter approach to becoming a top player in the social media game, but you can get good content ideas.
Here are 10 amazing content ideas for social media that can take you from a lowly donkey status to the top of the unicorn mountain.
1. Share Your Story
Every brand is sure to have its own story, and being able to tell it is crucial to getting your social media game on point. Perhaps you don’t think so, but many people out there are intrigued and even relate with the story of a business. Sharing your story is all about helping your audience relate to your brand and vice versa, which lets you connect with them. You can start sharing your story by writing a bio on the about section of your page and posting an article on your blog about your journey.
Share photos of behind-the-scenes developments in your business, including brief descriptions of what’s going on. Record and upload a short video of you chronicling your business journey and reflecting on the lessons you learned along the way.
Telling your business story in an authentic manner makes your brand look more relatable and human.
This can be effective in building brand loyalty and encouraging your customers to engage with your business.
2. Share Behind-the-Scenes Photos & Videos
As mentioned in the previous item, you can give customers a sneak peek into what goes on in your business. One of the biggest problems with businesses is that they can seem rather inhuman to most people. Bringing them into what goes on behind the scenes lets you show the human side of your business.You can show them a little bit of what it takes to bring them the products and services you provide. They can also get to know the people who make it all possible, namely you—the business owner—and your employees.
Behind-the-scenes photos and videos are valuable social media content that lets your customers relate to your brand. You can also do live video streams that let you show what’s going on in your business during a regular day. It can answer a lot of questions and make your business look more transparent and authentic.
3. Share Information About Your Products & Services
Of course, the main reason why businesses would ever be on social media is to share their products and services. Plenty of people like learning about stuff through social media, from the news to even educational content. Social media provides an effective way to proliferate information about your products and services.
You can do it through posts with photos, videos, infographics, and status updates on what you’re selling.
A social media chatbot can also do the same by sending messages to leads and customers about your new products and other updates.
A Comment Guard autoresponder can be used on your posts to have your chatbot automatically message commenters. If they choose to respond to the message, they’re opted in and added to your contact list, and they’ll receive updates from you.
This is a great way to share information about your products and services to your audience, making them more engaged.
4. Share Testimonials from Your Customers
Social proof is immensely powerful because customers are more inclined to believe other customers. They learn from the experiences of other customers who have purchased your products and services to avoid buyer’s remorse.
Having authentic positive reviews and testimonials, as well as user ratings, is one of the best ways to bring in conversions. That’s the main source of user-generated content you should focus on for your social media as it has a direct effect on sales. Encourage customers to share testimonials in status updates, photos, videos, and so on, and you can respond to them as well.
The more positive testimonials you can gather and share, the better you’ll be able to build a community around your brand.
5. Implement Messenger Drip Campaigns
A chatbot like MobileMonkey is capable of running drip campaigns for delivering content directly to users.
Messenger drip campaigns are great for increasing engagement and they perform much better than email drip campaigns.
You can send a course of multiple messages slowly over a period of time, showing recipients content about your brand.
Drip campaigns are great for both advertising new products and services and onboarding new customers.
6. Join In On Popular Hashtags
One of social media’s best features since it first became popular has been the hashtag, and it has remained useful. Hashtags help consolidate posts with common themes or topics, bringing people together and helping them have conversations. You can use your own hashtags to do the same thing, letting people browse your posts more easily.
They’re useful for grouping together weekly feature posts, contests, user-generated content, and so on.
Trending hashtags also can help you extend your reach by posting relevant content while they’re still hot.
7. Run Contests
Contests are a proven method for businesses in boosting engagement and conversions by creating a buzz. They’re both good social media content and a great way to get customers excited about your brand. There are plenty of ways to hold contests in social media, and it can be a great source of user-generated content.
For instance, you can ask customers to post a photo or video of them enjoying your products and services.
You can get them to provide testimonials about how they love your stuff and why other people should buy from your business as well. Ask them to use a hashtag to help you find their entries more easily and share the best entries on your social media page. You can then pick the winners among them, after which you reward them with your prize, either a product giveaway or a big discount.
Or if you’re feeling generous, make them all winners and give them a discount to thank them for participating.
8. Post Polls to Collect Customer Feedback
Gathering customer feedback is one of the most important things you can do to grow your business.
You learn from feedback what you’re doing right, as well as what you’re doing wrong, which can help you adjust. It gives you information on which areas you need to improve and what you can do to better cater to customers.
Social media is a great place to get that feedback, but you do need to make sure what you get is constructive.
Polls are a great way to gain constructive feedback that tells you exactly what you need to know.
Different social media platforms allow for different ways to put up polls for feedback, some directly and some more indirectly. Your audience will appreciate how you’re looking for feedback from them, and they’ll likely answer honestly.
9. Offer Special Promotions
You can combine the aforementioned content ideas with promotional offerings that will encourage more sales. Offer special discounts, coupons, or so on for a limited time that will make customers want to avail them.
They can be pushed through your social media posts or with your Messenger chatbot via drip campaign.
You can also encourage customers to provide testimonials in exchange for special promotions on your products and services.
There are many creative ways you can utilize to let your audience know about your special offers in social media.
10. Host a Live Webinar or Podcast
If you’re looking to help your customers and bring them value en masse, a live webinar is an efficient way to do that.
Hosting a good one not only gets a lot of people engaged, but it also serves as a source of even more social media content. Teach your customers on how to use your products and services and inform them about the ins and outs of your industry.
Through your webinar, you can provide them valuable information related to your business and encourage conversations with them. You can keep the webinar as a video on demand or edit it into highlights—digestible chunks focused on specific questions or topics.
The webinar can be expanded by bringing in guest speakers who can lend their industry expertise and provide even more informative content. If you’re able to host webinars regularly, you can turn it into a podcast with a consistent schedule, like once a week or so. This can provide you with even more content you can use to extend your audience and expand your audience.
Consistently posting great social media content can definitely boost your brand’s engagement online. That increases your brand’s reach, which can then get your more leads and potentially boost your sales.
Being competitive in today’s business world means being on point with your social media content.
But the nature of social media changes all the time, so staying on top of it and adjusting your content along the way is important.
Have fun with the process and it will work wonders for you as you go from being a donkey to a unicorn brand through social media.
Larry Kim is the CEO of MobileMonkey, the World's Best Facebook Messenger Marketing Platform and free chatbot builder. He's also founder of WordStream, Inc., the leading provider of Google Ads, Facebook Ads and keyword tools used by over a million marketers worldwide. The company employs over three hundred people and manages billions of dollars of ad spend on behalf of tens of thousands of customers. WordStream was acquired by Gannett for $150 million. Larry is ranked the #8 most popular author on Medium. He's a contributor to CNBC and Inc. Magazine. Key interests include: Chatbot Marketing, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, entrepreneurship and startups. He received Marketer of the Year awards from Search Engine Land, US Search Awards, and PPC Hero.