Social media has become an integral part of modern business. It provides an unprecedented opportunity for businesses to connect with their customers and build a loyal following. However, with so many competing voices on social media, it’s harder than ever to stand out.
In this article, we’ll share 23 social media post ideas that can help your business stand out on social media. First, we’ll cover some basics by defining the different types of social media posts. Then, we’ll highlight the importance of automation before sharing two dozen social media post ideas you can use right away!
The different types of social media posts
There are a variety of types of social media posts that businesses can use to engage their audience and stand out on social media. These include text, image, video, live video, and more. Each type of post has its own unique strengths and can be used in different ways to stand out on social media:
- Text posts are a great way to share information and updates with your audience. They’re quick and easy to create, and you can use them to share news, updates, and other important information.
- Image posts allow you to share visual content with your audience. They can be used for product images, infographics, and other types of visual content.
- Video posts can be used to share product demos, tutorials, and other types of promotional content.
- Live video posts let you connect with your audience in real time. They can be used to host live Q&A sessions, product demos, and other types of live content.
The importance of automation in a social media posting strategy
Managing and maintaining a consistent presence across multiple platforms can be a daunting task. This is where automation comes in. Automating certain aspects of your social media content strategy can not only save you time and energy, but also help you reach a wider audience and increase engagement.
One of the best ways to automate your social media strategy is through the use of social media sharing plugins. Jetpack Social is a great option for businesses running their sites on WordPress.
With Jetpack Social, you can easily share your content across multiple platforms, including Facebook and LinkedIn with just one click. Additionally, Jetpack Social allows you to schedule posts in advance, so you can create a content calendar and ensure that your accounts are always active, even when you’re not. This allows you to focus on other important tasks while still maintaining a strong social media presence.
Overall, automation is a key component of any successful social media marketing plan. By using a plugin like Jetpack Social, businesses running their sites on WordPress can easily automate their social media efforts, save time, and increase engagement. To learn more about Jetpack Social, visit Jetpack.com/social/
Stand out on social media with these 23 post ideas
1. Share your blog’s content on autopilot
One of the easiest ways to keep your social media accounts active and engaging is by maintaining an active blog. By consistently creating valuable and relevant content on your blog, you’ll have a steady stream of new material to share across your social media channels.
Each time you publish a new blog post, you can share it on your social media accounts, along with a brief summary and a call-to-action to encourage readers to visit your website.
By using a solution like Jetpack Social, you can automatically share your blog content across multiple social media platforms, saving you time and effort.
2. Show your product in an unexpected situation
Showing your product in an unexpected situation can help to create a sense of intrigue and interest around your brand. For example, showcasing your outdoor gear in an urban setting or your fashion brand on a hiking trail can be a great way to stand out.
3. Launch a recurring series (daily, weekly, etc.)
Launching a recurring series can be a great way to build an audience and keep them engaged. This can be a daily or weekly series of posts that provide valuable information, tips, or entertainment, such as a “Tip of the Day” or “Throwback Thursday.”
4. Make a meme your audience will relate to
Memes are a great way to connect with your audience and build a feeling of community. By creating a meme that your audience can connect with, you can create a sense of connection and engagement.
When crafting your meme, however, make sure to consider your audience. Are they likely to understand the joke? Could it be offensive in any way? Memes tend to have a short shelf life. So jumping on a trend that’s several years old may not get you the attention you anticipate.
Pro-tip: You don’t need a background in graphic design to create this kind of post. Use an online meme generator like this one to save time!
5. Share customer interviews and testimonials
Sharing customer interviews and testimonials is a great way to showcase your brand’s value. It helps to build trust and credibility with your audience and can be a powerful way to stand out on social media.
6. Answer commonly-asked questions
Posting frequently asked questions (FAQs) and answering them is a great way to provide value to your audience. This can help overcome sales objections and customer service questions before potential people even reach out, saving staff and employee time and bolstering the confidence followers have in your brand.
But what questions do you ask? If you have a customer service or support team, find out what they encounter most often. Check your contact form submissions, social media comments, and direct messages. You can even send out a survey via email or ask social media followers what they’d like you to answer.
7. Share behind-the-scenes content
Sharing behind-the-scenes content can help to give your audience a glimpse into the inner workings of your business. It’s a clever way to highlight the processes, ingredients, and quality of care that set you apart. It also humanizes your brand when people get to know the team behind the products or services you offer. This is particularly helpful for premium brands who may need to justify why their offerings cost more than competitors.
8. Post product demos and tutorials
Product demos are an excellent way to show all the different use cases for your items. Perhaps they can be used in unexpected ways, opening the possibilities up to a whole new audience!
They also provide valuable content for those who have already purchased. Perhaps someone bought your espresso maker and can’t quite figure out how to use one specific feature. If you share a video walking them through the steps, it might keep them from returning it while simultaneously showing potential customers how easy your product is to work with. Plus, it provides opportunities to present new options — like espresso beans — to existing customers for recurring business.
There’s a reason there are so many late-night infomercials with product demos — they work! And social media is a great place for the modern day equivalent without the need to purchase expensive air time.
9. Showcase user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC) is a great way to relate to a variety of potential customers. These days, people are hyper-vigilant, and even resistant to advertising. They know about stock footage and aren’t as impressed by models.
Instead, when you highlight content created by real users, authentic fans of your brand, people are often much more receptive. Plus, you can save significantly on production costs and potentially turn the contributor whose content you used into a super-fan or brand ambassador for life.
Here are some ways to encourage UGC for your brand.
10. Align yourself with a cause that’s important to your audience
Supporting a cause that your audience can identify with helps you connect with them and build a sense of community. You can contribute to a fundraiser and ask others to do the same. Highlight the work your staff is doing as volunteers. Organize a fundraiser or open your doors or resources for use by like-minded members of your audience. There are all kinds of ways to contribute positively to the world, help or encourage others to do the same, and improve your brand positioning.
Pro-tip: Find something you and members of your team are truly passionate about. Don’t come across as braggadocious and don’t only support causes for the publicity. Followers can tell, and it can do more harm than good.
11. Run exclusive promotions (only for your social media audience)
Exclusive promotions act as a reward for your social media followers, letting them know that you appreciate them and building engagement at the same time. You might offer free shipping, throw a freebie or sample into orders placed by followers, or share a special discount code for a percent off their next order. And setting a time limit for promotions harnesses the power of urgency to drive sales quickly.
12. Host a contest or giveaway
Hosting a contest or giveaway can be an exciting way to encourage comments and shares on your posts (some of the most important forms of engagement) without appearing desperate. In fact, it’s usually a super-fun process for both you and your followers. This often works best when the giveaway is something from your brand (not an unrelated, random prize) so that it serves as an advertisement for one of your most popular products. Those who don’t win might actually end up purchasing it for themselves, or as a gift, later on.
Make sure to check with any rules for the social media platform you choose, but many contests involve having followers like, comment, tag a few friends, and share your post as a method of entry. You can then use an app or even a random number generator to select the winner.
13. Conduct polls and surveys
Polls and surveys help you accomplish two things: increase engagement and learn what your followers are interested in. While you can publish polls on any platform, you’ll often see quick polls in Instagram stories. Sometimes these are fun — Pineapple on pizza: yes or no? — and other times they more directly ask for feedback — What flavors do you want to see on our Spring menu?
Regardless, these are excellent opportunities to find out what your followers want to see more (or less!) of on your account or in your products or services.
14. Create infographics and data visualizations
There are a number of programs with pre-built templates you can use to create fun graphics out of almost any fact or stat about your brand. One idea is to do a year in review. How many customers did you serve last year? How many different recipes did you try to find the perfect one? How many miles did your delivery trucks accrue? How many customer service requests did your team respond to?
Quickly browse your site to find any numbers or facts. Even if they’re kind of random or simple, it’ll look more interesting in graphic form and can be a fun way to fill in gaps on your content calendar.
15. Publish holiday-themed content
People love the holidays! And we don’t just mean Christmas and New Years. You can also create fun and relevant content around Arbor Day and even National Pancake Day.
There are lots of ways to be creative here. Share how kids can create holiday crafts using your items. Showcase your products in holiday-themed decor. Or tie the holidays into a promotion or giveaway.
16. Share event and conference coverage
Conferences and events bring together people from all over to learn about an industry or topic and connect with like-minded individuals. But not everyone can attend every conference!
So if you’re attending an event that you think your audience would find valuable, share what you’re learning with them. Live Tweet valuable quotes, take pictures, and post quick videos, as long as you stick to the recording/publishing rules of the convention. This will provide value, establish you as an expert, and show customers and clients that you’re investing in your growth.
17. Virtual tours and 360-degree videos
Virtual tours and 360-degree videos are a powerful way to showcase the features and benefits of your products. Of course, this will be somewhat industry-dependent.
Are you a realtor? Do you sell renovated camper vans? Do you offer staging services? Virtual tours are perfect.
If you sell complicated or custom products, 360-degree videos might also be an excellent option. Or, you could even share virtual tours of your workspace or warehouse.
18. Podcasts and audio content
If you host a podcast — or were a guest on one — share intriguing clips on social media! You can also turn these into videos by simply overlaying the audio on top of a brand-related image or even just your logo.
The goal here is to reuse content in as many ways as possible. Yes, you want to encourage people to download and listen to your podcast, but pulling short clips for social media posts gives you another way to take advantage of the work you’ve already done.
19. How-to guides that demonstrate expertise
How-to guides help you share information, updates, and tutorials with your audience. Typically, you’d want to create guides on your website first, either as a blog post or as a digital download like a PDF.
What would make the most sense for your business? Perhaps it’s a digital cookbook of recipes that use your handcrafted spice blends. Maybe it’s an eBook about creating a household budget. Or perhaps it’s simply an instruction manual for assembling your product.
Then, share these resources on social media and encourage followers to read them. You can also tie this into an email marketing strategy by asking for an email address to access the guide.
20. Live video content (live streaming)
With live video, you can connect with your followers in real time, making yourself and your business much more relatable. Host live Q&A sessions, demonstrate your products, or show a behind-the-scenes look at your process. When possible, announce your upcoming livestream ahead of time so that people can add it to their calendar.
21. Employee spotlights
Employee spotlights put a face and name behind your brand. Depending on the number of employees you have, you could turn this into a series, highlighting a different one every week or month. Share pictures and videos, ask questions, and even conduct a full interview if it makes sense for your business.
22. Company milestones and updates
You know those little celebrations you have in the office? The literal bulletin boards with media placements you’re proud of? The announcement at your founders meeting that you finally broke a huge sales goal?
Many of the things that are exciting to you, will be exciting to followers — especially those who are most connecting with and truly championing your brands.
No, you may not want to share that, “It’s been 4 days without an accident!” But did you just hit order number 1,000? Shout it out!
23. Breaking industry news
This is, perhaps, one of the easiest ways to fill a content calendar. Since it’s not original content, it likely won’t have as far of a reach as other kinds of posts, but it keeps you on the minds of followers and maintains an active account. Set up Google Alerts with keywords related to your company (put your company name itself in there, too, so you can find out how folks are talking about you). Then, as particularly compelling stories come out, share them to your feed with a sentence or two about your thoughts.
Frequently asked questions about posting on social media
How can I make my social media posts stand out?
To make your social media posts stand out, you can:
- Use high-quality images and videos
- Use engaging captions and calls-to-action
- Use relevant hashtags and keywords
- Engage with your followers and respond to comments
- Use a consistent brand voice and aesthetic
- Use different types of content, such as images, videos, and GIFs
- Use interactive features, such as polls and quizzes
- Use social media tools like Jetpack Social for scheduling, analytics, and tracking
How often should a business post on social media?
The frequency of social media posts will vary for each business depending on the industry and target audience.
However, it’s generally recommended to post at least once a day on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and more frequently on platforms like Twitter and TikTok. It’s also important to consider the engagement level, and adjust your posting frequency accordingly.
Jetpack Social: the well-known secret to automating social media posts on WordPress
Jetpack Social is a powerful plugin that enables businesses to share their website content on all of their social media channels from one place, through an automated “set it and forget it” system that’s easy to set up.
Jetpack Social saves you time and effort by automating your social media sharing, so you can focus on creating high-quality content.
Whether you’re a blogger, a merchant, or a small business owner, Jetpack Social is the perfect solution for automating your social media posting on WordPress.
So, why wait? Try Jetpack Social today and take the first step towards building a stronger, more engaged social media presence.
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