Many business owners know that statistically they need to be on social media, but many get stuck asking the question “what should I post on social media?”.
With one in seven customers leaving positive feedback online, without an online presence you could be missing out on a great opportunity to capitalise on your excellent customer service and product/s. Social media also allows you to reach out to the extended circles of your already dedicated ‘fan base’.
But back to the real question: “Once I set up my social media accounts, what should I post on social media?”
There is no exact science to social media success (sorry to break it to you). Each business attracts a different client demographic, so what you need to do is work out exactly who your demographic is – and that shouldn’t be too hard as you sell to them every day!
Finding out the predominant gender, age, location and interests of your customer base will give you a basic understanding of who your posts need to attract.
Then you need to understand your business. What is your unique selling point? Why do customers choose your business over your rivals? What products/services are most popular? What feedback have you gotten from past clients?
Such answers will give you insight into the mindset of your clients and help you delineate what would make them want to follow you on social media.
So now you know who your clients are and what they want from your business, you need to decide what kind of personality you want your business to have.
For example: If you have a young client base and your products are within the recreational entertainment sector, then you’ll most likely want to portray a fun, down-to-earth, adrenaline-seeking brand personality. If your business targets an older, female demographic you may want to mix it up with mum-humour and tutorials, conveying a happy, but useful brand personality.
Once you’ve nutted out these three key areas (client demographic – business understanding – brand personality) you can get to posting. Beware: it’s going to be a bit trial-and-error.
Utilising social media insights is going to be exceptionally fruitful to you. See what posts get the most engagement and what posts don’t, review what posts garner discussion and what posts garner simply acknowledgement (such as a ‘like’). If videos get 100 more likes than your photos do, then you know what kind of posts your followers want to see.
You need to be careful but, many business owners slip up when they rely exclusively on the ‘like count’ and ignore what the content they are sharing online actually says about their business.
A prime example is when a business page gets hooked on sharing meme’s. Sure they are funny and people may click like on them – but how is a meme benefitting your business? Are funny cat photos going to sell your new product? Is the video of a guy falling off a slide going to entice people into your store?
Most likely the answer will be no. So you need to make sure that your posts, while attractive and engaging to your followers also help your business’s bottom line and make it worthwhile you spending working time online.
We hope this blog helps answer your “what should I post on social media?” question. We’ve also created a PDF template you can download here and fill out. It covers the three sections mentioned in this blog. Keep it as a referral to weigh up against your posts and make sure you are matching your post content with your business objectives/customer wants.
If you’ve got all your background research done and are ready to post, here are some types of posts you could try out:
Videos: how to use a product/promo video/meet our team/seasonal prank/magic trick with product/story featuring product or service
Photos: products/events/staff/customers/around the store
Client testimonials
Poll/question about a product or service
Links to relevant industry articles
Share posts from a partner business’s/mention or engage with partner business’s
Competitions
Meme’s/Jokes (sparingly – share ones related to your business. EG: a cat sitter could share a cat meme)
Holiday closing times/renovation news/new service times
Links to your blog or other social media
Let us know if you found this blog helpful or have any questions!
**Did you know: On Facebook insights you can find out what time most of your likers are online – so you can post at these times and hopefully reach more of them!**