After setting up social media profiles for your business, one of the most challenging hurdles is creating quality content to share with your audience. In order to fully take advantage of the platforms and networks you have elected to use, the key is to remain consistent and creative with the content you create. If you are struggling to come up with ideas, having a number of content pillars to fall back on can help spark individual post ideas.
The first key to creating quality content for your marketing plan is to find tools that can assist in your creativity. I recommend using Canva as a graphic design tool as it offers extremely useful tools and templates. If you don’t want to spend any additional money on a premium account, the free version is a great way to get started.
Another crucial aspect to creating and posting your content is having a solid posting schedule, and the key to consistent posting is to create a calendar to schedule your posts in advance. I like using Outlook or Google calendars for my content schedules, because they allow me to integrate my social media posting schedule with the rest of my schedule and then post whatever content I have manually to my social media platforms. If you are looking for a tool that helps you schedule your posts so they are uploaded automatically, you can use platforms like Hootsuite or Loomly, but they come with a price tag.
The most important step in creating quality content is to find your content pillars. Content pillars are a set of themes or topics that your brand can use to create posts, and can help you set the purpose, voice, and aesthetic for your social media profiles. The five most basic or common content pillars for your business are Promotional, Community, Engagement, Educational, and Entertainment. While you can tweak these five pillars to better reflect your business and your branding, the basic principles of creating a few common themes to base your creativity off of when looking for ideas.
Here are examples how these pillars can be used:
Promotional posts are created with the end goal of attracting new customers to your business. These posts should focus on any programs or special offers that might be available in your business.
Community posts are focused around any news or updates in your community that affect your business or your industry that your audience might be interested in hearing about.
Educational posts attempt to teach your audience something new about your industry, business or, specific products & services. Examples of these posts can be blogs or tips and tricks but, they can be anything that can gives your audience further insight on your business or industry.
Engagement posts are centered around increasing interaction from your followers or audience on social media. Using videos, photos, or gifs are good examples of posts that can help increase your engagement. Asking your followers questions is another great way to encite additional comments on a social media post.
Entertainment posts are based around providing entertainment to your audience and are sometimes a bit more disconnected from your business than other pillars. These posts can be jokes, memes, throwbacks or holiday posts.
Keep in mind that your content pillars should reflect your business and your voice. It is crucial to find the right mix and balance for your business. My advice on building your content pillars is to start broad and as time goes on, check your analytics and engagement to see what your audience likes, doesn't like, and make adjustments.