A common question, or area of confusion, is what should your business be posting on Social Media. There are all sorts of different thoughts on this. Posting about your services, products and specials are a must. However, don’t make that all you post about. As in its name, Social Media platforms do best when you are social on them. When you interact with your followers, patients, clients, etc. Ask engaging questions and then respond to their comments.
There is a rule of thumb in the Social Media Marketing industry that your feeds should keep a ration of 80/20. That is that 80% of your posted content should be entertaining and engaging content and only 20% should be promotional content. This keeps your feed from feeling like a sales pitch.
Another question is, how often should you be posting? This really depends on several factors such as your resources and how engaging your content is. Some industries may post multiple times a day and get an increased engagement and followers as a result, while others may find posting just once daily is actually too much. The problem with posting too much is if people keep seeing your posts but aren’t interested or engaging with them, they may “unfollow” you. The other side of the coin is if you don’t post often enough then you won’t be maintaining engagement to keep your posts showing up in the feed of your followers. You should be minimally posting or sharing several times a week.
IDEAS AND TIPS
Here are some ideas of what to post. This obviously won’t cover everything, but will hopefully help spark some creative ideas for your future postings.
1. Videos
Creating videos for social media is easier than ever. With the technology of our phone cameras and various programs to add some excitement or fun to your videos, the possibilities are endless.
Tip: If you are creating videos and uploading them to YouTube, it is better to also upload the video to your Social Media accounts rather than a link. Uploading the video directly to your social media channel increases the engagement.
2. Facebook Live Video
Facebook Live is a type of video but will be broadcasted live. This will also remain on your feed in case someone wasn’t watching while you were doing it.
Tip: Check your Facebook audience peak time of day, or day of the week (i.e. when the majority of your audience is on Facebook), to choose when to do your Facebook live as this will improve the likelihood of people joining in to watch.
3. Showcase or Highlight Your Staff
Feature a picture and short bio or fact about your staff from time to time. This can build up your audience’s awareness of your staff and create a friendly feeling.
4. Company News
Share any news from your company or brand on social media, but try to personalize it as much as possible. For example, to share about an industry award won, include a picture of your staff holding the award. Or if you are a vet and had your highest number of “patients” in a week, include a picture of the staff each holding a pet.
5. Data from your market or niche
New and fun information related to your niche can be shared. Such as current housing market trends for a realtor, or a recent study showing the benefits of massive amounts of Vitamin C to combat illness for a doctor or Holistic practitioner.
6. Blog Posts
You will want to share your recent blog posts on social media.
Tip: Your blog can be shared directly as a link on most social media platforms, but you can also take some of the fun or helpful paragraphs from your blog and post those as individual posts as well.
7. Contests and Giveaways
Contests and giveaways are a great way to gain followers, increase engagement and generate leads. You can use contests in so many ways it would be hard to list them here. There are some rules and regulations (and laws) you should remember to follow. Avoid having a purchase be a requirement for entry as this then becomes a “lotto”. Also, it is against Facebook guidelines to require someone to use their personal timeline (such as requiring them to share) or tag friends. Having someone like or comment on your post as a means of entry is okay.
A great article on Facebook Contests is here: https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-contest-rules-tips-ideas/
8. Before and After Pictures
If you are in an industry where it makes sense, before and after pictures are a great way of highlighting your services. If you are a dentist you could highlight your cosmetic dentistry by sharing a before and after picture of the patient (ensure full approval is gotten and ensure you are compliant with HIPAA regulations). If you are a cleaning service, provide a before and after picture of the cleaning job you did.
9. Successes or Reviews
Share your success stories from clients or patients, or positive reviews of your business on social media. Promotion is all about getting your good work known to others. You can ask people to share their success on Facebook (which is best as then their friends and family get to hear and see about the great work you did), or you can take the reviews yourself and make it visually appealing by creating a graphic for it.
10. Behind the Scenes
This can be a video or images highlighting the behind the scenes for your business. If you are a contractor, take a video going through the job showing your team in action. If your company is moving, take a video or snap some pictures and tell people about what is going on to make the move a success.
11. Trivia, Puzzles or Quizzes
People are always eager to show off how smart they are. Post a mystery picture and have people guess what the picture is of. Post a riddle for people to solve. Ask people a hard question related to your product or business.
12. Inspirational Quotes
Spread some inspiration or fun with quotes from some of your favorite inspirational writers.
13. Memes and Fun Comics
Memes and Comics are often pretty engaging. Be sure not to share anything others could consider offensive or that could be considered a mockery of your business/niche. You could even take famous meme images and create your own.
14. Sneak Peeks and images of your products
This could be a sneak peek of an upcoming product, a house coming out on the market soon, a new service you will be providing, etc. Sharing images of your products is another thing you should be doing on Social Media.
15. Your Offers and Coupons
You will want to make sure you share your coupons and current offers to your social media accounts. You could even create different offers for different platforms.
16. Photos with clients, customers, patients, etc.
Snap a pic with your customers and post to social media (with their permission). As a realtor, you could snap a pic with the family you just helped purchase a house for. As a pediatric dentist, snap a pic with that kid that is cavity free!
17. Upcoming events
If your business is hosting events, webinars or workshops, you will want to get this posted on social media. Make sure to post well in advance and remind people. You should also create an Event on Facebook as people who mark that they are interested will be reminded about your event by Facebook.
18. Charity and community work
Share about your businesses work with different charity organizations, or even your staff’s individual involvement in such. Many dentists visit schools to educate kids on the importance of their oral health and how to properly care for their smiles. Some vet offices work closely with shelters providing needed care to animals with no homes. Some companies support different organizations in fighting drug use, cleaning up the environment, etc. Share these things on social media.
19. Re-post what others have posted and tagged you in
If you search for your business or product, you will often see what some of your clients have posted about your product. With permission, you can share these on your business page feed.
20. Fun Holidays
An easy search on Google will provide you with a number of little-known fun holidays – such as Laugh and Get Rich Day, Tell a Fairy Tale Day or Proposal Day. Undoubtedly you can search and find a holiday your business can get behind, and with some good planning, you could create a whole fun campaign to drive up engagement, leads and sales around such a Holiday.
Few Additional Tricks
USE YOUR HASHTAGS!
On Platforms like Instagram and Twitter, utilizing hashtags helps get your content seen by a larger audience of people interested in what you are posting (so long as you are using appropriate hashtags). On Instagram, you can use up to 30 hashtags per post. You may want to alternate them, however, as Instagram algorithms can start to think that you are a bot if you are repeating the exact same hashtags for every post.
INVITE PEOPLE TO FOLLOW YOUR PAGE
When someone likes your post on Facebook, you can invite them to follow your page if they are not already a follower. Simply hover over the post where it shows you who or how many people have liked your post. When you click on that, you will see where you can invite them to follow.
HAVE PEOPLE CHECK-IN OR TAG YOU IN THEIR POSTS
Having people posting to their personal timeline by sharing a post they tag you in, or checking in to your practice or business, allows for their friends, family and followers to see. If they are curious about the service, they can ask the friend, or if they see that their friend or family member is using your service or buying your products it lends some credibility to you.
REVIEW YOUR INSIGHTS
You have insight tools available to you on most, if not all, platforms. Facebook is by far the most extensive as far as social media goes. By going to your insights tool on your page you can see details about when your users on active, when you gained or lost followers, analytics on your posts, etc…
By utilizing these platforms and reviewing your analytics you can continue to improve your results on these platforms.
Best,
Christine Leacox
Walker Kreative
