If managing your social media feels like a daunting task that you keep on ignoring, then today’s episode is for you! Madeleine dives into the Top 5 proven post topics that she uses for her digital marketing agency as well as her client’s social media to grow their engagement, build their brand and generate sales.
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Transcription
Speaker 1: (01:11)
coming up with what to say on social media is a challenge. I’ve heard that small business owners struggle so much with coming up with what to say on social media when they go and market on those channels. And then we invest so much time and energy coming up with posts and copy and graphics, and then we’d get little to no engagement and feel like we are just screaming into the void.
So how do we create more successful content on social media? Things that are able to show up higher with the Facebook and Instagram algorithms end up getting more engagement and hopefully converting those clients into paying customers that we have genuine relationships with.
Speaker 1: (01:52)
Well, I’m going to share with you, today, my five post topics that I rotate between whenever I do social media marketing. These five topics have been a proven strategy that I’ve seen increase engagement over time and actually end up growing social media accounts because they focus on creating relationships with our clients. So let’s dive into it.
First and foremost, we have to begin with a little bit of marketing philosophy because if we think more strategically about how these platforms are designed, then we can create more strategic content that is able to get us more visibility online. So what I’m about to say, I hope changes your mind about the way you think about social media. Something that really sparked my interest quite a few years ago was this concept of how do we, as people, as consumers, use social media and how is that compared with how we are marketing on social media.
Speaker 1: (02:56)
So Facebook and Instagram are built and designed and maintained in order to entertain people. They’re designed to keep people connected, keep people engaged, keep people so consumed with that particular platform that they stay on it. They keep on scrolling and then eventually click on an ad, which makes these companies their profit, right?
These are for-profit businesses, and the longer we stay and engage on their platforms, the more likely we are to click on that ad and get them more revenue. So if we think about how platforms are designed like that, then we are able to be more strategic with the kind of content we create.
Facebook, in 2018, updated their algorithm to include more meaningful interactions. That’s how they want their company to be known. So what this meant is that they wanted to create more conversations and create more genuine relationships where people felt like they could connect to their friends and family and be able to engage more thoughtfully and deeply with the content that was being delivered to them.
Speaker 1: (04:06)
This means that posts that get more comments, that have conversation threads, that have videos, that have more watch time, and so much more, these posts get rewarded with more visibility in essence, right?
This virality effect comes into play when posts that are having those deeper conversations get promoted more in people’s news feeds. So if we can think about that a little bit more strategically, then we can think about how to jump on the bandwagon, right, and be able to create eight post topics that actually get seen and engaged with.
I also thought about how I use social media and how a lot of people I know use social media. So think about what you do. You hop on Instagram at the end of your workday or on your lunch break, or in these moments of rest and relaxation.
Speaker 1: (05:05)
You get on there to connect with your friends, laugh at funny videos, and engage with Facebook group posts or something like that. Right? We get on Facebook and Instagram, and other social media platforms to be entertained, not necessarily to be sold to.
If we are looking for a product or service specifically, we go to Google, right? We use the internet to be able to help us accommodate our needs. Not necessarily hopping on Facebook to find us an HVAC company, right. We would go to Google if we needed somebody like that.
So that’s how I use social media at the end of my day, to relax and connect with friends. And that’s how the algorithm is designed to create and foster genuine relationships. Then why are we, as businesses, always selling on social media? Social media is not designed to sell to your audience.
Speaker 1: (06:03)
It is designed to build relationships with your customer base and distribute your brand presence, creating an environment where people can genuinely and thoughtfully engage with your content. That all being said, this is where post topics come in. So we can break the cycle of always selling and actually create content that is designed to convert. So let’s dive into it.
Here are my five post topics that I rotate between that I have used across dozens of social media campaigns in order to drive those genuine relationships and increase engagement rates. First and foremost, our first post topic category is the brand category. So these post topics, I will include things like what are my company values? Here is my bio, here’s who I am, explaining the bios of my team members. I will show behind the scenes of this is what it’s like at my office, or this is what it’s like at my company or my company culture, or I will share a testimonial that I’ve received getting a positive review out there.
Speaker 1: (07:15)
So the brand category is supposed to be about you. It’s supposed to be about the company. It’s supposed to be able to give your audience a sense of who you are from a very authentic standpoint. Now that’s the key to social media is coming out as approachable, as authentic, as raw as you possibly can.
This applies to every single industry. Whether you are an e-commerce shop and sell products, whether you are a service professional in the trades, this idea of being relatable matters on social media. And that’s what creates those meaningful interactions and genuine relationships with your audience. So this brand category is where you can focus all about you.
Post topic, number two is industry focused. So this is where you want to focus on your area of expertise. So this might be sharing a helpful tip, sharing a blog post answering FAQs. You can have an FAQ each day, or maybe on Tuesdays, you can do an FAQ where you answer something that people commonly ask you in your company about what it is you do.
Speaker 1: (08:26)
You can share your education, where you get your education or what you want to teach others about. This industry post topic category is supposed to position you as an expert in your space. That way, people are able to understand what it is you do and feel the value of you actually teaching them something. So this is where you give away free education, where people are able to say, wow, I learned something new today, or that was super, super helpful. Or this company teaches me things all of the time. I’m going to use them now when I actually need their services, because they gave away so much free value. So that’s that topic.
Post topic category number three is community engagement. So this is where I focus on really those discussion driver posts. So I will do things like, contests, giveaways, event shares, community involvement, like what am I actually doing in my local community or the community that I serve, whether that is a community of people, of beliefs, of local area – does not matter. Just how do you show up authentically in your community?
Speaker 1: (09:45)
This allows people to connect more thoughtfully with your brand and be able to see you as someone who is thoughtful, somebody who cares about their community. If you do any work for nonprofits or have a volunteer day, this is what this would be about. This is the feel good section of social media. And then the other side of that is things like, of course the contest and the giveaways, right?
You’re actually doing something that’s supposed to get a lot of comments, something that’s supposed to get a lot of engagement. So posts that are more discussion drivers, like I mentioned earlier. You can do a post where people vote on their favorites, or they have to respond with an emoji about which option they choose, or they can choose this or that what they have preferences towards, or simply just stating a question asking for people’s opinions.
Speaker 1: (10:38)
That’s a really good discussion driver and brings in your community as a whole to create a more engaging social media presence. So community engagement is number three.
Number four, this is where you sell. So this is the sales post topic category. So this is you can drive those hard calls to action. Once you have built up that relationship where people know you, they like you, and they trust you. That’s when you are able to make the sale. And it’s much more effective that way.
If you are able to take people through this journey versus just selling all the time, if you are posting about buying this product or signing up for this service or calling for an estimate, and that’s all you ever talk about, people have no reason to, unless you give them one. So this is why I have this as the fourth category and often rotate between those three before I get to this fourth one, because that gives my audience enough time to develop a relationship with me before I ask for that sale.
Speaker 1: (11:43)
So some examples of sales posts are promotions. If you have coupons or discounts or whatever, if you have company-wide announcements, if you have a very specific service that you want to highlight, you can talk about what the service is, what is included, and how you can get it. That goes for products as well.
If you wanna highlight certain products, I recommend focusing on one product or service at a time and really distribute that content out, cuz then that can give you a lot of post topics. Instead of just saying we do X, Y, Z, everything in the kitchen sink, instead of just, you know, throwing it all out there, which you can every once in a while, but breaking it apart allows you to speak more intentionally to the one person with that one need. So that’s what I would recommend.
And then, finally, my fifth category is miscellaneous because we always have to have a miscellaneous category, right?
Speaker 1: (12:38)
So this is where you can do things like holidays or month-wide posts. Like for example, March is Women’s history month. So we, you can do a lot of posts surrounding that. You can do the weekly posts where it’s motivational Monday or tip Tuesday or something like that. Really fill in the gaps with those fun trending type of post topics. You can also do little shoutouts, if you wanted to, of other social media accounts or like people in your industry or things where you are trying to, to build relationships with other influencers, things like that.
So anything else that doesn’t fit in those first four categories can go in that miscellaneous group. So just to recap, our five post topics are brand, industry, communities/engagement, sales, and miscellaneous. That all being said, if we are able to rotate between, and what I mean by rotate is on Monday, I share brand on Tuesday, I share industry on Wednesday, I share community and so forth.
Speaker 1: (13:49)
So that’s what I mean by a little rotation of just transitioning between those is able to create a really good formula for being able to build relationships with people because that’s what social media is all about. That’s what the algorithms are trying to do. And that’s what’s going to help you take your customer through a perfect journey of know, like, trust and end up with that confident sale. That way, when you do ask for that sale, you do have that hard call to action. Then people will actually respond. They’ll actually click that link, schedule an appointment with you, actually buy that product, whatever it is, because you have given them a reason to. You’ve been able to nurture this relationship to the point where it rewards and benefits you.
I have actually created a downloadable that includes these post topics along with a fill-in-the-blank calendar so that you can map all of this out for your own social media account. I’ve got that link in the show notes for you. So you can go to our website and download that, and that is free of use. You can go ahead and use that to just map out your journey, map out those social media post topics and be really strategic and intentional with your social media marketing strategy. So there you have it, my proven five post topics for social media until next time, keep succeeding small.
