One of the things that I get asked the most frequently is what should businesses share on social media, which sparked these 25 social media ideas you can use to connect with your audience.
[youtube video=https://youtu.be/cw7SR57j2Es]1. Business Tips
We all get asked questions all the time in our businesses. As it's specific to you and your business, what kind of tips can you give people?
If you're in SEO, for example, and that's your area of expertise, can you write down ten tips that you could share incrementally on your social media presences?
People love tips.
2. Humor/Relatable
So many people try to segment their social presence and say, “We're just a business. We can't put out anything that's not business-related.” I'm just going to throw a massive flag on that, guys.
[ Click To Tweet ]Humor is one of my top engagement tools. Whether it's funny memes or you just have something funny that's happening in your life or your business, share that.
If you think about it, what do you engage with? Do you find yourself drawn more to a sales pitch or more into something that's fun and engaging and entertaining?
3. Inspiration/Motivation
It's true on Instagram and, incidentally, I even found this to be true on LinkedIn.
If you've ever looked at any of my social presences, you'll see that I share a lot of inspirational or motivational content. As entrepreneurs, we need that connection, in my opinion. We need to me inspired. We need to be motivated.
Today, you don't even need to be a graphic designer to create your own visual content. You can use web-based tools like Canva or some of the phone apps like Typorama, Word Swag and Legend.
4. Open-Ended Questions
I get some of my best engagement from open-ended questions.
About two or three years ago I posted an open-ended question on my Facebook page that said, “Peanut butter and …” People loved it!
Ask open-ended questions. People love to talk. They love to answer questions. In fact, if you're stumped on what open-ended questions to ask, go to the Google machine, type in “open-ended questions” and voilà, you will have a ton of resources and content to generate some ideas of your own.
I challenge you to post the peanut butter question and see what kind of engagement you get.
5. Offers and Deals
Who doesn't want a deal? We all love deals. We all love free offers. We all love coupons. We all love discounts. Share those types of things on your Facebook, Instagram or any of your social platforms for that matter. Give people a deal.
6. Behind the Scenes/Sneak Peeks
Behind the scenes and sneak peek posts can be easier for someone like a solo-preneur who doesn't have a large staff and controls most of their own work schedule, but that doesn't mean businesses can't do this!
Chocolate Johnny does this amazingly well through live-streaming on Periscope. Thought, technically, you can do exactly the same thing with photos.
Whether that's your personal life, things that are happening with you personally or whether that's things that are happening inside your business.
People love to feel like they're a part of what's happening in your business. I can't tell you the amount of people that have met me in person and know things that are going on in my life. They'll reference something that happened months ago and connect with me around that particular peek into my life simply because they saw it on social media.
Again, it's such a great way to let people engage and connect with you.
7. Opinions
You can do this a number of ways. You can give yours, ask for theirs and/or simply ask for theirs.
You could give an opinion on something in your niche and then ask what your community, your audience, and your tribe thinks of it. Again, people love to give their feedback.
Remember…opinions, everyone has one.
8. Industry News
We all have things happen in our business or in our space and yet we sometimes don't think to share these. The reality is lots of people don't have access or don't slow down long enough to research and find out certain types of information. There's a huge value proposition in this.
One, you are educating your community on things that are happening in your space or in your niche. Two, if you do this routinely, you will become an industry news or thought leader. People will come to you because they know you know what's happening.
Mari Smith does this amazingly well. She's a Facebook expert. On her fan page, she shares tips, resources, et cetera as it relates to Facebook. People go to her because they know she is going to have the inside scoop on what's happening on Facebook.
9. Fill in the Blanks
I kind of referenced this before with open-ended questions, but fill in the blanks are great as well.
It's a different way to phrase a question and the best ones only require a one or two-word answer, which makes it easier for your fans and followers to answer and engage with.
If you're stumped on what to do for fill in the blanks, go to the Google machine, type “fill in the blanks questions”, and I promise you will get tons of ideas that you can repurpose and/or craft that are specific to you in your space.
10. Strike Up a Conversation
It amazes me that so many people don't do this. When you go to a social event, don't you strike up a conversation with somebody? It's exactly the same on social media. Take the time, strike up a conversation, maybe give your personal take on an issue, ask what they think.
I have seen Gary Vanerchuck do this on Twitter. I thought it was incredible. It was just a simple question that, again, was a conversation starter for him. He said, “How was your day today, guys?” and then gave himself an hour to engage with his followers.
That's a conversation starter, guys. It was a door opener for him to talk to literally, in his case, hundreds of people.
If somebody is tweeting you, instead of saying just, “Hey, thanks for the retweet,” or not acknowledging it at all, ask them a question! Simple conversations can be amazing way to build a relationships.
11. Testimonials
We all know that we should be using testimonials on our websites, yet, we don't do that on social media.
Why in the world do we not do this?
One of the most effective strategies that I used to sell my book when it launched was to take testimonials that people would leave over on Amazon, create a graphic of those, and guess what guys…I put them on my Fan Page! I shared them on Twitter! I shared them on Instagram!
Instead of saying things like, “Go buy my book,” or, “Go buy my product,” or, “Go buy my service,” or, “Hey, I've got the best deal going,” or, “I know I can help you,” just let the words of your happy customers speak for you!
Share those testimonials, guys. Put them out there. Let people know that other people value your services or your products.
12. Open Q&A's
Open Q&A's are one of the things that I've done on Periscope, Facebook and in some of my closed Facebook groups.
Every once in a while, I'll do an open Q&A in one of those closed groups and I'll say, “Hey, I'm going to be available for the next hour. Ask any question you want.” It's a great way to provide value and get some real-time engagement with your followers.
13. Polls
You can use a poll for a number of different things like collecting opinions and/or ideas. This is really value based. Again, it's an engagement tool, but it's also a great way to get great information.
What should you do if you're not getting a bunch of comments or engagement on that poll on your Facebook page? Tweet it! Tweet it over on Twitter or share it on your personal profile. Drive people to that poll to get people to engage with it. They may not see it otherwise.
14. Caption a Photo
People love photos that elicit creativity. Asking your fans and followers to caption a photo normally gets some pretty good engagement as well as interesting captions!
People seem to love creating captions for funny, cute, silly, and weird photos. It's an easy and fun way to get some more engagement going!
15. Make Predictions
That's one of the top things on social across the board. People love predictions. They want to know what you think.
Now, sometimes those predictions backfire on us, but that's okay. Predictions are just what they are. Maybe you see a trend happening and you make a prediction on it. Even if what you predicted doesn't happen, people still love knowing what others think.
16. Crowd Source Ideas
Ask other people for ideas. It kind of goes back to when you're asking for opinions, but be specific. In other words, maybe you're getting ready to do a new product or a new coaching platform or anything of that nature…ask! Ask people what they think. Crowd source ideas. You will always, always get amazing feedback if you crowd source ideas.
17. Current Events
This is great because it gives you an opportunity to capitalize on what?…Hashtags. It gives you an opportunity to be found under hashtags that are trending.
Pay attention to what's trending on Facebook and Twitter and insert yourself into the conversation by creating posts abut that particular trend and leverage the hashtag.
Now you have an opportunity to get into the feed for that trend.
18. Highlight Your Customers
So many people don't take the time to do this. Give kudos to those who are buying your products and services, may be your top fans, or just pull out a fan on your Facebook page. Same on Twitter.
19. Tech Tips or Tools
People love tools and they love tech tips.
These tips can be things that will shorten the learning curve, shorten the timeline of something or give you a way to do it in a shorter period of time, or do something that you couldn't have done otherwise because you don't have the skills. Graphic design, for example.
20. Advice
It doesn't have to be your advice, but if you have some great advice and you feel like it's valuable then share your advice!
You could share something that you learned from a mistake you made. It doesn't have to end in a success, although it could be a success.
Share your experiences. Again, yours or others. It doesn't have to be your experiences.
21. Think Out Loud
This is one of the things that I do quite frequently. Something will be said on social media and it will make me think of something else or it will make me spawn an idea or something.
Thinking out loud, whether it's a rant or whether it's just a thought in the moment, should be shared on social media.
Those are as real as they get too, by the way. Thinking out loud.
Some will say, “Do you put a filter on that?” That's up to you. Sometimes with rants you might want to step back from it for ten minutes or count to ten and say, “Deep breath,” before you put it out there.
Every rant I've ever done has driven tons of engagement. Just saying.
22. Recommend Others to Follow
You can do this on a weekly basis and in a number of different ways. Do it as a blog post. Put it out on Twitter.
Whatever the case it, recommendations are huge.
They can be helpful as everybody has people in their niche that they might want to share with their community.
23. Debunk Myths
There are always things out there that people assume to be true when they're not true.
Take the time and say, “Guys, this isn't true or isn't always the case because of…” whatever it is. Debunk those myths!
24. Share Video or Audio Clips
Now, we see people sharing video pretty frequently, but you don't hear people say, “You should be sharing audio tips or audio clips.”
Those are just as impactful. In fact, maybe in some cases more impactful. If someone is on their phone and they can't watch something, they still might be able to listen to something. Absolutely share video and/or audio clips.
25. ASK!
Plus, if you know what your audience, your tribe or your community struggles with and you craft your products and your services to address those pain points, when it comes time to sell stuff, oh my goodness guys, you are in so much better shape because you already know people want it.
And THAT was the last tip! These 2 different social media ideas you can use to connect with your audience are all ones that I have used at one point or another and have had success using. Hopefully they bring you success too!
Do you have your own social media post idea that can help connect you to your audience? Share it below!
About Author
Yes, people LOVE to give feedback. Have a great week, Henry!