As a small business owner, you have so much on your plate that sometimes coming up with social media ideas is the last thing you want to do.
We get it! As a business owner, especially if you’re just getting started, you have to make tons of marketing decisions on top of everything else and if it doesn’t immediately make money it’s hard to prioritize it.
However, that will have a detrimental impact on your business.
Your business’ social media pages are where your audience comes to interact with your business. According to Arthur Wilson, a Digital Marketing Consultant for Fabric, nearly 50% of prospective customers will check your socials before making a buying decision. Here’s the kicker though, 38% of those polled said if a brand does not have any social media presence, they would assume the brand is not reputable.
However, we promised to give you some social media ideas. So, what do potential customers want to see from a brand on their socials?
They want to check how many followers you have. The more followers, the more reputable customers believe the brand is. Don’t let this put unnecessary pressure on you though. If you’re a small business, they don’t expect to see millions of followers. Just have it on your goals to grow your channels.
Almost 30% of the respondents from the above survey also said they check to see how often the brand is updating the content on their channel.
Here’s how we take care of small business social media content for our clients here in the Springfield, MO area.
6 social media ideas for small businesses
At 2oddballs, we like to publish a continuous mix of content for our clients. They typically fall into one of three buckets: promotional, educational, and interactive. We believe this is a good strategy because it doesn’t constantly call on the followers to purchase something (which can become annoying). You’re educating them on your products/services, getting them to engage with your brand providing more familiarity, staying top-of-mind, and building a community.
Here are six types of posts you can start with:
- Brand story: Tell your followers the story of how your brand started. Show them the progress you’ve made from your mom’s house (just me?) to the C-Suite. By giving them the origin story, you build trust and loyalty.
- Behind-the-scenes: Show your followers how the bread gets made. Teach them how your product/service comes together, why it works, and how it works. This stuff isn’t just fascinating (think of the How It’s Made series) but it can help your followers understand why they need what you’re providing!
- Voice your opinion on local issues: Is there something you believe in dearly and hope that your business can offer a platform to make a difference? It can! If you have something to add to the discussion of local issues, USE YOUR VOICE! Your customers do care and this provides a greater sense of community within your brand.
- Take a trend and apply it to your brand: Are you a TikToker? Or a fan of Facebook Reels? Whatever the social platform, there’s trends in content and you can take it, put your own spin on it, and post it for your followers. If trends feel gross to you, post a parody (think Monty Python or National Lampoon’s) that makes fun of the trend. There’s plenty of people who think the same way you do. Sometimes the easiest social media ideas have already been thought of for you.
- Industry news: No matter what industry you’re in, there’s movers and shakers doing things. Not only should you stay on top of this news to see what your competitors are doing and make adjustments that fit your situation, but your followers care about this too. They want to know you’re an expert in your field and want to know what’s on the horizon. Kill two birds with one stone here!
- Brand collaborations: This works especially well in tight-knit communities. Create content with other brands in the area to tap in to their following, build community relations and support for your brand. There are likely other small businesses in your area also struggling to come up with social media ideas. So, they’ll likely jump at the idea to collaborate!
