As a growing business owner or solopreneur, a blank content calendar may feel daunting. Consistently coming up with fresh ideas for your social media, blog, or other content marketing channels can be challenging, much less producing high-quality content regularly that resonates with your target audience. However, with some creativity and proper planning, you can generate many strategic ideas to engage and convert your followers. Here are some of my tips and insights for ideating fresh content to help you stay ahead of the curve and your calendar.

Who: Positioning Your Social Media Content Strategy

While thinking of content ideas based on what you enjoy consuming on social media can be fun, it doesn’t mean those ideas are right for your business. There are three key considerations to use as your starting point:

1. Know Your Brand: How can you translate your brand’s personality for social media? To consistently convey your business’s unique qualities across platforms, create a guide encompassing your brand story and values, visual style, messaging, and voice. In addition, make sure you have your long-term goals and short-term objectives planned out so that you have a clear, measurable path for growth.

2. Know Your Audience: Whom are you aiming to capture with your social media posts? Start by creating a buyer persona that represents your ideal customer. Research demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data to identify what might appeal to them and entice them to interact with your brand. Which social media platforms are they using? If you already have a following started, use your current data to see what type of consumers are giving your content the most attention and engagement. You can even just ask them directly what they’d like to see from you!

3. Know Your Competition: To stay current on the competition, monitor what your rivals and your industry idols post on social media. Analyze their content to learn what works for them, get inspiration for your posts, and identify gaps in the market. Also, don’t forget to research Google and key social media networks to see the top keywords, content types, topics, questions, and trends.

 

What: Brainstorming Social Media Content Ideas

To help you get started, here are some top social media content ideas you can tailor based on your research and analysis:

• User-generated content: reshare your followers’ photos and stories related to your brand, both increasing customer loyalty and your own external engagement for an algorithmic boost.

• Showcase your products or services: share high-quality images and videos of your products or services in action.

• Hold a contest: a contest or giveaway generates excitement around your brand.

• Customer testimonials: reviews show potential customers the value of your products or services and increase trust in your brand’s quality.

• Industry news: updates related to your industry to keep your audience informed.

• Relevant hashtags increase your reach and connect with potential customers outside your established following.

• Tutorials: demos or how-to guides related to your products or services.

• Infographics: visually appealing infographics to communicate complex information in an easy-to-understand format are often widespread and can be easily branded to your style guide.

• Your brand story: share the journey of your business to create a personal connection with your audience.

• Humor: as long as it fits your brand voice, jokes or memes can connect with your audience and show off your brand’s personality.

• Inspirational quotes: motivate or touch the hearts of your audience with quotes that align with your brand values.

• Go live: engage with your audience in real time.

• Host a Q&A: conducting a Q&A session to answer questions from your audience puts you right on the pulse of what your followers or leads want to know about your business or industry. It cultivates potential future content topics for you.

• Introduce your team: let your audience get to know who brings them the content, products, and services behind your business.

• Your process: share your creative process and/or how you make your products to give your audience a glimpse into your business operations.

• Polls: gather direct preferences and feedback from your audience.

• Industry insights: share your industry-related insights related to positioning yourself as an authority in your field.

• News about your business: share updates such as press mentions, new promotions, product releases, and other news about your business to keep your audience informed and excited.

• Graphics: create shareable graphics that align with your brand’s aesthetic.

• Partnerships: highlight any partnerships your business is involved in, which could include community outreach, charitable collaborations, ambassador programs, and more.

• Tips: share relevant tips related to your products or services to provide value to your audience.

• Influencer marketing: partner with influencers to reach a wider audience.

• Industry events: photograph or write up your experience at industry events or conferences you attend, mainly if you’re featured in any panels, talks, or ceremonies.

• Remix existing content: repurpose a blog post into an infographic, turn a how-to guide into a video tutorial, transform a caption into an eye-catching image, and condense a webinar into an article.

 

When: Scheduling Your Social Media Content

Once you’ve planned social media networks and content types to prioritize, it’s time to start crafting. Again, I recommend batch planning, which involves mapping out and producing multiple pieces of content in advance; as always, improvising content on the fly can be stressful and time-consuming.

Step 1: Make a content calendar

Outline your content’s topics, formats, and publishing dates by the week, month, quarter, or year. This way, you can stay ahead of seasonal or timely events, plus diversify your content types and topics so that your social media feeds don’t become one-note. It also optimizes control over quality, tone, and messaging, leading to a cohesive and coherent brand voice. 

Step 2: Set a content creation day

Once you know what content you want, it’s time to actually create it. Dedicate a day to filming videos, typing out post captions, taking pictures, designing graphics, and whatever else you need for the month ahead. You can do this on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis so that you keep your growing arsenal of assets fresh while not getting burnt out.

Step 3: Use a scheduling tool

Utilize pre-scheduling resources like Sendible, Hootsuite, Later, or the in-platform scheduling functions that most social media platforms have now. Not having to post natively daily reduces day-to-day urgency and your screen time. Just stay updated on the ever-shifting news and trends in case you need to edit or reschedule any content as you go.

 

Coming up with fresh social media content ideas can be a manageable task. By understanding your brand and audience, brainstorming topics and content types, and planning ahead, you can create a robust social media presence that engages your customers and grows your brand’s following. For more strategic insights tailored to your business, contact me to discuss a custom social media marketing training.