Everyone knows incorporating social media into your promotional game plan is an essential part of marketing your business online. And in order to have a solid social media presence, you need to post consistently and engage your followers.
But that said, it can be difficult to know what to say that makes an impact when you’re posting on Twitter multiple times per day and Facebook at least once per day. How do you continually find new content that matters to your followers most?
Fortunately there are more resource than you could possibly tap to help break you out of your content rut and help organize your updates. Employ them deliberately and carefully to avoid jumping onto the “me-too” bandwagon that has run rampant on social media.
Get inspired by these seven sources of inspiration for social media platforms and add your own powerful and unique ideas that speak to the voice of your brand.
Inspiration for Social Media Content
1. Pull from Quora
Quora opens the floodgates of questions and ideas to address with your own social media following. Peruse through popular questions, as well as the recent additions of blogs and reviews. Ask your questions directly on Quora and link back to your established following on Facebook and Twitter. It’s easy to set up a free profile that follows topics of interest to you and your industry that will ultimately jog your creativity and inspire.
Leverage the podcast marketplace and search for interviews and current thought leadership about your industry. Devour podcasts in your industry and related markets to hear new ideas that will be highly relevant and interesting to your followers. Soon you’ll be able to form your own take on the information and spread the resulting content on your own social media accounts. You may even catch the attention of podcasters and be invited for an interview yourself.
3. Share Quotes
Quotes may be short on text, but can pack a powerful punch and get your point across quickly. Social media followers enjoy this type of content because it gives them a quick, often memorable principal that they can keep in their mind for the day. Quotes are 10 percent more likely to be retweeted on Twitter, so the simple effort of finding a relevant and interesting quote can boost your shares quite a bit.
Want to combine the power of social media image updates with your followers’ natural interest in quotes? Tools like Recite, Pinwords and QuotesCover make it easy – no graphic design background required.
4. Share Other People’s Content
Don’t succumb to the pressure of always having to come up with your own new ideas to spark unique social content. Periodically re-sharing other people’s content is a simple way to bring relevant content to your audience and show that you’re open-minded to new thoughts and letting others have a word. And when you share content created by a member of your audience, you’ll give them validation and a chance to enjoy your social media channels even more. Don’t be shy about sharing others’ content along with your own.
For even greater reach, be sure to tag the original creator in the text portion of your Facebook or Twitter update. Doing so increases your odds of reaching the creator’s social community in addition to your own.
5. Refer to Pop Culture
Stay relevant by sharing content based on a popular song, celebrity, or recent event. This can create a path leading to larger conversation or connection with your audience. It’s also an easy way to infuse some personality into your channels by incorporating humor and generating far more shares than expected.
Mention popular television shows, an important sporting event, or something dominating the current news. Just ensure you consider the sensitivity of the topics involved and avoid controversial events unless you’re ready to handle the backlash that may come with it as well.
6. Leverage Upworthy
Upworthy is a social media news site hosting a wide variety of shareable content. There are dozens of categories, and even if you don’t find anything relevant to share with your audience, it’s impossible not to find some inspiration for your own social channels.
Be careful, though, not to get lost in the sea of content yourself. It’s far too easy to spend hours lounging around Upworthy reading interesting articles that spiral past your immediate needs. Fortunately that’s exactly the response you’re looking to generate from your own followers.
7. Browse Reddit
With an incredibly large user base that generates an enormous amount of eclectic content, Reddit is a one-stop shopping source for social media inspiration. Check-out Reddit’s tremendous reserve of commentary about current video games, hilarious memes and sobering new stories. Review currently hot commentary, new posts, or controversial comments easily using tabs at the top of the page. Seeing the conversation on each post gives you even more ideas on what to share and what angle to take.
Your strategically planned out social media content doesn’t have to be repetitive or boring. By using these seven sources of inspiration for your social media content, you’ll be able to share consistent, interesting content on a regular basis.
Where else do you find inspiration for social media content?
Light bulb photo via Shutterstock
Aira Bongco
I am all for sharing interesting content even if it is not yours. Quotes and interesting videos can also do the trick as long as they are related to your niche.
Logan Sanders
Thanks for the informative article! I actually recently discovered Quora and was still wondering how exactly to implement it in my daily work. It must be faith that it is number one in your list! Thanks again!
Great ideas, but it seems like the wealth of resources can be overwhelming for one person, unless their part of a team.
#nycmixing
Mellissa
Where is no.2?
Andrei Vassiliev
I use Capzool and have never looked back.