After you create a website, social media marketing is an effective way to drive new traffic to your site, connect with your audience and remind previous customers to return. But how do you capture the attention of social media users when new content floods their feeds every second? The key is to share different types of eye-catching, conversation-starting posts. The challenge then becomes coming up with new social media content ideas when you’re already on there posting every day. To help you figure out what kind of content to post, you’ll find 20 suggestions below with examples from brands big and small.
Social media content ideas
01. Share your blog posts and other great content
Creating a blog and regularly publishing new blog posts, vlogs, or podcast episodes helps give search engines more proof of your site’s authority and relevance. This, in turn, can improve how well your site ranks and how much traffic it receives. However, it’s never a good idea to strictly rely on search engines to bring you traffic.
By posting your great written content on social media, you can exponentially increase your reach and get more engagement. When sharing informational blog posts that are helpful and well researched, you will provide a lot of value to your followers which is key.
Tip: use a url shortener to create the best link to go viral. Or add a social share button to your blog page.
Here’s an example of how we published a blog post from the Wix Blog on our Facebook page to inspire thought leadership:
02. Develop how-tos, tutorials, and tips
While your blog is a great place to share tutorials and practical tips with your audience, social media gives you the chance to quickly guide them step-by-step in real-time. Platforms like YouTube or Instagram’s IGTV allow you to record lengthier how-tos, but you can easily share bite-sized tutorials on other social media platforms too. Here’s an example from Mac Cosmetics using an Instagram Reel to teach people how to keep their skin from looking dry in the winter:
03. Announce big company news
Social media users don’t need to know every time you update your app’s software or hire a new admin. But the big company news that affects them? Yes, sharing that kind of information on social media is a great idea. You can follow Tesla’s lead on this one who retweeted Elon Musk’s new car model announcement. Letting fans and anyone interested know exciting changes can help with building buzz, boosting social signals, generating excitement and even boosting sales.
04. Publish industry headlines
When operating a business, it’s only natural for you to stay up to date on what’s happening in your industry. This allows you to stay ahead of the curve and provide your audience with the latest and greatest offering.
That said, your customers aren’t always savvy to know everything that’s going on. Sometimes they are, but they’d really benefit from a reminder and insider tips from you in order to make the most of it.
Take this LinkedIn post on Zynga’s page as an example. Here, Zynga provides value to its audience with information about the rapid growth in the mobile gaming industry.
05. Show off data with infographics
Using infographics is one of those social media ideas that’s a no-brainer. Infographics are a great way to spice up your blog content as they turn what would otherwise be a text-dense post into something attractive, easy to read and shareable.
On social media, though, you won't want to post the whole thing. Instead, pull out a powerful bite-sized nugget like this one on Think with Google's LinkedIn page. Also, if you want to ensure your infographic or report doesn't get missed, stats or numbers certainly get people to stop and pay attention.
06. Create engaging videos
Video is a very user-friendly social media marketing format. For one, auto-playing videos do a great job capturing people’s attention as they scroll. What’s more, it’s much easier for users to watch a video than to try and read a lot of text to learn about products or the company. Furthermore, funny or entertaining videos are appreciated by users and are a great way to spike your view count.
Lego did an excellent job creating an enticing stop motion video on YouTube called Saving Thanksgiving. It has received over 86 million views, a massive reach of people who will see their product used creatively.
07. Take advantage of trending topics
It’s not too difficult to find out what’s trending on social media, be it a person, place, meme, event or even a challenge. Most of these platforms have a dedicated section with trending topics to look at for ideas. You can also use Google Trends to get a sense of what people are talking about and create content around it. This social media marketing strategy (in which brands utilize trending topics, events or memes to connect with their audience) is called trendjacking.
Chipotle Mexican Grill often leverages big holidays or events to push out new social content, like this below post for the US elections. So long as it’s in line with your social media branding and isn’t too controversial, take advantage of the trends to create relevant content.
Learn more: What is Brat?
08. Leverage user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC) has become a useful marketing strategy for brands and an excellent way to increase your social media presence. Here’s how it works: A customer tags your brand in one of their posts. You notice how awesome it is and how well it shows off your product and decide it’s worth sharing with your audience.
Not only does this kind of content build a lot of consumer trust as they get to see your products or services used by real customers, but it also boosts loyalty in your existing customer base. Just remember to tag the creator in your post, so they are credited and can see that you’re proud to show them off on your feed or Story. Here’s an example from the Museum of Ice Cream’s Instagram feed:
09. Show your personality with memes and GIFs
Whether you create custom GIFs or repurpose popular memes, adding the occasional touch of levity to your page is a good idea. In just a few seconds, you can tell your audience a lot about your brand’s personality and style. These kinds of graphics also tend to be very engaging. GIFs, for instance, are a lot like videos in that the motion encourages people to slow their scroll and see what’s going on. This custom-made GIF on the Starbucks’ Twitter page shows how just the tiny bit of movement can bring a brand’s product to life on social media:
See our guide on how to use Twitter for more platform specific ideas.
10. Post an interesting quote
There are entire social media pages dedicated to inspirational quotes. Evidently, people appreciate hearing different voices that send positive messages. You can post quotes that are aligned with national holidays such as Martin Luther King Day or Women’s History Month. In the Adobe example below, you can see their WomenCreateWednesday Instagram post with a powerful quote embedded into a colorful background:
Posting on Instagram? Don't forget the importance of your bio page. Hopp helps create the most stunning and fast-loading bio pages with ease. It is highly customizable, its unique search feature ensures that your followers can access your links quickly and easily like never before.
11. Conduct an interview
A lot of times, interviews are done in longer formats, like articles or videos. But social media has taken another twist on interviews. There are ways to use the limited space that social media gives you to publish bite-sized interviews. LinkedIn is a good platform for interviews as its character limits aren’t as strict as platforms like Twitter. Here’s a great example from Upwork that shared a spotlight interview snippet on their LinkedIn feed.
12. Let your audience meet your employees
Show the world the amazing team that stands behind your brand. It not only humanizes your business but also lets people get to know your company and who you're made of. Pinterest uses a similar format when posting an employee spotlight post on LinkedIn that says "The women of Pinterest weigh in on the kindest corners of the internet."
There are other ways to get your employees involved in your social media content. For example, you could hand the mic over to them and let them do a takeover of your channel for the day. Who better than the people working for your brand to show off your facilities and your products in action, right? You could even get inspired from the example above and use your Pinterest marketing efforts to achieve it.
13. Put a spotlight on your customers
We've already seen how to put the spotlight on customers by posting user-generated content to your social feeds. Using a spotlight post for a customer is another way to let them take the stage and authentically advocate for your brand.
Take a look at how Airbnb has put a unique spin on this in its customer spotlight series of posts. Essentially, these posts are a highlight reel from an Airbnb customer’s trip. Not only does it show off how great their experience is, but it also gives exposure to the host’s property too.
That said, customer spotlights aren't going to make sense for every brand, so don’t sweat it if you don’t have people’s photos to show off. You can create social media graphics containing customer testimonials instead. Or you can do interview-style posts that serve as case studies of their experience.
14. Give your customers a look behind the scenes
While your offering is ultimately what customers pay for, that doesn’t mean they have no interest in what it took behind the scenes to make it a reality.
There are a lot of things people might be interested in getting a peek at, like your workplace setup, process, or the team at work. If you feel like it’ll enrich their understanding of what it is you do and why, or just be a fun thing for them to see, feel free to share it.
Here’s a unique example from Walmart’s YouTube channel that includes a lot of behind the scenes footage in their “Meet Your Grocery Picker” series. Katie, whose job it is to find high-quality products for customers’ online orders, takes us through the process of grocery picking. This video is a part-employee spotlight, part-behind the scenes and part-product promotion, showing you that combining different types of content can be really effective.
15. Create previews of upcoming offerings
You can generate a lot of anticipation, support, and customer buy-in on social media by teasing what’s to come in terms of your products, services, events, locations, and more. It doesn’t take much either. Simply give your followers a preview of what they can expect and when, as Foot Locker does on Twitter when announcing a new retro Nike shoe. The tweet includes the release dates and where you can find the shoe.
As your brand gets closer to the upcoming launch, you can use social media channels to gather emails from people who wish to be notified once the offering is live. This is useful for predicting how well the launch will do and also gives you another way to stay in touch with your audience with email marketing campaigns down the road.
16. Do an unboxing video for your product
There’s an entire genre of social media content called unboxing videos. Basically, someone goes shopping or buys something online and then records themselves opening it up and using it once they’ve received it.
While it’s beneficial to have real customers creating this video on their own, brands themselves can take advantage of this trendy type of content. Here Wayfair demonstrates how this grilled cheese maker gets setup. Why did they choose this product out of the many on Wayfair’s site? Well, this post is in honor of National Grilled Cheese Day. What a clever way to combine a product showcase with special calendar days and holidays.
17. Run contests and giveaways
Your website isn’t the only place you can reward customers and incentivize them to come back for more. A common social media marketing tip is to run contests or giveaways that customers, followers, and random social media users can participate in.
Like with any social media content you share, it needs to be on-brand. It also should be something people care about. For instance, Visa’s cash giveaway on Twitter lets the winner donate $25,000 to the small business of their choice. Considering Visa's financial industry, this giveaway prize is highly relevant.
18. Host and promote your live events
As people spend more time online, it only makes sense for companies to host more of their events on social media. With platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, it’s easy to schedule, promote, and host live events like Q&As, webinars, and mini-conferences. And unlike real-world events that require extensive coordination of physical items, spaces, and people, these are often much easier to get up and running.
If you want to see one such example of this, Origins recently ran a Facebook live event. Not only did Origin’s skin expert provide great recommendations for Mother’s Day gifts, but she also interacted with the event’s attendees in real-time too. After the live event is over, you can upload the recording as a video or IGTV so the people who missed it can still consume the useful content.
19. Team up with another brand
Brands partner with other brands to enhance their offering. If you have an established partnership with a brand that’s also active on social media, it’s not a bad idea to loop them into your content strategy.
Take a look at how H&M promotes its partnership with Lemlem. In the video below, the founder of the ethical clothing line talks about the company’s mission while H&M followers get to see items from the line. One reason to do this is to boost awareness of a partner’s involvement in your brand—especially if its mission is something that people gravitate to or it’s already an established household name.
Another reason to partner with another brand is to broaden your reach on social media. If you look at Lemlem’s Instagram page, you’ll see that they have 129k followers and share some of the H&m content. Even if there’s some overlap with H&M’s followers, these posts will likely bring new page visits and lead people to H&M's store.
20. Share influencer content
If influencer marketing is part of your social media strategy, make sure you’re making the most out of their produced content. Sure, it’s a huge bonus to have them promoting your social media content to their large and engaged audiences. However, you’re going to have an even more fruitful and meaningful partnership if you promote their images and videos on your channels as well.
Take Athleta’s partnership with Simone Biles. While Biles may be the ambassador wearing the company’s workout clothes, Athleta is on Facebook congratulating the athlete on her recent athletic achievement.
If you can show that your influencer isn’t just in it for the money, and your brand isn’t just doing it for the clout, this partnership will mean a lot more to your followers and customers.
There are so many ways to make influencer content work for your brand - our guide to TikTok for business is just one of these ways.
