The most common challenge professionals face when managing social media marketing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or Pinterest is writing and managing content, starting with the #1 question:

“What should I post?”

Creating social media content is a pain ONLY when your head is not in the right place. Your mindset needs to be 100% focused on how you can serve and support your desired audience. Communicate in a meaningful way with your target audience.

Stop the stress and move towards success. Here are some easy social media content ideas to keep you current, collaborative, conversational and converting!

Quotes
When you lack writing inspiration (and let’s face it, we all have our days), then give yourself a little dose of inspiration – share a quote! Quotes are a form of content that are fast, easy and enjoyable for your readers.  The best part is you don’t have to write the content!

It’s so simple to give your social media followers a fun, funny or motivational quote that will make their day brighter…and quotes are often shared so you can get a viral marketing boost too!

Google is your best friend when it comes to finding quotes. Do a search on a phrase relevant to your industry. There are thousands of quotes online waiting. When you find one that works, copy and paste to your blog, tweet, posted on Facebook or share on Google+. Be sure to credit the writer and if you want to thank a certain website for providing the quote, that is good netiquette.

Here is one we shared on Facebook and Instagram designed with a free tool called Canva.com.
TakethatstepHere are some simple quote search queries to get you going based on industry terms. You’ll be surprised what (and how much) you find:

Productivity quotes
Marketing Quotes
Insurance Quotes
Tax Quotes
Fashion Quotes
Fitness Quotes
Food Quotes
Success Quotes
(Your industry terms) + quote

You can add additional words to your query like “funny” or “motivational” to get more refined results:

Funny + (Your industry terms) + quote
Motivational + (Your industry terms) + quote

When I was looking for content inspiration, I couldn’t remember the person who coined the famous “If at first you don’t succeed…” quote so I searched (for that part of the phrase only) and found not only the source, but an extension of the quote that I had never heard:

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit.
There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.
– W.C. Fields (source www.brainyquote.com)

I copied it, pasted it into Twitter.  Content – done. Easy, peasy.

Quotes can be shared on all social media outlets – your blog, LinkedIn (if the quote is relevant to your professional contacts) Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook.

Many bloggers post quotes on their blog and then use the link from their blog post (with the quote in it) as what is posted on other social media outlets. Often, quotes can include pictures…(just make sure you are using royalty free images, images you took or ones you own).

I love this example of Linda Menesez, a Santa Barbara Counselor who uses quotes when she blogs (she is a friend and a client my company has advised over the years) who launched a blog post with a quote. The quote is compelling and was perfect content to launch the rest of her post from.

Quotes for Content - Linda Menesez

Interviews
Interviews are another content-creating opportunity. We connect through our stories. On the social web, bringing people together through interview content is fun, interesting and often very, very easy.

A business blog I am totally addicted to called SheBrand.com features “You Should Know” wonder women. I LOVE to learn from the interviewees and always stay tuned for the great content.

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Social media interviews are great content and they are fast, easy and fun!

Who would your current and prospective customers want to read about? Other customers? Inspiring professionals? Once you have a theme of who you want to interview, come up with a handful of simple interview questions. You can send these questions over and over (saving you time and time is money!) to new interviewees. Often, interviewers will give interviewees the option of only answering questions on a list that they want to (versus making it a mandate to answer all questions). Sometimes a photo is asked for to add visual appeal to the social media post.

I earned my Masters from Antioch University in Santa Barbara. I did a marketing advisory project for them – an idea that was implemented was interviewing alumni.  The interviews were conducted online. The effort was simply finding the alum, sending them the questionnaire and then posting it to the blog (and sharing the post on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.) Time wasn’t spent on content creation, it was invested. These interviews are online and build as more interviews are conducted.

Antioch Interviews

One of the best parts of conducting interviews on your blog and sharing them on social media is often the interviewee will also share the interview to their social circles, giving you even more visibility!

Infographics, Videos and Photos
Content doesn’t have to be text only. Sharing content like infographics or videos can be very rewarding. Here is an example of a Facebook page I follow (the www.thesilverpen.com blog is great too!).

Screen Shot 2016-07-14 at 12.58.29 PMNote how the url of the blog (TheSilverPen.com) is also some of the infographic designs to create more awareness for the site.  Great marketing touch.

These graphics that are shared on Facebook are also posted on the blog as well as pinned on Pinterest.

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Be a Web Gemologist
So many professionals carry the weight of the content creation world on their shoulders.  You don’t have to sit and create new content all the time, why not get in the habit of being a “web gemologist” where you share “gems” of other people’s content on your social media:

Links to other posts that your readers would enjoy
Share Videos
Share Infographics

*Always, always properly credit the source of the article or videos.

I share great links and videos on Twitter daily. This is my favorite place to be a “web gemologist”!

Screen Shot 2016-07-14 at 1.09.39 PMThe phrase “content is king” is still true on the web…except nowadays, content is the whole marketing kingdom! It’s all about being a strategic content creator. Enjoy these tips and enjoy communicating in a way that is “on brand” and “on purpose”!

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