What to post on your social media pages
What do you post on social media? Well, your content! Your social media ties directly into your content plan that you should already have in place from working through the previous chapters, and now that you have decided on your social media platform you can use it to deliver this content to your followers. It is important that you don’t broadcast; instead, you need to engage. Define your brand voice and post as if you are speaking to friends, confidants, and fellow conspirators – not to people you are trying to squeeze money out of. Be visual. Be social. Feature your team, your office animals and your journey. Use Facebook Live to talk direct and answer questions, or virtually walk people around your business when something exciting is happening.
Social media works well with a deal of spontaneity, and although you need to follow your content plan there is nothing wrong with someone taking the initiative and jumping on with a quick photo or story update to share something interesting. However, if multiple people have access to your account, you need to decide a brand voice and make sure everyone understands it. Have questions in place that everyone, including you, needs to ask themselves before each and every time they post:
- Is it positive? If not, don’t post it
Or find a way to re-frame it in a more positive way. - Is it genuinely interesting? If not, don’t post it
Or find a way to share it in a way that is remarkable
(eg deliver a boring message using sock puppets). - Is it visual? If not, don’t post it
Or create your own image or video to go with it
(eg don’t use a stock image, ice the message on a cake and take a photo). - Is it original? If not, don’t post it
Or find a way to put your own point of view on it. - Is it in our brand voice? If not, don’t post it
Or find a way to say it our way.
You should also get to know the social media platform and how you can leverage it to get your message to more people. For instance, some platforms use hashtags, which are words or phrases that have the # symbol at the start to tie them with other posts using the same tag. See what hashtags the businesses you study use and work out why. Another example: because Instagram doesn’t (at the time of writing) allow you to put links in your post, you can use tools like Linktree so that one link can take people to a menu you can build with multiple link options. Again, see how successful businesses format their posts for each platform and learn why they do it.
