Social media is a great tool for organizations to take advantage of in their digital marketing efforts. Many people of all ages spend at least some time every day checking platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn. While creating your business’s social media account on the right platforms for your target audience is step one, step two is generating worthwhile content. 

10 easy prompts to use for social media content creation

If you’re not a social media mogul, then coming up with content ideas might feel like a mountain. While it seems like some content creators are pumping out nothing but innovative ideas, most of what they do likely already came from somewhere else. So, here are some ideas to get you started:

1. Share customer highlights

What better way to showcase all that your organization has to offer than by highlighting a great customer experience? Whether it’s a testimonial, a case study, or just a showcase of a satisfied customer, this type of content gets you something to fill your content calendar with, a direct connection with your target audience, and humble brag. Some ways you can share customer highlights on your social media include:

  • Share or highlight customer’s stories on your story or profile
  • Gather and share some specific client case studies
  • Invest in a “customer testimonial video”
  • Use a review to create a social post

Visit the Social Media Examiner for more ideas.

2. Give followers a peak behind the scenes

According to Hookle, “Behind-the-scenes content includes photos and videos that show the authentic side of you, your business, and your team members.” When you showcase the inner workings of your organization, you can show your followers all of the hard work and dedication that you and your team do every day. This type of content not only gives you something to post but also gives you a chance to publicly highlight your hardworking employees. 

Keep reading this Hookle article for additional ideas on how you can start giving behind-the-scenes looks into your business. 

3. Take advantage of “how-to” content

Hootsuite notes that “how-to” content is great for you to demonstrate your thought leadership as well as fill up your YouTube channel and have some useful content for your social media platforms. You are the experts in your industry. How can you use that knowledge to both demonstrate your expertise and help your followers and target audience? 

Whether you can show customers how to use a product or pass along industry-specific knowledge, there are a variety of ways that you can bring this idea to life. 

4. Use season-specific content

People love when the seasons change. Spring after a long winter feels like a breath of fresh air. Fall after a hot summer tells us we can finally relax. And don’t get me started on the beginning of winter and the holiday season. Whether it’s seasonal promotions, favorite local summer activities, fall style trends, tips and tricks for Christmas shopping, or a holiday shopping guide, there are endless ways that you can use a new season to fill your social media calendar. Some tips to help you include:

  • Use the language of the season (ie “spice up” in fall, “hot deals” in summer, etc.)
  • Make sure you’re using relevant hashtags (ie #fallvibes, #holidayseason, #springcleaning, etc.)
  • Aim for fun and excitement – play into how much people LOVE a new season 

5. Highlight your engagement in the community

Whether you like to volunteer, support a cause you’re passionate about, or donate resources to a local school or nonprofit, showing your organization out in the community tells your audience that you’re a business that gives back. Sharing it on social media helps make sure your followers know that as well as gives you an opportunity to digitally interact with the organizations that are in close proximity to you. 

Here are ideas to help you give back to your community. 

6. Create content surrounding company culture

Not only do people want to support organizations that care about the people who are contributing to the success of the business, but it can also attract potential new team members. If you are looking to hire more people or you know you will be in the future, it’s important that you show your following what it’s like to work there, especially if you have a positive company culture. Ways you can do this include:

  • Sharing employee testimonials
  • Posting employee highlights
  • Sharing open jobs with benefits transparency
  • Giving a behind-the-scenes look into a day in the life

Find more ideas here.

7. Throw a giveaway contest

If one of your goals is to get more followers or increase engagement, then a giveaway contest is something you may want to consider investing in. If you tell people on social media that they could potentially get free stuff for a follow, a like, a share, etc., then expect an increase in notifications. People love free stuff, especially if it’s something you know they’re going to want. 

If you need tips on how to run a giveaway contest on social media successfully, check out this article.

8. Show a before-and-after transformation

For businesses in the trades, before-and-afters will help you display your great work to your followers. Home or business improvements are a huge investment and people want to know that they’re going to get quality results in the end. Showing them actual results is a great way to seal the deal. 

Additionally, for organizations whose brick-and-mortar location is undergoing some renovations, before-and-afters are a fun way to engage your followers, help them feel like a great part of your business, and gives social media recognition to the company doing the hard work. 

9. Use both video and images

Using strictly videos or images and text won’t get you very far. Working to find a healthy balance between both mediums will help you stay in front of your users as well as create content that’s engaging, informative, and useful. An insyntharticle notes that, according to HubSpot, “59% of people prefer to consume content as a video.” So, it’s important to make sure that at least half of your content is in this format. However, “there is still 41% out there who find text preferable,” therefore it’s equally important that the other half of your content is static images and text. 

10. Use AI for ideas

While you can always spend a few hours foraging the internet for new social media content ideas, AI is a great, quick, and easy resource that you can also take advantage of. We don’t recommend copying and pasting AI-generated content into a new social post as it reads quite like a textbook, but it is an awesome resource for getting you started (how do you think we got this article written?). 

Take a look at this article if you’re interested in adding AI to your marketing resources tool belt.