Do you need content ideas for small businesses? Does coming up with posts
for social media stress you out? Today I'm gonna share 11 proven content ideas
for small businesses, alright? Let's get into it
Hello busy people! Welcome to Five Minute Social Media. If you've ever had "figure
out my social medi"a on your to do list but it keeps getting shoved down because
you feel overwhelmed or you don't know where to start or you don't have time,
you're in the right place. Every week we put out a quick video helping you with a
different piece of your digital marketing strategy. My name is Jerry
Potter (yes it rhymes with the boy wizard) and today i'm gonna give you 11 proven
content ideas for small businesses. A lot of times I hear people say, "Oh well I see
what other people are doing but it doesn't apply to my business." Pretty
much all of these should apply to your business no matter what your business
might be. By the way these are all ideas that my clients have had proven success
with - and make sure you watch until the end because I've got some bonus ideas at
the very end for you too. And one more thing, because I hear this all the time
from people, "Oh my business is boring, nobody cares. Every business is
interesting in its own way. It might be boring to you if you do it every day. I
want to give you an example. I worked for years in radio hosting morning shows on
stations and got to interview huge stars - Ben Affleck, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift,
Garth Brooks - and even though listeners were interested in that, they were just
as interested in the dumb gray room that we stood in to do the show every day. So
the behind the scenes stuff in your business, whatever it might be, is more
interesting than you think it is to other people. Alright, eleven proven
social media content ideas for small businesses. Let's go! Content idea number
one: photos, videos, profiles on your team members, your employees your staff. This
is what makes your company human. You don't want people to relate to your
company as a brand, you want your customers to relate to your people as
people so this is what that achieves. Now if you don't have people or a team like
me - I mostly work on my own - for this that's okay! Your pet can be your intern,
the FedEx guy or the Amazon delivery guy or whatever, if you've got
somebody that shows up every day delivering packages they're on your team
The barista at your coffee shop can also be on your team if that's where you go
and work a lot of the time. So be creative, figure out those people. It
makes great content. Number two: anniversaries, birthdays, celebrations.
What is somebody celebrating? Birthdays are easy and obvious but it could be the
an anniversary, you know, their 5th work anniversary. Or it could be something
even more personal like you or somebody on your staff has been
alcohol-free for two years or whatever it might be
People love to rally for celebrations so it makes great content. Again you have a
small team like me? That's ok. Utilize other people or utilize your customers
or clients. They make great stories as well. Number three is ask questions. This
is everything with Facebook's algorithm right now. You want to ask questions that
people will want to comment on because Facebook loves comments. They also love
when your audience comments back and forth with each other. I'll give you a
little trick, and you can't do this all the time, it's really hard in some
situations, but ask questions that are so juicy that if somebody doesn't have an
answer for it they still want to see what other people are saying. Random
example that may not fit in your business or your brand but if you asked,
"What's the worst first date you've ever been on," if I see that in my Facebook
feed and I see there's 17 comments I'm like, "Oh I want to see these stories! I
want to see what's going on there!" Number four: ask for advice or suggestions
People love to help and feel like they're part of what you're doing
"Hey guys, thinking about serving our burger with broccoli instead of fries.
Yay or nay?" You'll probably get some passionate answers on that if you are a
restaurant. I've asked people about my video backgrounds and gotten their
opinion on that. I once crowd-sourced my haircut on
Facebook Live because I didn't know what to do. It was a little humbling as people
pointed out, "Well you are thinning out on the side there." Okay let's slow down, but
anything you can do to ask for advice tied into your personality or more
specifically your brand or business makes great content. Number 5: give tips.
You're an expert in something. How can you help your audience out. Maybe you
sell clothes online - you can give people tips on how to match things up. I
did have a wedding photographer once - I suggested, "Hey why don't you give out
photography tips?" They said, "Well I'm not gonna give away
my secrets!" I'm not talking about your secrets or whatever gives you your
signature style as a photographer, just help dummies like me take a better
picture with my phone the next time I don't have a professional wedding
photographer following me around. That's valuable to me and I appreciate that and
your audience will appreciate that too. Number six: before-and-afters. Everybody
loves a makeover, whether it's a person or a home or whatever it might be. But
your before-and-after could also be if you're a baker - here's all the
ingredients and here's what I made with it. Even for me a before-and-after might
be, "Here's what my recording studio looks like before I set everything up and
here's what it looks like after I set everything up. "Whatever your business is
there's probably an interesting before and after that you might be able to get
at least a couple pieces of content out of. Number seven: local events in your
area. If you are a local business you are probably going to some of the same
festivals and activities that people in your audience are so it could be as
simple as, "Hey I'm checking out the taste of this city this weekend. Never been. Got
any tips?" These are all chances to start conversations with your audience no
matter what your business might be. Number eight: local sports. This is the
chance to just basically jump on the bandwagon of something that somebody is
already excited about.I have a client in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. You better bet we
post about Alabama football. We have a client in Nashville and we definitely
posted about the Predators when they were in the playoffs. So you've got all these
opportunities to jump on the bandwagon of something else. Don't fake it if you
hate sports - don't do that - but otherwise by all means you might as well take
advantage of the local scene. Number nine: #ThrowbackThursday. These still work! I
know that might sound like a tired old idea like, "Oh we've been doing throwback
Thursday since 2009 - hey that's a throwback there." But it works.
I developed a content strategy for a chain of collision centers and we
decided on Thursdays we were going to start posting photos of classic cars
This was a Facebook page that was completely dead, no engagement, no reach.
We started doing that - that was the birth of the page and then we branched out
from there with other valuable content. So throwback Thursday still a viable
thing. Number ten: behind the scenes. What don't people normally get to see? Maybe
you have an immaculate Instagram feed but occasionally show something where
your hair is messy maybe on Instagram stories or something like that. If you
have an immaculate storefront but you have just a disaster of a storage room,
post a picture of the storage room to show people, "Yeah I'm not perfect. It's a
disaster back there, that's why I don't let you back there!" That makes you
relatable as a human. And right after idea number 11 I'm gonna tell you how to
get some bonus ideas but idea number eleven is to show the bad stuff. This makes
people uncomfortable, and I get it, but you need to show when things go wrong in
your business too. Got a bad review?Make a video, read the review and then address
the customer's concerns. That will mean so much to the rest of your customers,
especially if you made a mistake and you just say, "Hey we had an off night
I'm sorry. We're working to be better and I really appreciate the feedback." That
will go a long way for people. If you work in a restaurant, you drop a tray
glasses, snap a photo!" "We're not perfect.
Boss is gonna be mad about this one." That's all great content that lets
people feel like they're getting inside your business or your brand. Even
though it might feel weird to share the bad stuff, it's again what makes you
human. So there you go, eleven content ideas for
small businesses - but I've actually put together a longer list of 24 content
ideas. You want to get the whole list? Go to the link in the description of this
video. It's totally free, I'm not selling anything. This is something that I give out to
clients all the time and I want you to be able to have it too. 24 content ideas -
get the link in the description of this video. Want help adapting one of these ideas
to your industry? Let me know down in the comments, I'll be happy to help you there,
or join our Facebook group. Just search for "Five Minute Social Media" on Facebook and
post it in there. We're having a lot of great conversations about social media
and I can help you out in there as well. You made it this far, I hope this video
is valuable. If so give it a like, hit subscribe, we'll put out a new video
every single week to help you as you grow your small business. Thank you so
much for watching Five Minute Social Media. Uou not only support me but also my two
tiny superheroes at home.