15 Social Media Ideas to Make Your Feed Shine

Social networks are not just “branches” of your website. Their primary purpose is direct communication with followers. And to accomplish this, you need to fill them with the right content. It should be engaging, interesting, and unusual.

As we move into 2022, photos of a cat are not enough to close the project’s business objectives. The audience is oversaturated with content, and different projects pursue different goals — monotonous posts will not work here. A captivating content idea is the basis of any content campaign. The excitement around an idea is what keeps you going through the (sometimes) long creation process, and it is part of what makes your audience share, share, and share.

We all understand that constantly coming up with fresh content ideas is a little bit of a challenge. So, go ahead and consider this article as a kind of cheat sheet, which you can run through in case of an inspiration crisis. Be inspired by our selection and experiment!

15 Social Media Ideas to Keep Your Followers Interested 

1. Use video.

As of 2020, 83.3% of internet users in the US accessed the digital online content. Keeping in mind such video consumption statistics, the presence of video in brand marketing is no longer an isolated instance but a rule. All major brands adapt their content to popular formats on the web.

Many users do not want to read anything – it is more convenient for them to watch the video. So give your followers this opportunity. Shoot video reviews of the product, important events from the brand’s life – anything you find engaging for your audience. Even short creative video clips will spice up your Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook feeds. 

2. Arrange a contest or giveaway.

As before, contests on social networks remain pretty popular and effective promotion tactics. To develop your brand, you need to monitor audience engagement constantly, and a contest is an excellent solution for this goal.

It is essential to choose an exciting prize and pick up the mechanics for its running, depending on your business objectives. For example:

• to quickly increase the number of subscribers (competition with simple mechanics);
• to form an audience of brand advocates (marathon);
• to receive user-generated content (photo contest and video contest).

The contest’s mechanics in the social network will be different for each goal. Therefore, you should follow the algorithm: decide what you want to achieve, select the appropriate rules for the contest, invest in its organization, and conduct it. You can hold contests yourself or attract other accounts as organizers or sponsors.

3. Create daily, weekly, or monthly series.

We are sure you want your social media posts to be perceived more like an event by your followers. Creating a daily, weekly, or monthly series is an excellent solution. Stick to regularity and make your brand fans look forward to seeing specific content from you.

For example, think over content series you can post every Monday, every Friday, or month. Believe us, and your social media followers will wait for Monday (or any other day the series will appear) to see the post from the brand they love and support. 

4. Run a social media takeover.

It is the type of influencer marketing that aims to attract subscribers, create unique content, and collaborate with colleagues and influencers.

Control over all actions in the account is transferred to another user, usually for a day. As a rule, this is:

• Colleague.
• An authoritative persona.
• Another organization from your industry.

Such short-term promotions help generate comments when someone seizes control of your account or when, on the contrary, you start managing someone else’s profile. Thus, the transfer of control is beneficial to both the profile owners and their guests. 

The posts receive a particular resonance in the media space, and additional users come to the bloggers’ social networks, who began to like and comment on the publications.

Check out an example when Glossier brand invited the founder of West Bourne cafe to create product-inspired recipes on an Instagram Stories takeover.

5. Include co-marketing into your digital strategy.

The ultimate goal of content marketing is to gain and retain leading positions. Therefore, you want to shape discussions in the industry, not just talk about what is going on around you.

Co-marketing is about audience exposure, increased trust and favorability, and cost-effective content. Co-branding partnerships are most effective when they involve two similar companies because the audience receives unique value from such relationships.

Two brands can team up on a campaign and a piece of content such as a special promotion, a webinar, and more. No doubt, syncing up the content efforts of both brands will bring the desired results.

6. Post something funny, surprising, or provocative.

It is not surprising that viral content awakens an emotional response. The most common are posts that surprise the viewer, arouse anticipation and curiosity, and create a sense of uncertainty. The most frequent emotion is joy. Think about what kind of content will make people feel emotions so strongly that they will want to comment to express them.

You can tell your audience about an unusual fact, a happy moment, a curious trend in the industry, or even some funny nonsense.

7. Repurpose your content.

The stagnation of organic traffic is the last thing you want to see when looking at your site’s metrics. However, the practice of reusing your content or some of its elements to increase the reach creates a pretty good backlog of sharable content.

People consume content in various formats. So why not turn blog posts into videos and vice versa? But there is one caveat to reusing content: you have to bring some new or different value. You cannot just post blog posts that are an exact copy of your old blog posts.

A great way to repurpose an old article is to turn it into a compelling online picture. Infographics are a great way to attract your audience’s attention and present information in a fascinating, engaging way. Also, one of the best ways to repurpose content effectively is to look for opportunities to create a series of posts based on one. Think over your idea applicable to your business and experiment! 

8. Post tips, tutorials, and how-tos.

Develop a guide, tutorial, or how-to instruction that your followers want to like, repost, and comment on. For the tutorial to be exciting and valuable for readers, it should contain a minimum of unclear terms. The two main components of a good guide are a precise step-by-step algorithm and getting subscribers’ results.

Always illustrate the material; visualization is crucial in the digital environment. Appreciate the time of others – write briefly and to the point. Create content that will help your customers use your product or service more successfully.

9. Go live.

It is a time-consuming but effective way to increase user activity and keep your brand’s feed fresh. You can talk about the company’s news, discuss the problem with guests, and share helpful information. The main thing is to announce the live video in posts and Stories to gather enough participants. During the broadcast, it is worth actively involving viewers in communication: for example, asking something and asking to ask questions.

Social medial live streaming allows you to get as close to subscribers as possible and increase loyalty. People watch live broadcasts for the sake of live emotions and exclusive information. In addition, going live from the venue of an event (conferences, presentations, and more) will allow your follower to feel part of what is happening.

10. Use trending topics.

Find out what your target audience looks for in search engines and create a post on a popular topic. Sometimes the latest news becomes the subject of discussion on social networks. When that happens, think about how you can use it to your advantage. 

Usually, the trending topic will have its hashtag. Post content that relates to this topic with the appropriate hashtag. BUT: Be very careful about using political or social “hot” issues to promote your brand. This can have unpleasant consequences. Avoid memes and statements that may be interpreted as offensive to some people.

11. Create a meme.

When many consumers skip advertising whenever possible, marketing with humor can attract hard-to-reach consumers. On social media, memes usually take the form of GIFs or static images, often with text overlaid on top of the picture.

Since memes are often associated with a current trend or event, they make your brand more authentic, modern, and human. Memes appeal to contemporary or cultural events that your viewers know about that seem original and fresh. This content connects the community around a common criterion and makes your brand more attractive.

Start by clearly defining your target persona:

· What content does your client consume?

· What kind of music, TV shows, or celebrities do they like?

· How can you please and entertain them?

· What problems do they face that are common to their community?

Successful memes do not include a call to action; there is no “buy” or “subscribe” in the body.

12. Get more eyes on your feed with tag-a-friend posts.

Leverage tag-a-friend social posts to diversify the feed. Publish content that you think is particularly valuable and ask your followers to tag their friends in the comments.

This strategy helps with two things. Firstly, it allows people to comment on the post. They mark their friends by leaving a comment. Secondly, it attracts new people to your account. Users who have been tagged will look at your post and, if they like it, they will tag more friends. And, most likely, they will subscribe.

Encourage the followers to tag their friends and relatives by running a competition and pick two lucky friends who receive a small gift from your brand.

13. Show behind-the-scenes of the brand.

The brand’s customers and followers are used to seeing a beautiful picture on social media. The product is already displayed in an online store, and the online course is already available for sale.

If you support openness and transparency, try to upload behind-the-scenes photos, introduce the team, talk about the joys and difficulties. People trust such content and become closer to the company. People like to realize that there are real personalities behind the profiles in social networks. By opening up the backstage of your company or brand, you maintain interest. 

14. Create Q&A posts.

Your brand fans always have something to ask. So choose a day when your followers will be able to ask their questions.

The Questions sticker in Instagram Stories is an interactive tool that helps communicate with the audience. By asking questions, you push subscribers to be active, thereby increasing the priority of the account in the feed. In addition, some brands use questions from Instagram Stories to intrigue and shape the expectations of the audience. For example, to tell about the upcoming release of new products. Moreover, you can grab some questions and write the posts answering interesting ones.

15. Run a poll.

Marketers actively use polls as SMM tools. Using polls increase audience reach and user engagement. With the help of voting, you get essential information and show customers that you are interested in their opinion.

Do you not know which posts your target audience wants to read? Instead of guessing, you can ask directly! So you will understand what is most interesting for your followers. It so happens that people like to participate in the polls more than to leave comments or likes. So get the most out of this tendency!

Conclusion

There are undoubtedly many ideas for a content plan in social networks, and we have included only some of them in this post. So, when you start building a content plan, refer to this list – for sure, you will already have a sufficient number of valuable and exciting ideas for posts.

When experimenting with social media content ideas, use Vista Social to understand what your audience likes most of all. Vista Social’s listening, analytics, engagement, and other tools will help to gather honest feedback to generate new products, services, and content ideas.

Vista Social is completely free social media management platform to try and use, so explore powerful features for your social media campaigns.