How to Generate Social Media Content for Your Small Business

Social media marketing is a great way of raising awareness for your small business. In fact, 44% of SMB decision-makers use social media, and with good reason. When compared to average internet users, adult social networkers are:

• 19% more likely to attend a professional sporting event.
• 45% more likely to go on a date.
• 18% more likely to work out at a gym or health club.
• 75% more likely to be heavy spenders on music.
• 47% more likely to be heavy spenders on clothes, shoes and accessories.
• 26% more likely to give their opinion on politics and current events.
• 33% more likely to give their opinion on TV shows.

It also doesn’t have to be expensive, which is why nearly 60% of all small business decision-makers spend less than $100 on social media and 74% of businesses don’t employ anyone to manage their social media marketing.

And so how do they generate content? Let’s go ahead and take a look.

Ask your employees

This is perhaps the easiest way to generate content as a small business, in part because there’s a good chance that your employees are already posting work-related content on their own platforms. It’s a lot easier to take that and to re-use it than it is to pay a professional to create content for you from scratch.

Then there’s the fact that user-generated content (UGC) just works. The statistics show that 75% of marketers think that UGC makes their brand more authentic, 86% of companies use UGC as part of their digital marketing strategy, and that content shared by employees is eight times more engaging than content shared by brands.

Work with local influencers

This one can be tricky to get right because influencer marketing tends to work better for B2C companies than for B2Bs and there’s also the fact that it can often be difficult to find influencers in smaller towns. You also need to be able to differentiate between people who claim to be influencers and those who actually are influencers.

Nevertheless, if you’re able to find a local influencer or one who specializes in the industry that you’re working in, it’s a good idea to work with them to create some content. This gives you something that you can share yourself, but it also exposes you to their audience.

Partner up

Another great way for smaller businesses to create content is to work with business partners and suppliers. The chances are that they’re running content marketing campaigns of their own, and so by putting your heads together, you can put more resources into content creation and ultimately achieve things that you could never hope for by working on your own.

As for the kinds of content that you can create, the sky is the limit. There will be some great opportunities to combine your expert knowledge and to create thought leadership style content, but you can also think about everything from testimonials and talking heads to memes and more. It’s all about finding a middle ground that works for both of you.

Pro Tip: VistaSocial’s social media publishing tools are designed to make it easy for you to collaborate with your teams and clients to schedule, approve and publish posts.

Showcase your employees

People love to see the real faces behind the companies that they work with and shop from, and so it’s a good idea to show the real employees that form the backbone of your company. One way to do this is with user-generated content, which we talked about earlier, but you can also task whoever is managing your social media profiles with capturing candid shots of people and showcasing what happens behind the scenes.

Some people are reticent to put their employees front and centre because they worry about what will happen when they move on and join another company. The thing to remember is that this is a natural part of business. You might as well benefit from them while they’re working for you.

Take part in trends

From the ice bucket challenge to the latest TikTok dance, trends put the social in social media. They also have the advantage of giving you something to post about when it seems like there’s nothing else to say.

This makes them a fantastic source of content creation inspiration, but that’s not their main advantage. Their true advantage is that they can also expose you to a huge pool of people through things like hashtags and related videos, although the downside is that it might not help you to reach the people who are the most relevant.

Pro Tip: If you’re struggling to put your ear to the ground and to hear what people are talking about, including the trends that your followers are taking part in, why not try Vista Social’s social media listening tools ?

Experiment

This isn’t a single content creation idea but rather an entire philosophy. Simply put, you should aim to constantly experiment with different types of content and even different tones of voice if appropriate. It’s all about seeing what works and what doesn’t, because every community is different and what works for one brand won’t work for another.

Of course, experimenting will only get you so far, and the real trick is to also keep an eye on your analytics. Before you even get started, you need to define what success looks like and establish the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you’ll monitor. Success looks very different when you’re aiming for engagement compared to when you’re aiming for traffic or for lead generation.

Pro Tip: Vista Social has a powerful social media analytics tools that can help you to better understand what’s working and what isn’t with your social media efforts.

Conclusion

Now that you know just a few of the best practices for creating and sharing content as a small business, it’s over to you so that you can put what you’ve learned today into practice.

Perhaps the most important thing of all is to make sure that you’ve got a strategy. Everything that you post should work towards your goals, whether that’s to increase footfall to a physical store or whether it’s to improve the sentiment towards your business.

Now that you’ve heard from us, we’d love to hear from you. Be sure to let us know how you approach content creation at your small business in the comments so that we can keep the discussion going.

profiles with capturing candid shots of people and showcasing what happens behind the scenes.

Some people are reticent to put their employees front and centre because they worry about what will happen when they move on and join another company. The thing to remember is that this is a natural part of business. You might as well benefit from them while they’re working for you.

Take part in trends

From the ice bucket challenge to the latest TikTok dance, trends put the social in social media. They also have the advantage of giving you something to post about when it seems like there’s nothing else to say.

This makes them a fantastic source of content creation inspiration, but that’s not their main advantage. Their true advantage is that they can also expose you to a huge pool of people through things like hashtags and related videos, although the downside is that it might not help you to reach the people who are the most relevant.

Pro Tip: If you’re struggling to put your ear to the ground and to hear what people are talking about, including the trends that your followers are taking part in, why not try Vista Social’s social media listening tools ?

Experiment

This isn’t a single content creation idea but rather an entire philosophy. Simply put, you should aim to constantly experiment with different types of content and even different tones of voice if appropriate. It’s all about seeing what works and what doesn’t, because every community is different and what works for one brand won’t work for another.

Of course, experimenting will only get you so far, and the real trick is to also keep an eye on your analytics. Before you even get started, you need to define what success looks like and establish the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you’ll monitor. Success looks very different when you’re aiming for engagement compared to when you’re aiming for traffic or for lead generation.

Pro Tip: Vista Social has a powerful social media analytics tools that can help you to better understand what’s working and what isn’t with your social media efforts.

Conclusion

Now that you know just a few of the best practices for creating and sharing content as a small business, it’s over to you so that you can put what you’ve learned today into practice.

Perhaps the most important thing of all is to make sure that you’ve got a strategy. Everything that you post should work towards your goals, whether that’s to increase footfall to a physical store or whether it’s to improve the sentiment towards your business.

Now that you’ve heard from us, we’d love to hear from you. Be sure to let us know how you approach content creation at your small business in the comments so that we can keep the discussion going.