Marketing / Social Media / Strategy

Finding Inspiration For Your Social Strategy When You’re Out Of Ideas

November 18, 2020 , 5 minutes
Screen Shot 2020 10 30 at 1.20.22 pm

The best social strategies are fresh, creative, and diverse. This formula is what gets your campaign results online. This needs a constant source of new ideas to keep it ticking along, but what do you do when inspiration has run dry? Once you’re feeling inspired, you need to create stellar social posts that get results. Check out these essential tips on how to create social media posts that result in customers

Get your customers to provide some informed inspiration

Inspiration can come from the most unlikely of places: an overheard conversation, a throwaway remark, an interesting news piece, and so on.

But sometimes, the easiest (and indeed, most effective) sources of inspiration can be right in front of you — in this case, your customers themselves.

The best social content, the kind of content that gets engagement, clicks, and shares, is informed by what your target audience actually wants to see. This requires you to delve inside your followers’ minds and have them tell you what they enjoy.

Surveys are a quick and effective means of achieving this. Craft a survey using a free tool and send it out to your audience for them to fill out. Ask them what problems they face in relation to your industry, what kind of content they read regularly, and so on. Offer an added incentive (free sample, discount code, etc) to encourage more in-depth responses.

Further to this, you could also use Instagram’s Stories feature to source feedback too. The Questions and Polls Stickers are great for getting an insight into your followers’ minds, plus it lets you target your social audience directly too.

social strategy

Jump on trends as they arise for quick, relevant content

Jumping on trending topics is a quick and easy way to source inspiration for your social strategy — if you do it right. Creating social campaigns and accompanying content that capitalises on trends needs you to be proactive, quick, and adaptable. It can be demanding, but it’s worth it for the relevance, engagement, and clicks.

One easy way to stay abreast of current trends is to take advantage of each platform’s trending feature. Twitter, in particular, has a stellar Explore function that lets you trawl all trending topics, both in your region and globally.

Identify a trending topic that your target customers might identify with but struggle to understand and then explain it in an easy-to-understand way. For instance, if you sell gadgets and tech, then you could break down the importance of a new software update into more digestible terms.

Alternatively, you could pick out a trend and offer your own branded spin on it. Offer insight or opinions on a trending topic related to your industry, for example. This demonstrates value and authority to your audience plus keeps your brand relevant by tapping into trends at the same time.

Empower your audience to create UGC

User-generated content (UGC) is essentially free marketing for your brand. When your customers create UGC, it not only provides some valuable exposure for your business but also some authentic unbranded social proof.

But beyond that, it also gives you a wealth of content to use in your social strategy. Photos, videos, testimonials, and other content created by your followers can (with their consent) be used to populate your social calendar time and again.

Empower your customers to create UGC by creating opportunities for them to do so. Contests are the easiest way to do this — offer entry into a prize draw in return for photos of your product centered around a given theme. They get the chance to win a prize, and you get free customer-led content — it’s a win-win.

For a more creative way to encourage UGC, consider investing in branded retail packaging, for instance. It’s a savvy investment that enhances your customer’s experience of your brand. Creative patterns, unusual boxes, or personalized notes are a great way to strengthen your relationship with your audience.

Encourage your customers to record their unboxing process or share photos of your packaging afterward (with an incentive, naturally). Create opportunities for your audience to provide UGC, and your social calendar will be populated easily.

Look to industry influencers for free inspiration

The role of influencers has grown and developed in recent years. With the advent of social media, influencers have become a popular strategy for brands seeking to connect with new audiences in an organic, targeted way.

Of course, influencers are not without their drawbacks, but they remain a powerful source of growth and engagement for businesses, big and small. But beyond collaborating with influencers, you can also benefit from their status without the need to connect with them directly.

Influencers have a close relationship with their followers, knowing what kind of content they want to see and in what format and style. Consequently, if you need some quick social inspiration in a pinch, you’d do well to seek out micro-influencers in your niche and see what kind of content they’re posting on their own profiles.

Rather than copying their content entirely, put your own spin on it in a way that reflects your brand and what you offer. Identify what works and why in your chosen influencer’s social output and mimic that in a unique, creative way.

Fresh and new ideas are the foundation of a solid social strategy. If you’re struggling to spark inspiration in 2020, follow the tips above. They’ll provide fresh insight and new angles in a way that pleases your followers time and time again.

Guest Post: Kayleigh Alexandra from Micro Startups