How to Brainstorm New Social Media Post Ideas for Your Small Business

Consistently posting on social media helps build trust and community with your audience. As entrepreneurs, knowing the importance of being present online is essential, and organic social media is free! However, even the most enthusiastic marketers sometimes hit a wall regarding fresh ideas. We’re right there with you! So today, we will share the 5-step process for generating new content ideas for social media posts.

Step 1: Always Look for Inspiration
When you’re not filled with creative energy, it helps to have a stockpile of ideas on hand—screenshot posts you like when scrolling social media. Use the “save” feature on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn to hang onto ideas you want to revisit later. These ideas don’t have to be from within your industry. You'll start seeing it everywhere when you train yourself to look for inspiration. I often screenshot graphics I like for design inspiration or clever ad copy that shows up in my feed. If you’re active on TikTok or Instagram Reels, keep an eye out for trends so you can join in on the fun! Inspiration is everywhere! TV ads, podcasts, billboards, and even junk mail have all been fodder for post ideas. Just keep your eyes open!

Step 2: Pick Content Pillars
Start broad and then narrow down your focus. Make a list of the types of content you want to create, keeping your business and marketing goals in mind, but don’t overthink it. Here are nine “content buckets” we use with my client's social media sites; you can choose anywhere from three to nine for your small business:

Promotional: asking people to take the next step in buying your product or service.
Educational: Provide a resource such as a tip, resource, or video related to your expertise. This could be content you create yourself or curate from a trusted source.
Branding: talking about your “why"—your mission, values, or purpose.
Behind-the-scenes: This involves bringing people behind the curtain of your organisation, such as by showcasing how something is made or describing what goes into your process.
Company culture: showing what it’s like to work with you, such as a group meeting, an employee spotlight, or talking about why people want to work for you.
Success Stories: Sharing testimonials or success stories from happy customers or clients.
Engagement: Invite people to engage with your content through a question, poll, or contest.
Inspirational: encouraging or motivating through a quote, a throwback story from your organisation’s history, or another inspirational story.
Humorous: Sharing a funny cartoon, meme, or video. This could be something you create or something you curate from another source.

Step 3: Brain Dump Ideas Into Each Content Pillars
Look at the categories you chose and think about topics you could cover or posts you could create under each category. For example, under the Educational Content pillar, you could list all the FAQs you get and make a video or post to answer each one, share snippets of blogs you’ve written or quotes from podcasts you’ve recorded, or create an infographic with stats that relate to your business. For Behind-the-Scenes, you could share photos of what inspires you, record a storytelling video about how you started your business, or take a picture that’s a teaser of something new you’re launching. For Success Stories, you could put a customer testimonial on a graphic, share a mini case study, or ask customers to share photos using your product and then repost with credit. Having content pillars helps you drill down into specific themes, and once you start brainstorming ideas within those themes, the possibilities quickly add up.

Step 4: Create Your Content
This is when you finally start making all the posts you brainstormed in the previous step. Put together one week or month of content at a time and use scheduling software like Hootsuite. This gives you time to react to new post ideas while still providing leeway in case you have a busy week and want your social media to run itself. 

Step 5: Recycle Past Content
Seriously! Most businesses aren’t changing minute by minute. That excellent post you wrote about a client success story three months ago would likely still be relevant and exciting to your audience today. Most people won’t remember the quote you shared a few months ago, so share it again. You could also recreate videos you did in the past with a bit of new information or just share the whole video again. Freshen up your recycled post with a new photo or rewrite the caption a bit, but the concept is to reuse great content that still applies to your business. Canva makes it easy to recreate graphics with just a few clicks if you want to swap out the visual.

If you’re still struggling with new ideas or need help putting all your brilliant ideas into action, Team DIFY would love to help. We specialise in seamlessly fitting into various brand voices and crafting captivating, irresistible content that inspires, engages, and converts. What are you waiting for? Reach out to us at enquiries@dify.sg today!