3 Essential Content Pillars For Your Social Media Posts
Coming up with ideas for your Instagram posts, stories and reels can be a headache. I used to massively overcomplicate content creation for Instagram. It would take me yonks to pontificate over the "perfect" thing to post. WHAT A WASTE OF LIFE!
There are endless things you COULD say about your products and services, what your business stands for, what you value, why you do what you do, how you do what you do, what it looks like to work with you… I could go on! In fact, for so many of us, the problem isn’t coming up with ideas, it’s having too many!
There are endless things for you to talk about in your social media content. You just need a way to know which are the best content ideas - I’ve got you, girl!
These days I have a simple system that helps me come up with content ideas for social media that get attention.
Over the past few weeks I have delivered a couple of sales workshops to help business owners generate more leads and sales on social media.
The thing that kept coming up for everyone in the workshop? I don’t know what to talk about in my social media posts! What do I say that doesn’t sound sleazy!
And what they really loved was my simple process for creating content ideas in a strategic and intentional way - rather than copying what other people tend to talk about or not posting art all because you feel like you’ve got nothing new to say. So now I’m sharing it with you here, too!
Stuck for what content to create next for social media? Not anymore…
My golden rule for creating content for Instagram is to work backwards from the goal and ask yourself: what do you want this post or piece of content to DO?
If you're on social media for business, you need to be driving leads and sales or there's no point in posting at all, so with that in mind…
Here are the THREE THINGS your audience is looking for before they will be ready to buy from you.
1: To feel connected to you
This is where visibility is golden. Are you showing up for your audience on Instagram so that they can get to know, like and trust you?
Use key elements of your story to illustrate similarities between you and your client
What are they stuck on right now and how can you help them find solutions to those challenges?
Consistency is everything: are you telling them who you are, what you value and what you do regularly? If not, now is the time to start!
2: To be clear about what you do
A confused mind isn't going to know whether your products and services are right for them - and so a confused mind will never say YES to buying from you.
Are you making it abundantly clear ON THE REG what you do and how you work?
Do you often talk through what your services look like? Are they workshops, 1:1s, courses, written resources? What is it like to work with you?
It's not enough to leave this stuff on your website hiding: you really do have to regularly reinstate how people can work with you, what it’s like to work with you and what their options are for working with you.
3: To feel confident about your level of expertise
Your audience needs reassurance that you're the right person for them to work with - here's how to deliver it:
Are you delivering lots of value for free? Nobody is going to buy from you until they can see how awesome you are, that's just not how it works. So leave some really high quality free content on your social media channels, create opt ins, and be generous with your knowledge.
Is it clear how you'll deliver the result that they want? Are you providing ample proof of your expertise? Now is the time to share your testimonials and case studies.
Does your content regularly comprise good news stories from your clients, testimonials and results you've been able to facilitate through your work?
If you're stuck for what to post today, tomorrow or next week, check in with this list and make sure you're keeping your clients furnished with content that ticks at least one of these boxes every time you post. (you might want to bookmark this page so you can keep coming back to it)!
Want to prevent the creative block around what to post on social media?
Get ahead of yourself now and using the list above grab a notebook, or in a trusty spreadsheet create a list of content ideas that you can use as a bank moving forwards.
Write down each of these three pillars and underneath get as many ideas down of things you can talk about in your Instagram content around those topics.
Next time you’re planning out your Instagram posts for the week or feeling stuck on what to post about you can head to your content ideas bank and save yourself a good chunk of time deliberating over what to post.
