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How to create great content for social media

A social media marketing expert offers tips to follow when creating content for your business's social media profiles.

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October 29, 2018 by Richard Traylor — Writer, WebstaurantStore

Once you've considered what social media platforms will work best for your business, as explored in part one of this two-part series, you need to focus on creating quality content for each channel. Below are a few tips to follow when creating content for your business's social media profiles.

You never want your posts, tweets or shares to appear spam-like. You gain followers and valuable interactions by sharing a variety of quality content.

Instead of offering one type of content, try creating a good mix of the following:

Shared information about community members, upcoming events and exciting news.
Engaging posts including customer photos, employee profiles, anecdotes and stories about your business.

Additionally, you'll want to avoid offering repeating content across too many social media channels. Focus on what platforms are being used the most by your target audience and curate unique, creative and engaging content from there. And always be sure to include easy-to-find links to your website or menu.

Customers are inundated with ads on every platform. Therefore, it's imperative that you don't spam them with content that resembles an advertisement. Instead, give them a valuable and memorable interaction.

Think like your customers. Focus on understanding your audience and what it is they actually want to see when scrolling through their feed. Through a bit of research or some trial and error, you can then begin to understand what types of posts they're most likely to interact with.

Take advantage of relevant topics. Participate in national food days such as National Pizza Day, National Ice Cream Day, or whatever day is most relevant to your menu. Take part in buzzworthy topics such as upcoming sporting events, internet debates and holidays.

Create visually appealing content

So much of the content shared on popular social media sites is visual. That means you'll want to ensure the content you're producing is aesthetically pleasing and visually stimulating to make it stand out on someone's feed.

Consider the following tips to creating visually appealing content:

Get staff involved with images and videos to add a personal touch.
To get your Instagram started, consider hiring a professional photographer to stock up on high-quality images.
Post action or scenario images when possible to allow the viewer to picture themselves patronizing your business.
Make your food look as appealing as possible to make viewers crave your menu items.

Additionally, don't be afraid to connect with food bloggers in your area. Successful food bloggers or social media influencers carry large followings and can help boost your social media status. Invite these people to your business and encourage them to share their experience online.

Research and analyze content

As with anything you do in your business, it's always a good idea to start with researching content strategies and regularly analyzing your successes and failures. One of the best places to start when researching is to study your competition. Look for the social media profiles of competitors that have an impressive number of followers and content with lots of likes, shares, reposts and comments. Figure out what posts on their pages generate the most interaction and which tend to have the least. Find a pattern in what works and what doesn't and begin generating your content strategy from there.

Test your theories and strategies as you begin to build your social media following. Most social media platforms are constantly evolving with their features, user base and popularity. That means you shouldn't be afraid to tweak and change something if it's not working. Additionally, it'll take a bit of trial and error to figure out what it is your particular customers enjoy seeing. Posting content that encourages responses or interactions can help you gauge how effective your social media efforts actually are.

To help engage your return on investment, consider offering special coupons or discounts for your loyal followers. Provide Facebook friends with a special coupon code, or direct message discounts to those who share a certain post. You can get creative and play with what types of discounts and interactions excite your customers.

Social media etiquette for your business

As fun and laid back as social media can be, always remember that this is still a professional space when representing your business. As a general rule of thumb, you shouldn't act differently online than how you would in the middle of your business.

Treat everyone you interact with online as a potential customer. Give them the same respect as you would someone sampling your food. This goes for those posting about a positive experience or followers who may be providing you with some critical feedback.

If you've decided that a certain social media channel isn't right for your business, do not simply abandon your profile. An old, outdated profile can look unprofessional or lazy to potential customers who stumble upon it. This can leave the impression that you don't care enough about your business to maintain a solid online presence or that your business may be closed. Instead of abandoning a profile, simply delete it altogether.

Because social media is always changing, it can feel like a challenge to learn the differences between every channel and the best practices for each. In fact, staying up-to-date on the latest features, creating unique content and monitoring your success can feel like a full-time job. But even devoting a small amount of time and resources to your online presence can create a positive impact on your ability to reach new customers and create a great relationship with them.

Business Strategy and Profitability Marketing

About Richard Traylor

Richard Traylor graduated from Temple University in the winter of 2014 with a degree in Strategic Communications. After graduating, he taught English in South Korea for two years, during which he was fortunate enough to travel and see the world. In October 2016, he returned home and started to work in SEO Content at Webstaurant Store. This blog previously ran on Webstaurant Store.

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