Create Social Media Content Consistently

What is one strategy that a local business can use to help them consistently create content for social media?

To help create a continuous stream of social content for your business, we asked CEOs and digital marketers this question for their best tips. From scheduling time on your calendar for creating content to creating branded templates, there are several strategies to help you consistently create social media content for your local business.

Here are 15 strategies for creating social media content consistently.

Schedule Time On Your Calendar for Creating Content

Book an appointment with yourself. Start small with a 10-minute appointment just once a month or once a week. During that time, no one else can interrupt you. This is your opportunity to create a piece of content. It doesn’t have to be long, or complex. Write a paragraph about a recent project, or an upcoming event. Take a video of yourself talking about the value your business can bring.

Schedule a time to create content and keep it simple. You’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll get into a groove and become more consistent in creating content for your brand.

Roberto Torres, Owner, The Local Marketer

Offer Loyalty Incentives to Obtain User-Generated Content

Local businesses have an advantage over their large corporate contemporaries in that they generally have loyal customers, and this translates well in obtaining user-generated content through loyalty incentives.

The access that small businesses have to their customers allows them to identify their interests to find what special offers would motivate their most loyal patrons to share UGC testimonials, and this results in not only obtaining engaging content but social proof.

Because user-generated content has social proof built right in, it increases the chances of not just getting more content but customers too. By providing loyalty incentives to customers, local businesses can curate a steady stream of engaging social media content that will provide valuable social proof to attract new customers.

Greg Gillman, Chief Revenue Officer, MuteSix

Use FAQs for a Goldmine of Content Topics

Your company’s FAQ page can help you create content that answers prospects’ questions. For most businesses, customers tend to ask the same questions repeatedly. While this can be tiring, these queries indicate what people want to know most about your product and services. They also reveal what may be holding them back from conversion. Therefore, your FAQ page contains a goldmine of content topics.

While answering one question per post is essential, not everyone will see your initial post, so repurpose and reword these posts regularly. And ensure you include a link to your website’s FAQ page at the bottom of each post. Doing so will drive more traffic to your website while helping interested prospects learn more about your offering.

Chris Gadek, Head of Growth, AdQuick

Tie Your Posts to Local Events and People’s Interests

If your business is tied to the local community then your social posts should follow the same rule. Make sure you talk and address things locals show an interest in (or are concerned about) and tie everything with local events and news.

This way you show your business is an integral part of the local landscape. Make sure you don’t send a ‘fake’ vibe. You have to genuinely care about the local community if you want the community to do the same.

Ionut-Alexandru Popa, Editor in Chief and CEO, BinaryFork

Hop On the Latest Trends

Social media trends are ever-changing and fleeting, so it’s important that you take advantage of whatever is trending on social media at the time and capitalize on it. The easiest platforms to find trends on are TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. It’s easy to share content on these platforms and go viral, so you just need to find these trends and put your own creative spin on them that makes your brand stand out and stick in your viewers’ minds. There always is some trend you can hop on, so don’t be afraid to ride the wave before it dies out.

Bill Lyons, CEO, Griffin Funding

Bulk Batch Content, for Holidays Especially

Creating social media content in bulk is a highly useful strategy for local businesses. Often, independent owners mean to be more consistent in planning content, however, the demands of running a small business can get in the way of posting consistently.

Batching out content creation can save time and ensure content is ready before deadlines. For instance, you do not have to wait to create seasonal content. You can take a day to stage photos with various holiday props, pre-write captions, and then use a scheduler to auto-post.

This approach ensures that you do not forget or run out of time to post calendar-specific content, and saves the hassle of multitasking or stopping and starting content generation, creating your assets instead in one fell swoop.

Carly Hill, Operations Manager, VirtualHolidayParty.com

Run Monthly Content ‘Audits’

Running a monthly social media content audit is one strategy for consistent content creation. Experiment with posting different types or themed content on different days and take note of what happens. Analyze your metrics to see if engagement goes up or down during certain times over others. Many dashboards have that feature built right in, and if yours does not, you can always simply poll your audience on what they want more of too.

Kevin Callahan, Co-Founder & CEO, Flatline Van Co.

Take Advantage of Done-for-you Resources

As a business of one, I have to get creative with my time. Creating original social media content diverts time away from paid activities and business growth. I take advantage of done-for-you resources whenever possible. This includes stock photos, Canva templates, drag-and-drop design tools, anything that will help me avoid reinventing the wheel.

Since design isn’t my strong suit anyway, it would take me even longer to create my own resources for social media. Take advantage of the designs and templates that experts have already created and made available for your use. This gives you more time to focus on the content you produce and the impact you want to create.

Publishing something is better than not publishing anything, even if you didn’t design the creative from scratch.

Alli Hill, Founder and Director, Fleurish Freelance

Collaborate With Local Influencers

Growing your local business need not be a time-intensive task if you can find the right people to spread the word for you. An effective way to create this buzz is by reaching out to local influencers — particularly those whose values align with yours. They’re likely to have an audience that you want to target and they’re sure to know what that audience likes. Through this collaboration, you can populate your feed consistently with content that appeals to your audience and gradually grows your social media presence.

Igal Rubinshtein, Founder, Home Essentials Direct

Post Behind the Scene Content

My tip for creating consistent social media content is to create behind the scene content. It’s easy to create as you don’t have to spend time thinking up a compelling topic because there’s no need for scripting or planning—just random shots of the day-to-day operations of your employees. You can include shots of people working on projects together, eating lunch, making coffee, walking around or just goofing off in the office.

The idea is that these types of social media content are very engaging and show your audience that you’re a real company with real people doing real work, which can be an effective way to connect with customers and build trust. It’s also a great way to show off your culture and the personality of the company, helping you build a unique identity for your brand and differentiate yourself from the competition.

Arkadiusz Terpilowski, Head of Growth and Co-founder, Primetric

Use a Theme and Make It a Series

Get online and schedule your posts. You may also use a “theme” that flows, like a series. Each content must relate to the next one. Try to tell a story. How a product evolves can be a good example. Start by relaying how the owners came up with the concept. Fill in the details as you go along. It will be like the “then” and “now”, or a “before” and “after”.

People would want to know and follow “what happens next” in the sequence of events. You can also organize your thoughts on how you can deliver your message through worthy content. Embed in your storyline the purpose of your article. Use captivating photos to complement the words and phrases. Catching your audience’s attention is vital.

Laura Martinez, Consultant and Content Writer, PersonalityMax

Creating a social media calendar is a highly recommendable content creation strategy for local businesses. This step can help social media marketers stay organized, be prepared for special occasions, and curate a steadier and more consistent social brand.

A good way to start the process is to download example calendars. Next, create a set of post content categories for the channel or brand, for example, employee profiles, user testimonials, new product announcements, seasonal specials, and on-theme memes. It is advisable to build the calendar month by month, starting with special holidays and building outward.

This organizational strategy can help you post consistently each week and create a rhythm for your different kinds of content.

Kate Duske, Editor in Chief, Escape Room Data

Talk With Your Customers

Your customer conversations are a gold mine of potential social content. Of course, you won’t name names or give away confidences, but by listening, you hear what people are interested in. Focus on those topics in your social media. You don’t need to write a column (although you could!), you just need a quick tip or insight. As a business owner, you are an expert. Be yourself. You are, after all, using social media to share your expertise with your customers/prospects just like you do all day long.

A coffee retailer might post about the most popular item that day, and offer a package or discount. Or, talk about how everyone is feeling stressed, and offer a recipe for an end-of-workday calming tisane. A printer might share tidbits on effective paper styles or the history of some of the machines they use. A lawyer can offer tips on great partnership deals. A maker of organic cleaning supplies can share stories of how customers use the products to remove tricky stains.

Stephanie Miller, Founder, Victory Song Marketing Consulting

Repurpose, Repurpose, Repurpose!

Local businesses are usually strapped for time, money, and resources. So it’s crucial that they are able to get the most bang for their buck with any marketing campaign, including social.

The number one most effective technique for consistently creating social media content is to make one piece of content and then repurpose part of it for different channels.

Sometimes this requires updating the format or adding in a graphic, but ultimately a ton of effort isn’t needed to dramatically increase social media posting and effectiveness.

Here’s an example:

Record a podcast or a video aimed at helping your audience accomplish a task
Get the audio dictated and add it to the podcast episode or video on the company blog
Chop up the episode or video into 10 clips each with their own subtopic to post on Instagram or TikTok
Take the top 10 paragraphs or quotes and auto-publish them on Twitter
Make the outline of the video into bullet points and post them on your LinkedIn

Ken Marshall, Chief Growth Officer, RevenueZen

Create Branded Templates

When creating content for social media, there is a high likelihood that posts will be similar in terms of theme and ideas. Many small businesses will create a repeated schedule for their weekly posts. For example, Mondays might be a ‘Monday motivation’ post, Wednesdays might be company news and Fridays may be case studies or interactive content.

Creating templates to use every time, not only saves a lot of time and resources but will also create a strong brand identity throughout all social media platforms. These templates will be designed to fit into the brand colors, style, typography, and graphics.

Annie Everill, Digital marketing executive, Imaginaire

For more social marketing strategies, please contact The Local Marketer today!