10 ways to get out of your social media rut
By Gregg McLachlan
We've all been through it, the dreaded social media rut. Not knowing what to tweet or post, or write as a status update can be paralyzing. It can also cause you to get off track and post aimlessly just to stay active which is never good.
And, hey, we ALL have a ton of things on our minds thanks to the stress of Covid19.
Here are 10 simple ways to help you juggle the demands of staying active on social media, get unparalyzed and posting again without missing a day:
1. RECYCLE
This is one of the simplest things you can do. Go back through posts from many months or even years ago. Often there are themes or posts where the wording can be tweaked and posted again as fresh new posts. Remember, your new fans or followers were not with you when you posted years ago, so recycling from the past becomes new posts to new fans. We call this type of content Evergreen content because it can always be freshened up and used over and over again. This is a technique that many top brands use. You can use it too.
2. LOOK AT OTHER ACCOUNTS
You have competitors or simply other pages that you like. Look at them. What are they posting? Don't steal the content. Rather, examine the themes that are being used. It might give you inspiration.
3. CURATE CONTENT
I usually caution most businesses and organizations to be careful about curating content (finding blog posts, articles, news stories, etc) to share on social media. You want to make sure you are creating your own original content as much as possible. But curating content, especially in times of being in a content-creating funk yourself, can help you get through ruts.
4. USE A NOTE-TAKING APP
One of my go-to tools for on-the-fly jotting down ideas is the app Google Keep. When I need inspiration or ideas, I can quickly reference my list. Bingo! I'm good to go with another post! And best of all, I can sync it with my desktop and smartphone so my pre-written notes for creating posts are always super quick to access from anywhere.
5. USE THE MASSIVE CONTENT LIBRARY YOU ALREADY HAVE!
You already have tons of content! If you are like everyone, your smartphone has hundreds if not thousands of photos. There's content there! Photos of your community. Photos of your business. Photos of so much. It may be something as simple as 10 Photos of Some Favourite Places in My Community. Dig into your smartphone photos and ask yourself How could I repurpose some of these photos?
6. BE HONEST! IT STARTS WITH ADMITTING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA SUCKS!
For some reason, many businesses and organizations won't admit their social media is terrible. Maybe it's a vanity thing. They do social media, but they don't evaluate their social media for purpose, goals, effectiveness, and how the whole approach is contributing to branding (remember, branding is what audiences think about you). Instead, they are only obsessed with how much Reach they got (Woohoo! Look, we got 3,100 reach on that post!). Before you can get help or fix it yourself, you have to admit you have a problem. I'm floored when I hear some managers say they rarely look at what is being posted on their brand's social media. Some don't even know that the last time something was posting on their brand's Facebook page was 36 days ago. Huh?
7. CREATE A BRAND INSPIRATION LIST
This is so easy and similar to #2. You follow or like some amazing brands on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. When you see their content, you not only read it, but you probably talk about it offline too. That means these brands do stuff that works! Create a list of your favourite five brands. And then frequently look at how they approach using social media. You will quickly see they have a strategic purpose and specific content approaches. Get inspired!
8. BE A COMMUNITY CHAMPION
It never gets old to share the love. You are out in the community on a regular basis. Hello! That's content. Showing a little business-to-business love is always a good thing. Especially in these challenging times of Covid19.
9. STOP OVERTHINKING IT
Often content ideas happen in front of us everyday at work, but we don't look at them as content ideas. OK, that doesn't mean a photo of coffee every morning. But it could be the weather, a cat, a new product that has arrived, a note from a customer, something humorous overheard, flowers, cookies, your new shoes (yes, that's the personality-themed post!). OK, you get the idea. Don't be so rehearsed with creating content that you begin to look too pre-planned all the time. BTW, it's that pre-planned obsessiveness that often creates the social media rut in the first place. Being real means spur of the moment too. It's easy and comes natural once get comfortable with it. Not every post has to be the perfectly staged, perfectly choreographed, perfectly placed laptop and coffee scene, with a white background.
10. MAKE CUSTOMERS THE STARS OF YOUR SHOW
You have some awesome fans and followers on social media. Many are probably customers. You have so many options here to show appreciation and not be salesy, but rather just appreciative. Why do they love the community? Maybe they have a top 3 list they could send you. Are they posting photos on Instagram that can be re-used by you? The possibilities are endless. But most importantly, you will be getting your community more involved in content creation for your page.
All of us reach a point on social media where we struggle some days or weeks about what to post. You're not a failure. You're like all of us. Hopefully these 10 tips can help you get motivated and inspired again.