Social media posts don’t have to be complicated, but they do need to engage your audience. The days of the 80:20 social media marketing rule might be over, but it’s still not a good idea to churn out the same message over and over again if no-one is interacting with it. It’s time to get creative with your content!

So what do we mean by ‘creative content’?

Creative social media content breaks the mould by doing one of three things for your audience – entertaining, informing or educating. With algorithms changing whose posts appear at the top every single day, creative social media will get you noticed regardless.

Facebook and Instagram Stories add new features regularly, so we recommend taking the plunge and playing around with things like Polls, Quizzes, GIFs and Boomerangs. If you can get a bit of your personality in there, showing something behind the scenes, that’s even better!

Whilst hashtags like #ThrowbackThursday and #MondayMotivation might be a bit overused these days, it’s still worth thinking if you have any relevant content to share on these days. Regular weekly features on social media can be just as popular as one-off posts, especially for getting a conversation going. Why not come up with your own hashtags too? Something that gets people’s attention or makes them think…

Video is at its peak on social media at the moment so if you’re not already using it – you’re missing out! Transformations, product launches, event coverage… there’s so much that benefits from short videos on social and you can even use Facebook Live or Watch Parties to give it that ‘exclusive’ feel. If you’ve got time to play around with tools like Kapwing or Facebook’s own video editor, subtitles and/or teaser clips can increase the watch time of your video.

Blendtec came up with a brilliant campaign demonstrating the power of their blenders – ‘Will it Blend?’. They set up a website and social media pages for the campaign, asking their followers what to blend, then made videos blending things like iPads.

Audiences love relatable content too. Our faves Innocent Drinks are always really good at this. On Monday, they posted the tweet below:

Any memes/jokes from your industry or that are aimed at your target audience are good to reshare (even better if you can make your own!).

User-generated content is an effective social media post idea too. If other people have uploaded posts with your location/products or tagging in your account, be sure to reshare and credit them where possible.

Fashionistas at Missguided reshare images with the hashtag #babesofmissguided, tagging the original poster and mentioning which products are being worn in the caption. This is a great way to keep their feed fresh and show the popularity of their brand.

Another creative content idea that sounds simple, but a lot of accounts don’t do, is to ask your followers questions! If you’ve launched a product or range, ask them what they think. If something is a trending news topic in your industry, that’s an opportunity to show you know your stuff and ask something more specialist. If you’re planning a new service or event, ask them what they’d want to see and find out where the demand is.

With everything like this on social media, our advice would be to test it first and then if it works, repeat it! Don’t be afraid to be a bit bolder with your posts and let your creativity shine through.