I know many of you want to be more active on social media but you aren’t sure where to start. Or when you do post content on the right social channels, you’ve had lackluster results.
Building your social media presence can be overwhelming, especially if you haven’t posted much of your own original content before or you often draw a blank when it comes to generating content that aligns with and supports your brand and business.
Well, I have some ideas to help inspire you.
All that missing is your unique experience from your perspective. And that’s your content advantage.
It’s all about being humble, helpful, human, personable and relatable, and providing value to others without expecting anything in return. That’s really it.
By opening up on LinkedIn (while still being professional of course), you can enhance your online ‘relationships’ like you do your real ones. Read this blog post for more on about how to do this.
Don’t just use social media just promote yourself, your offerings, your services or your company. Make sure some of your posts are designed to just connect with your audience. Not everything you post on social media needs to generate leads.
That’s where these prompts can help you. They help showcase who you are and what differentiates you, while allowing you to showcase your expertise.
The next step is to choose which topics interest you, define your content pillars (the core areas that align with your brand and business) and then outline posts about them in your content calendar (which you should start to create if you haven’t yet).
The last and most critical step pf the process is to actually write the posts – which can be the hardest part for many people.
Keep in mind that the way you format your LinkedIn posts is just as important as what you say.
The first few lines of your post are the most important because that is what only displays in the news feed of your network and essentially serves as your headline. (Your entire post doesn’t show up – just the first three lines or so – after that, it says “see more.”)
A strong first few lines will either entice someone to continue reading the post or lead them to keep scrolling. So spend the time to craft a compelling opening sentence or two.
Offer practical advice, write in short paragraphs leaving lots of white space to help hook in the reader while they quickly scroll their news feed and tell stories from your own life when you can to engage with your audience and to stand out in a sea of sameness and boring content that is the norm on LinkedIn.
Most of all, be helpful and relatable. And be YOU!
Try not to post about your successes too often (especially in a boastful way like “I’m honored and humbled to be named to Super Lawyers for the 400th time…” that’s not client-centric.
Instead, make your LinkedIn posts about the unique value you can provide to your network.
Showing versus telling is always the better way to engage with your followers and build your personal brand.
Here are those 30 social media content prompts:
- Introduce yourself and what you love most about what you do
- Provide career advice
- Create Q&A or FAQ series
- Talk about some of your favorite tools
- Highlight others you admire or create a signature series that lives on your website or blog (take a look at my Women Who Wow series for some inspiration)
- Provide success tips
- Feature some of your client reviews
- Review your favorite books/blogs
- Post your favorite inspirational quotes
- Give helpful career advice
- Create step-by-step carousel posts – these get high engagement
- Feature heritage month celebrations (Women’s History Month, Black History Month, Pride Month etc.)
- Highlight client wins/case studies in a non-boastful way but rather talking about the challenges involved and commending the team that helped you
- Give a behind the scenes look at your business or your creative process
- Spotlight your employees to help your followers get to know others at your company better
- Provide easy how-to guides to showcase your expertise and provide value
- Give advice through lessons you learned from past
- Feature women who inspire you
- Find takeaways from your content (past blog posts, articles, presentations, webinars, etc and create social posts from them)
- Create listcicle posts (just ike I am doing here!)
- Do a post on how you got your first client and started your business
- Talk about your mentor(s)
- Provide advice on what you’d tell your younger self
- Offer suggestions on how social media has helped you
- Film a few short videos with actionable tips
- Create polls and run the results in a separate post – polls get very high engagement on social
- Create helpful checklists that can also be downloaded – this can help you build your email list
- Provide reviews of tools you use
- Do posts on fun and light-hearted hashtag holidays (such as my personal favorite – National Donut Day)
- Do a recap of every event or conference you attend along with a post with key takeaways
If you’re looking for tips on how to grow your network and presence on Linkedin, here are some ideas.
What content ideas would you add to the list?
Stefanie Marrone advises law firms of all sizes, professional service firms, B2B companies, recruiters and individuals on the full range of marketing and business development consulting services designed to enhance revenue, retain current clients and achieve greater brand recognition. She also serves as outsourced chief marketing officer/marketing department for small and mid-size law firms.
Over her 20-year legal marketing career, she has worked at and with a broad range of big law, mid-size and small firms, which has given her a valuable perspective of the legal industry. Connect with her on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, sign up for her email list and follow her latest writing on JD Supra.