We’ve all been there. As social media professionals for brands, there are days when you find yourself in a content drought. Literally nothing comes to mind to post to Facebook, Tweet, upload to Instagram or snap about.
These days don’t come around too often for us but when they do, we have a couple of tricks up our sleeve to get our content back on track for the day.
1. Campus Beauty Photos
Okay, okay, this is an obvious one, but let me tell you, people cannot get enough of beautiful photos of their alma mater. Give the people what they want.
2. College Town Photos
The next best thing to a gorgeous campus beauty shot to stir up all the feels (and engagement) with your fans is to remind them of your college town. Fort Collins, CSU’s hometown, is a special place. When we post photos of iconic spots in Fort Collins, our Rams take action and interact with that post. People will share their memories. Or tag one another to make sure their friends see the post. Watching the engagement and reminiscing gives US all the feels.
3. Quotables
Sometimes someone else just says it best. We typically post a quote over an image or we design a simple graphic… and have dubbed that type of content, “quoatables.” Quotes tend to perform well on Instagram where a majority of our audience is current students. Twitter is also a good spot for these. Sometimes a little extra motivation/inspiration strikes the right chord with our fans.
4. Days of the Week Hashtags
Why not get into the #MotivationMonday or #WednesdayWisdom game? These established hashtags lend themselves well to provide content inspiration on those days when ideas aren’t flowing as freely. In fact, I’m writing this post on a Tuesday and was thinking about an afternoon post for #CSUSocial… and totally tapped into #TransformationTuesday.
If you find the right fit with your branded content and a hashtag day, try it out. The main ones are #MotivationMonday, #TransformationTuesday, #WednesdayWisdom, #ThrowbackThursday, #FlashbackFriday. There are MANY more so if it works for your brand, give it a shot.
5. User Generated Content
This is my favorite go-to category when looking to fill a post for #CSUSocial. Social media, at its best, is all about community. I love it when we feature work from members of our Colorado State social media communities – we’re providing an authentic experience of our brand through the eyes of our fans. In fact, we typically share at least one piece of user-generated content each week – often times it is more than that. (Side note, check out Chase‘s blog post on the art and science of connecting with your fans through meaningful content.)
We find our best pieces of user generated content on Instagram due to the nature of Instagram. People are always posting beautiful photos that they capture. We’ll look through the #ColoradoState #FortCollins #VisitFtCollins, #CSUStreetTeam hashtags and others seeking photos that may work as content on our channels. Once we come across a photo that sparks our interest, we do comment on the photo and request permission to share on CSU’s social channels. We have found that people are often times thrilled that we came across their art and are more than willing to allow us to share their original content along with a photo credit as a first comment.
The struggle is real when it comes to posting engaging and meaningful content on a regular basis but being mindful of what your fans want from your brand can go along way in serving them.
Looking for more content tips? Ashley has you covered with her post, 5 Ways to Beat the Summer Slowdown on Facebook.