5 Easy-to-Implement Social Media Content Strategies for Small Businesses

Struggling to find the right content strategy for your small business? No matter if you’re looking to optimize your long-form or short-form social media content, this blog is going to help you get a better understanding of how to organize content pillars in order to come up with the best topics for your target audience. Lets get right into the strategies!

I'm going to build these out from easiest to most complex, so we will start with SERVICES/OFFERINGS as your content pillars. This strategy is the most, I guess, obvious way to build out a strategy for publishing content for your online community. This can be used for literally ALL business types, no matter if you provide more of a service for people than a physical tangible product. This can work for both. All you need to do with this one is create your pillars based on every single offering/service or product you have. Under these service/offering pillars, you can create ideas related to each service under their respective pillar. For instance, say are a jewelry company and you want to use this strategy. You offer necklaces, bracelets and earrings. What I would suggest is to create these exact products to be your pillars, then begin writing down ideas for each. Maybe your necklaces pillar has a content idea like "pairing necklaces with my favorite blouses" to show how to style, and your bracelet content ideas follow something like "best nail color and bracelet accents" to again, show your product within the desired lifestyle of your audience. All of these content ideas can also be related to your goals of how you want to serve, and building a content strategy around your products and offerings also allows you to gain feedback from your audience on what really resonates with them when it comes to the main thing you offer as a business.

This content strategy is perfect for my small businesses who are already building out long-form value for their audience, or if this is a goal for you and your business. If you've been writing blogs for a WHILE and you've been thinking about how the heck to even incorporate ANOTHER platform to then create and expend your energy on, think again! This is the ultimate repurpose time-saver strategy that I suggest for almost any business owner who is already providing value to their community in some capacity. There is NO shame is repurposing your content, especially if it's valuable and you are able to talk through it in many different ways. What's even better is that if you are already providing this value, and it happens to be something people are already paying you for, you have a win win situation! You will now be able to take all of the hard work you've been offering (who have proven to you that it IS valuable) and then you can create a footnotes version of these workshops, classes, etc, that provide the intro-version of value that your audience who pays for it is already getting. This is another phenomenal and low-hanging-fruit way to promote these paid offerings! If people are gaining value from even the footnote tidbits you provide on social that are directly related to the content in your workshop, for example, your audience is going to be more than likely to just make the purchase to gain the complete value.

• Educational, Authoritative, Inspirational

  • I've seen this for more people-centric solopreneurs who maybe help you through coaching, consulting, or basically anything where you are a part of the service. Educational and authoritative can sometimes be seen as the same (at least I did), so the difference is that educational content helps build awareness around the sole value you provide, while authoritative content helps to build the trust and reputability- this could be classified as connection building content as it helps your audience understand how and why you serve them. Inspirational content, of course, touches on the life improvement and the desired result.

• Educational, Entertaining, Inspirational

  • The same thing when it comes to the Educational and Inspirational definitions above, but entertaining can be replaced for authoritative in the case that you are not geared exactly towards helping people, but maybe you have different goals for social media. Maybe you are a product based business and you just want to showcase your product in a light that feels super aligned with your branding, or you aren't necessarily trying to provide educational value, but the value is more along the lines of a desired outcome, or a desired lifestyle. This is another strategy I would highly recommend for those who are not in the educative-value niche.

• The 3 unique things you're known for (for instance, authentic content marketing, photography/videography, and root of business/solopreneurship were once mine)

  • This was actually the content strategy I started out with. I think it could be worth thinking through this type of content strategy, especially is you're satisfied with how your other content is performing in your business and you want to offer people something different on social. This strategy is much more focused on your mission, your why, and could even parallel some of your personal interests. This is something I loved in the beginning because it helped me really define the deeper meaning behind my why by letting my community in on some of my real values and why they are reflected in my businesses offerings, even if it is in fact, simply just one of your main values as a business. This strategy is great for connection building with the right audience.

• BONUS: Your 3 solution channels (maybe you solve 3 main problems, or your solution is dependent upon who you're serving)

  • You may be wondering, why 3? The reason is because 3 really is a golden number for keeping it simple. In the beginning of our entrepreneurship journey, I think it's easy to get REALLY excited to serve people in as many ways as possible. But if I can offer you just a tid-bit of advice, this can get confusing for not only your audience, but even yourself, no matter how organized you can communicate. Having 3-4 offerings, solutions, and even channels FOR your solution I believe is one of the BEST ways to move the bottom line through your social media if this is one of your goals. An example of this could be: you're a multi-faceted yoga studio business that offers not only yoga classes, but sound bath sessions, and you have an infrared sauna at your studio. Brilliant! The content strategy following your 3 solution channels would revolve around the exact offerings/solutions you offer. Yoga would be the solution for implementing exercise, balance, wellness in lifestyle, the sound bath sessions would be the solution for incorporating meditation for mental health, and recalibrating your body for an optimized lifestyle, and lastly, the infrared sauna would provide the solution of the lifestyle benefits of what red-light therapy provides, which is skin health, mental health, etc. If you could find a way to create free downloadable, informative PDF checklists, guides, or resource lists around these solutions, AND you create relevant social content that always gives a call-to-action to engage in your free resources, you now have a marketing funnel for social media that is built into your content strategy! The one tip I have with this is to make sure that the free resources you do provide your community are formatted and created to direct your customers to a logical next step that is more integrated in your business's paid offerings. This is an exact formula you can utilize to allow social media to actually move the needle on the bottom line of your business.

Hi, I'm Liz! I'm so BEYOND grateful to be serving you - wellness business leaders, creative solopreneurs and artisan crafters- in streamlining the content creation process off of your plate so that you can get back to doing more of what you love. If you're interested in learning more about what we do at Essence Presents, or your really looking to get your content creation process under control in your business, take your pick below:

• Access our FREE Resource Vault + Subscribe to The Latest Newsletter! Gain immediate access to free content marketing tools that I use every day for my clients + stay in the know on all things happening at Essence through monthly roundups of our latest shoots, blogs, shop additions, + be the first to receive exclusive offers for up-leveling your business's digital presence.

• Join my private, free Facebook group, Seasons & Sessions! Created to provide you support in connecting to your authentic root, the origins of your business, and the journey of being an entrepreneur- the ebbs and flows that create our evolutionary experience. As someone who values health, wellness and spirituality, Seasons & Sessions stands for the fusion of my two loves; photography & seasonal wellness (the study of cyclical nature, seasonal harmony and astrology). What you can expect:

  • Monthly videos on the upcoming month/ micro-season: what it naturally brings and how to implement seasonal flow into your daily routine and business

  • Exclusive season-themed photography mini-sessions

  • Opportunity to connect and network with other entrepreneurs, creatives and small businesses

  • Discounts on service offerings, and being the first-to-know about all Essence offerings