HOW TO CREATE AMAZING CONTENT FOR EACH SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM

How do you know what to post on each social media platform?

This is a common question, and if you’re a blogger or business owner who manages their own social media platforms, you know why. It’s difficult to know what and when to post across networks without trial and error.

The first thing you need to know is this: not all content needs to be shared everywhere. And not all content is suitable for every social media platform.

But how do you decide what to post?

Fortunately, I’m going to share some suggestions and examples that have worked for myself and others.

In this post, you’ll learn:

The general guidelines for posting on each social media platform, so you can see consistent growth with your social following.
Types of content to post on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
How to write effective social media updates for each individual platform.

Plus you’ll find a little bit of information around the usage of each platform and which channels you should focus on. Let’s dive in.

Here are the general guidelines for the following types of social media platforms:

Facebook: Videos and curated content
Instagram: high quality photos, quotes, Stories
Twitter: News, blog posts, GIFs
LinkedIn: Jobs, company news, professional content
Pinterest: Infographics and step-by-step photo guides

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WHAT TO POST ON FACEBOOK

Although other platforms have entered the scene, Facebook has over 2.7 billion users making it the number one social media platform out there.

Videos & live videos

Your goal on Facebook should be to build your brand and engage your fans.

The best way to do that through content is to use videos and live videos.

Buzzsumo analysed 68 million Facebook posts and found that videos have higher average engagement than images and links.

You should find that videos generate the highest average reach among all post types.

The best way to create video for your Facebook Page is to focus on creating educational content:

How-to guides: Videos where you share some tips and tricks within your industry
Blog post summaries: For these videos, you could summarise the key ideas from your blog posts and turn them into short video clips.

Here’s an example of a video I’ve posted on Facebook:

PRO TIP: Upload your videos to Facebook directly. Native videos receive more engagement and shares than YouTube links (due to Facebook’s algorithm).

Blog posts & curated content

After videos, blog posts and curated content are the next types of posts that do well on Facebook.

Apart from sharing your blog posts for your social media platform management, you also want to curate high-quality content from third-party Pages and sites.

Posts that are entertaining and educational will perform the best for you on Facebook. Here’s a recent example:

PRO TIP: A great way to find high-quality content is to use the Facebook feature, Pages to Watch.

Other Facebook tips:

Don’t forget Facebook Live. Users devour live video, watching a live stream three times longer than recorded video.
Tease the information. The most appealing updates are the ones that offer something, but don’t disclose everything and make fans want to click.
Share images. Images are important on Facebook because they directly influence engagement and results.
Consider using bit.ly links. Links are important so if you want to track how many are clicking from Facebook specifically, use a bit.ly link.
Timing is key. Share information when users are online - you can check your optimal times through Facebook Insights.

WHAT TO POST ON INSTAGRAM

More than 60% of Instagram users are between the ages of 18 and 29, making Instagram a natural fit for youth-oriented brands and products.

High-quality photos

Instagram has become a place where people post only the best photos (and videos) on their profile.

After interviewing and studying 11,000 13-24 year-olds around the world, Facebook recommends marketers need to “blend in to stand out”.

Here are a few types of high-quality photos you can post on Instagram to grow your social media following:

Product photos. If you sell physical products such as fashion or food, you can post high-resolution photos of your product in various settings.
Behind-the-scenes. Another popular type of Instagram photo from brands are behind-the-scenes photos. These could be photos of you doing your work, events, or the making of a product.
User-generated content. If you can’t get suitable product photos or enough behind-the-scenes photos, you could post user-generated content.

PRO TIP: When you’re curating amazing user-generated content for a social media platform, be sure to credit it correctly or request permission if needed.

Quotes

You can’t go wrong with a good quote! Motivational and inspirational quotes are one of the most popular content types on Instagram (with nearly 80 million posts tagged with #quotes at the time of writing).

A brand that does a great job (creatively) integrating quote posts into their Instagram profile is WeWork (@wework).

If you are unable to get such photos with quotes, you can also create graphics with quotes using free design tools like Canva.

PRO TIP: To get the most out of your quote posts, seek out the best quotes which support your brand mission, use your own images where possible and don’t go overboard.

Stories

We know it’s important to have a consistent theme with your Instagram feed, but you can be a little bit more flexible with your Stories.

There are many different ways for using Instagram Stories to grow your business. Here are a few examples:

Storytelling
Share how-to tutorials
Mini trainings
Promote a blog post
Share a list
Announce limited time offers and promotions
Your morning routine
Offer giveaways and discounts
Share data, research and statistics
Share quotes and inspiration
Introduce an Instagram takeover guest
Share announcements, news, and updates

When creating and sharing your Instagram Stories, remember to keep them in line with your Instagram marketing strategy.

PRO TIP: A fast way to create great-looking Instagram Story is to use a template. Buy your own from Etsy or create your own using Canva.

Other Instagram tips

Include your location. Posts tagged with locations have 79% higher engagement.
Use editing features. How an image or video looks on Instagram is everything. Use Instagram itself or third-party apps to help.
Craft captions carefully. While this social media platform is very visual-focused, write captions that always include a call to action.
Use hashtags. Hashtags are incredibly important for engagement on Instagram. Use all 30 hashtags in each update for greater visibility.

Want something to help you put all this into action? Grab your FREE Social Media Action Plan below!

WHAT TO POST ON TWITTER

Twitter has made itself the go-to customer service channel. The average user follows five businesses and 80% have mentioned a brand in a tweet, so it’s a great platform to connect with your audience.

News

The most common reason why people use Twitter is to keep up with news, according to a survey of over 3,000 people by the America Press Institute.

40% use Twitter to find out about breaking news and 39% to keep up with news in general.

This makes it a great platform for sharing news relevant to your followers - industry news, company news, product news.

PRO TIP: For keeping up to date with news in your industry, Feedly is a great RSS reader that I recommend.

Blog posts & curated content

Like Facebook, Twitter is a great place to share your blog posts and curate high-quality, relevant content.

Because people and brands tend to tweet multiple times a day, it’s more suitable to share several blog posts or pieces of curated content per day on Twitter than other platforms like Facebook.

When I schedule tweets about my blog posts, I like to add one of the following multimedia attachments to keep the tweet interesting to my followers:

Link (with the link preview)
Photo or infographic
Video
GIF

Here’s an example:

PRO TIP: Experiment with videos. The maximum length of a Twitter video is 140 seconds (or two minutes and 20 seconds).

GIFs

Twitter is the first social media platform where GIFs first became popular. And they’re still very popular on Twitter today.

If you have created GIFs for your blog posts or product launches, Twitter is the best place to share them.

PRO TIP: You can use tools like Canva, Ezgif, and Giphy to quickly create GIFs for social media.

Other Twitter tips

Include a call to action. Be clear about what you want your followers to do in your tweets.
Use proper punctuation and grammar. 280 characters can or can’t be a lot depending on your update. Don’t sacrifice grammar just because you have a text limit.
Mention other users. Use mentions to engage with social media influencers and grab their attention for your brand; this is great for building high-profile relationships.
Retweet other updates. Sharing information from other sources is really encouraged on Twitter. Remember to leave a few characters so you can provide your own insights for your followers.

WHAT TO POST ON LINKEDIN

Two professionals join LinkedIn every second which is a really impressive growth rate.

Jobs & career information

With LinkedIn being a professional networking platform, the most suitable content for LinkedIn is job listings and career information

A LinkedIn Company Page is a great channel for potential hires to learn more about your company. For example, Google uses their LinkedIn Company Page to showcase several things:

Company culture
Their employees’ experiences working at Google
Their employees’ achievements
Open job positions

PRO TIP: If you want to drive engagement on your LinkedIn posts, attach an image or video. LinkedIn found that, “images generally result in a 98% higher comment rate” and “links to YouTube videos play directly in the LinkedIn feed and usually result in a 75% higher share rate.”

Company news

Besides posting about job opportunities and career information, you can also share company news and milestones on your LinkedIn company page.

PRO TIP: Use the analytics for your Company Page to identify tips posts, such as those with the highest impressions, clicks, or engagement rate, and figure out what resonates with your followers. You can then create similar posts or repost those top posts a few weeks later.

Professional content

Sometimes, you might not have enough (or any) content about career or company news to share regularly.

Another type of content you can share on LinkedIn which I use for my strategy is content that is relevant to the professionals in your target audience. This includes training webinars, white papers, and industry studies.

PRO TIP: You can learn about your followers’ demographics, such as job functions and industries, using the analytics for your Company Page. This way, you can have a better understanding of what professional content they might be most interested in.

WHAT TO POST ON PINTEREST

Pinterest is a widely popular social media platform. Although 80% of Pinterest users are women, 40% of new users are men, showing the platform is slowly becoming more diverse.

Infographics

Like Instagram, Pinterest is a very visual platform, so images are the best thing to post on Pinterest. But unlike Instagram, images on Pinterest are mostly vertical.

According to Pinterest, the best aspect ratio for Pinterest images is 2:3, with a minimum width of 600 pixels, such as 600 pixels wide by 900 pixels tall or 800 pixels wide by 1,200 pixels tall.

PRO TIP: Even if you aren’t a designer, it’s possible to create a basic infographic with graphic design tools like Pikochart and Venngage.

Click here for a video tutorial on how to make Pinterest pins that go viral.

Step-by-step photo guides

The most popular topics on Pinterest includes DIY and craft, home decor, food and drink, and design.

Among these topics, vertical images with step-by-step photo instructions on how to make something perform really well.

Guides like this teach people how to create something just through the photos, which makes them easy to consume and great for re-pin.

PRO TIP: If you are not sure what Pinterest image to create, do a search on Pinterest for the topic you’re interested in. Pinterest will show you some of the most popular pins for the topic, which you can refer to.

Other Pinterest tips

Carefully pick your image’s colours. When choosing images, dominant colours (red, dark green and pink) get 3 times more likes and repins than those that do not, while orange images get 2 times the amount of repins.
Use light and colour strategically. Images with 50% colour saturation get repinned 4 times more often than those with 100% and 10 times more than black and white images.
Remember the background. Watch out for how much space your background uses, making sure it doesn’t take up more than 40% of the image.

What do you post on each social media platform?

While there is a lot to consider when writing for social media, it’s important to remember that not all platforms are the same and need to be treated differently from one another.

I hope this has given you more insight into what content you can post on the different social media channels, and exactly what type of content to leverage and when.

If you are open to sharing, I would love to learn from you. Which types of content have done well for you on the platforms mentioned above?

Don’t forget to grab your FREE Social Media Action Plan below!