12 Social Media Content Ideas for Creators
Social media engagement is pivotal for content creators, streamers, influencers, entertainers, and creatives. It helps you build your image and your audience, direct viewers towards your events and projects, drive brand awareness and sales, gain fans and customers, and makes you more relatable and accessible to your followers.
All of this can seem like a huge ongoing challenge, though. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn - how do you come up with fresh content on the regular to keep all of your followers engaged everywhere?
We've got a dozen ideas for your content strategy so you can slay your social media game with these social media content ideas. They'll keep you on-trend, will inspire shares and reposts, will help you develop and solidify your brand voice, and will keep your audience coming back for more.
1. Create high-quality video content
Still photos are great, but video content creation, whether it's on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok, is an even more effective way to engage your followers and creatively humanize your brand.
Tailor your videos to showcase your personality, whether you prefer a more informal, down-to-earth video shooting style, or enjoy lots of complex edits and creativity. No matter what your style, approaching your video's subject matter in a way that's unique to you will make your posts more readily identifiable as "yours," and can help build your target audience.
2. Use carousel posts
Carousel posts, like the ones you see on TikTok, LinkedIn, and Instagram, enable you to showcase multiple images or videos that a user can swipe through, much like a slide show, but in one singular post.
You can use carousel features to highlight different aspects of your content idea. Tell a progressive story, promote products, share memes, or create mini-tutorials. It's also a fun way to share visuals and info in smaller sections that are easier and quicker for your audience to view.
3. Utilize user-generated posts
Reposting user-generated content can help foster a sense of community and increase engagement. It can also be an excellent and relatable way to showcase how your customers use your products or services.
If you see a post of someone hanging up your art, wearing your merch, hyping one of your streams or live events, or performing a cover version of one of your songs, repost it and throw in a few friendly words. Engaging with customer testimonials by reposting and commenting on them can also help build trust and social proof for your brand or small business.
4. Tips and Tutorials
Sharing advice or tips about your industry can help you establish yourself as an expert, and can also increase your followers' trust in your content. Posting a tutorial on your product or service can help demonstrate its value and usefulness to your audience, and are an opportunity to showcase your expertise.
Maximize the fact that socials thrive on being a visual medium, and create fun infographics, graphs, and helpful captions to simplify complex information and make it more shareable.
5. Offer saveable content
Creating content that your followers can save for later can be an excellent way to keep them engaged with your brand. Make free templates and graphics that can be reused over and over by your audience.
Some great content ideas in this category include compiling lists and checklists ("10 Must-See Places in Los Angeles," "Movies to Watch on Halloween," "Luggage Packing Guide") that will be definite keepers for your audience to refer back to. Placing inspirational quotes or affirmations over the top of some striking phone wallpaper. Sharing recipes or cookie decorating designs. Creating informative infographics. Or putting together how-to style guides for specific clothing fits or makeup looks.
TikToker @theguynextdoor3 notched over 800,000 views by sharing his picks for the Top 10 Places to Visit in Taiwan.
6. Go live
Going live can create a sense of urgency and excitement among your followers, especially if you don’t usually go live on a particular platform - this can make your live stream a real event!
You can use your lives to host Q&A sessions, share exclusive updates, perform music or acting monologues, debut new merch or products, showcase behind-the-scenes moments, or take your viewers through a "day in your life" in real time.
7. Collaborate with other creators
Collaborating with other creators and influencers can help expand your reach and introduce your brand to a new audience. You can team up with them to create videos, co-host live sessions, interview each other, or give away products.
You don't even have to collab with an influencer who's doing exactly the same thing that you are - just make sure that your content ideas are complementary. Team up a TikTok fitness guru with an athletic apparel marketer, a videogame developer with a Twitch gaming streamer, or a YouTube style trendsetter with an Instagram beauty influencer. Plan ahead with your collab pal to ensure your event goes smoothly.
American celebrity chef Nick DiGiovanni did a huge collab with a group of popular YouTubers. He let them control what he cooked for 24 hours, and notched 15 million views.
8. Jump on trends
Participating in a trending challenge or a meme can help increase your brand's visibility. Look for challenges especially suited to your niche or industry, and create your own take on it - bonus points if your version is easily shareable, for instance if you can leave space for other creators to repost and duet.
Also look at how viewers are reacting to the challenge you're considering before you make your own; would these people also be a good audience for your content? Make sure you include the key trending elements from the trend you've chosen, whether it's music, spoken audio, or visuals; make a new spin on it; and don't forget those hashtags!
9. Highlight special days
There are a wealth of content ideas around holidays. Posting about holidays can help create a sense of inclusion and community among your followers. Get them to engage even more by sharing stories about the holiday itself or the season; listing your favorite things about the holiday and asking your followers to share theirs; or creating festive entertainment content (music, TikTok dances, comedy skits, memes) around the holiday's themes. Sprinkle with some festive emojis and you're virtually celebrating with your audience!
Special days can also be more personal, celebrating milestones for yourself, your socials, or your community. You can hype up things like your Twitch anniversary (the day you started live streaming on your Twitch channel), hitting a specific number of Twitter followers, the release of a song, a new merch drop, or any number of content ideas you think your target audience would be interested in.
10. Giveaways, Discounts, and Promotions
Hosting an exclusive giveaway, time-sensitive discount, or special promotion can help increase engagement and incentivize your audience to follow and interact with your brand and your content.
You could host a contest offering access for a small group to a closed Discord AMA hangout with you, or another personalized reward. Offer a special limited-time promo code for your merch that you only post on your chosen social platform. Do a virtual scavenger hunt where your audience has to find clues hidden throughout a series of Instagram posts. Or mail something fun to fans who go the extra mile to help promote your posts with specific captions, photo requests, or hashtags.
11. Show behind-the-scenes moments
Sharing unpolished behind-the-scenes moments can help humanize your content and build a stronger, more relatable connection with your followers. Sneak peeks of projects or products you're working on can help build anticipation among your audience for those projects or products to arrive, and will give your fans yet another reason to check back so they don't miss any of these special access posts.
You can even create content buzz by showing small clips or photos of a content idea you're producing, hinting at what it will be without giving it away entirely. Be cryptic with how much you show (for instance, make an Instagram story showing only parts of a new product, but not the whole thing), throw in some mysterious captions and hashtags, and watch your fans engage with your content by trying to guess what it is!
Photographer @randalford showed off some cool behind-the-scenes footage from his recent shoot with Adobe Photoshop.
12. Ask for feedback
Asking for feedback can help you gauge your audience's opinions and preferences and improve your products or services accordingly. You can host polls on your socials, or simply ask questions that your fans can answer in the comments section.
Conducting polls and Q&As on your socials can help you understand your audience's preferences and their opinions about your products or services. Double the return from these types of posts by engaging again after the polls are over; create follow-up posts telling your audience what "won," or what kind of changes were inspired by their feedback. This kind of feedback can be especially good for small businesses or brands, as it can help you fine-tune your market strategy and strengthen your brand voice.
Monetize Your Social Media Content With Fourthwall!
Having a solid content strategy for engaging social media content can help creators increase their reach, audience, and engagement - and you can also generate new revenue streams by monetizing that content. That's where Fourthwall comes in. Fourthwall is the ultimate platform for content creators to monetize their social media content by launching your own website and selling products.
With Fourthwall's beautifully customizable solutions, content creators can set up a homepage and online shop for merchandising. These will complement your socials and content ideas perfectly, let you aim directly at your target audience, and allow you to earn income from your creativity.
Fourthwall also offers great extra resources like a Help Center and blog posts so you can fine-tune your content strategy by researching best practices, finding the best ways to engage your socials and study your analytics, and staying on top of trends.
So help us help you - use these opportunities and monetize your social media content with Fourthwall! Learn more about Fourthwall’s solutions and take the first step towards creating a new revenue stream from your social media content.