One of the biggest struggles for many businesses is coming up with original, engaging social media content week after week. It can be tough to constantly come up with ideas, and it can be very time-consuming.
The best approach for creating content is to turn off your email, grab a cuppa, find a quiet space and create your content all in one sitting when you’re in “the zone”.
But sometimes it’s tough to find your creative zone – whether you’ve got a big week at work or you’re feeling creatively drained, sometimes you just need a quick-fix for a few days until you’re in a better position to sit down and be truly creative.
This post is designed to give you some quick wins to create content, so you can spend more time fighting fires and saving the world – and then come back to your community to create more kickass content when you’re feeling refreshed!
Here are the 5 tips to get your community buzzing (with very little effort on your part)…

Just find it for me

Sharing the latest news, or relevant discussion topics for your industry from around the web is a great way to share your business culture or values, in addition to placing you as a thought-leader in that space.
You can automate finding of content for your industry using tools like Beatrixapp or Nuzzel. Alternatively, see what’s trending on BuzzSumo for ideas.

Related: How to Find Awesome Content Perfect for Your Audience

Share and share alike

If you don’t already have a hit list of communities or pages in your industry that inspire you, use this as an opportunity to find some. Simply share the content you find on those pages which is relevant to your community. Sorted.

Hero your community

Your community might be already engaging with your page with brilliant questions or content. You can answer their question or comment on their post – but why not also hero it as it’s own unique piece of content?
Drawing on your Canva wizardry (affiliate link), create beautiful quote image to both ask and answer their question in an engaging graphic. As a bonus flow-on effect, this helps build community because you’re acknowledging and celebrating your community. Two birds with one stone. Nice!

Quote ‘em up

If you have a strong brand personality, consider some thought leaders in that space who reflect your brand values.
Is the heart of your business to inspire creativity, drive, passion, fun? Check out brainyquotes.com or Pinterest and search your brand values to see quotes that inspire you.
Grab free, creative commons images from Pixabay, and throw them into a service that automatically resizes them. Sprout Social’s Landscape tool is great for that, but so is Canva, which has the benefit of also layering over text, icons or images in a stylish way.

Look to the past

While there are plenty of ways you can cut your existing social media and website data to give you new content ideas, one of the fastest ways to find new content if you’re having a tough week is simply to recycle your content.
My tip is to export your data from 3 – 6 months ago into Excel, sort the content by highest engagement. If the content was evergreen, then simply repost that same content.
You’d be surprised how often people don’t remember the same content – or if they do, they might enjoy seeing it again!
Do you have any other time-saving tips for creating social media content? Let me know in the comments!

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Want to work with Rachel?

Rachel Beaney is a writer and social media content specialist, helping businesses connect with their audiences.

She’s worked with local, national and global companies, in addition to not-for-profits and government bodies. She loves helping businesses tell their stories with creative and data-driven solutions.

She is based in Sydney, Australia.

Want to work together? Rachel would love to hear from you. Get in touch today.