“What on earth are we supposed to post about?”
It’s a question we hear regularly from small business owners. And we understand why. When you’re busy running a business, dealing with customers, answering emails, managing employees and trying to get through your never-ending to-do list, finding interesting things to post on social media can feel like yet another job. You sit down to create some content, open Instagram or Facebook and suddenly realise you haven’t got a clue what to say. Perhaps you published a photograph of your team last week. You’ve already promoted your services several times this month. You’ve shared your latest customer review. Now what?
Here’s something we’ve learned from more than a decade of managing social media for small businesses. Your business is probably much more interesting than you think it is. The problem isn’t necessarily that you have nothing to post. It’s that you’re so familiar with what you do every day that you don’t recognise how interesting, helpful or entertaining it could be to somebody else.
The conversations you have with customers, the problems you solve, the decisions you make and the things that happen behind the scenes are all potential sources of social media content. You just need to start recognising them.
The Things You Find Ordinary Might Be Fascinating to Your Customers
Think about the last time you watched a video of somebody doing a job you know absolutely nothing about. Perhaps it was a mechanic diagnosing a problem with a car. A baker decorating an elaborate cake. A carpenter making a piece of furniture. Or somebody explaining how an everyday product is manufactured. To the person doing the work, there’s probably nothing particularly remarkable about it. They’ve done it hundreds of times. But to somebody who has never seen the process before, it’s genuinely interesting.
The same principle applies to your business. If you’re a window installer, fitting a new front door might feel like an ordinary Tuesday. But somebody considering replacing their own front door could find the entire process fascinating.
If you’re an accountant, explaining a common bookkeeping mistake might seem incredibly basic. But to a small business owner who’s been making that exact mistake for three years, your explanation could be enormously helpful.
And if you’re a personal trainer, demonstrating how to correct somebody’s squat technique might feel like something you do every day. For somebody struggling with their training, that could be exactly the information they need.
Don’t assume something is boring simply because it’s familiar to you. One of the most useful changes you can make to your social media content strategy is learning to look at your business through your customers’ eyes.
Stop Thinking About What to Post and Start Thinking About What You Do
When small business owners tell us they’re struggling with social media content ideas, we often encourage them to stop thinking about social media for a moment. Instead, think about a normal working day. What happened yesterday?
Did a customer ask an interesting question? Did you solve an unusual problem? Did you complete a project? Did you have a conversation that made you think differently about something?
Perhaps a customer misunderstood an aspect of your service, and you spent ten minutes explaining how it actually works.
That’s content.
Maybe you visited a client and noticed something that businesses in your industry regularly get wrong.
That’s content too.
Perhaps you tried a different approach to something you’ve been doing for years and discovered a better way of working.
There’s another potential post.
When you start looking at your everyday activities this way, you’ll probably find that you’re surrounded by content opportunities. You don’t need to invent an elaborate marketing campaign every time you want to publish something. Sometimes you just need to recognise that the work you’re already doing is worth talking about.
Your Customers Are Already Telling You What Content to Create
One of our favourite sources of social media content ideas is something almost every small business has access to.
Customer questions.
Think about the questions people ask before buying your products or services. How much does it cost? How long does the process take? What’s included? How does it work? Is it suitable for their particular circumstances? What makes one option different from another? These are the things your potential customers genuinely want to know.
And yet, businesses often overlook them when planning their social media content because the answers seem so obvious. Of course you know how your service works. You provide it every day.
But somebody discovering your business for the first time might have absolutely no idea. Imagine you’re a gardener and customers regularly ask when they should prune certain plants. You could create a short video explaining the answer while you’re actually doing the job.
A photographer who repeatedly gets asked what people should wear for a family photoshoot could create a helpful Instagram carousel. A social media manager who regularly gets asked how often a small business should post on Instagram could write a blog about it. In fact, that’s precisely the sort of question that inspires plenty of our own content here at SMR Social.
Rather than sitting down and trying to guess what people might find interesting, pay attention to what they’re already asking you. Every customer conversation is an opportunity to learn more about the information your audience needs.
Show People What Actually Happens Behind the Scenes
Behind-the-scenes content is one of those things that sounds incredibly simple until somebody asks you to create it. Suddenly, you start wondering whether anything interesting actually happens behind the scenes at your business. We’d encourage you to think about it differently. People don’t necessarily need to see something extraordinary.
They’re often interested in understanding how your business operates, what goes into delivering your products or services and who the people behind the business actually are.
- If you run a bakery, show the preparation that happens before your doors open.
- If you’re a tradesperson, document the different stages of a project rather than only photographing the finished result.
- If you own a small retail business, show how you choose new products, prepare displays or get orders ready for customers.
- And if you run a service business where most of your work happens behind a computer, you can still share your working environment, explain what you’re doing or talk through an interesting challenge you’ve encountered.
The important thing is to give your audience a glimpse of something they wouldn’t ordinarily see. Everyday processes can become engaging behind-the-scenes content when you show customers something they wouldn’t normally see. There’s also a practical advantage to this type of content. You don’t necessarily need to set aside an entire afternoon to create it.
If you’re already working on something interesting, take a photograph or record a few short clips on your phone. You can decide exactly how to use them later. Over time, those small moments can become a valuable library of social media content.
The Problems You Solve Make Excellent Social Media Content
Your customers don’t simply buy your products or services because they enjoy spending money. They’re usually trying to achieve something, solve a problem or improve an aspect of their lives or businesses. Those problems are an excellent starting point for creating useful social media content.
Imagine you’re a web designer. You could publish another graphic telling everybody that you offer professional website design. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that.
But what if you explained why a business might be receiving plenty of website visitors without generating many enquiries? You could discuss confusing navigation, unclear calls to action, slow loading times or contact forms that are unnecessarily complicated.
Suddenly, you’re talking about a problem your potential customers might actually be experiencing. You’re also demonstrating that you understand how to solve it. The same approach works for almost every industry.
An accountant could explain why profitable businesses sometimes struggle with cash flow. A personal trainer might discuss why somebody isn’t seeing results despite exercising regularly. A recruitment business could explain why employers struggle to attract suitable candidates. This type of educational content helps people understand the value of your expertise before they’ve even spoken to you. And importantly, it gives your business something more interesting to talk about than simply repeating what you sell.
Your Opinions Are Part of Your Expertise
Not every social media post needs to be an educational tutorial. Sometimes your professional opinion is interesting enough on its own. After years of working in your industry, you’ve probably developed opinions about how things should be done.
You might disagree with a common misconception. Perhaps there’s an industry trend you think businesses are placing too much emphasis on. Maybe you’ve noticed customers repeatedly making the same mistake.
Talk about it.
For example, we regularly see small businesses becoming unnecessarily concerned about how many followers they have. Our view is that a small, relevant audience that regularly generates enquiries can be considerably more valuable than thousands of followers who have absolutely no interest in buying anything. That’s an opinion based on our experience of managing social media.
And it’s a useful subject for a post because it encourages business owners to think differently about what success actually looks like. You don’t need to be controversial for the sake of engagement, and you certainly don’t need to start arguments with people on LinkedIn. But don’t be afraid to express a genuine professional opinion.
It helps demonstrate your experience, gives your content some personality and makes your business more memorable.
Let People Get to Know the People Behind Your Business
There’s another valuable source of content that small businesses sometimes overlook. Themselves. When somebody chooses a small business, they’re often choosing the people behind it as much as the products or services. They want to know who they’ll be dealing with. They want to feel confident that you understand their needs. And they probably want some reassurance that you’re a normal, approachable person rather than somebody who’s going to make every interaction unnecessarily complicated.
Social media gives you an opportunity to start building that familiarity before a customer makes contact. You can introduce your team, share stories about how your business started, explain why you enjoy what you do or talk about the things you’ve learned along the way. You can also show some personality. Not every post needs to be a serious discussion about your industry.
Sometimes a funny moment from the working day, an interesting conversation or a photograph of your team enjoying themselves can help people connect with your business. We’re not suggesting that you turn your professional Instagram account into a personal diary. But there’s a difference between maintaining a professional social media presence and making your business appear completely devoid of personality. People are often much more comfortable approaching a business when they feel they already know a little about the people behind it.
Turn One Working Day Into Several Pieces of Content
Here’s where this approach becomes particularly useful for busy small business owners. You don’t necessarily need to find something completely different to talk about every day. One interesting project, customer interaction or working day could provide enough material for several pieces of content. Imagine you’re a kitchen fitter completing a new installation.
You could photograph the original kitchen before work begins, record some clips showing the installation process and take photographs of the finished result. During the project, you might encounter an unusual challenge that would make an interesting educational post. Perhaps the customer asks a question about materials, layout or maintenance that you could answer in a short video. Once the project is complete, you might receive a lovely testimonial.
You now have a before-and-after post, a behind-the-scenes Reel, an educational video, a customer testimonial and potentially a more detailed case study for your website. All from one project you were already completing. That’s the difference between constantly searching for new social media content ideas and learning how to recognise the content opportunities within your existing work. It also makes content creation much more manageable.
Instead of interrupting your working day to create social media posts, you’re collecting useful material while doing the things you would have been doing anyway.
You Don’t Have to Publish Everything Immediately
One reason businesses struggle with social media consistency is that they treat content creation and publishing as the same task. They realise they haven’t posted anything for a few days, so they sit down and attempt to come up with an idea, create the content, write the caption and publish everything in one sitting. That’s quite a lot of work when you’ve already got a business to run. A better approach is to collect content opportunities as they happen.
Take photographs. Record short videos. Save interesting customer questions. Make a note when something happens that could become a good post. You don’t need to turn every idea into finished content immediately. Instead, build a collection of material you can return to when planning your social media. You might have photographs from three different projects, several customer questions, a couple of testimonials and a video you filmed while explaining something to a colleague. Suddenly, planning next week’s content becomes much easier. You’re not starting with a blank page. You’re choosing from a collection of things that have already happened.
Don’t Underestimate the Value of Customer Stories
Customer stories are another excellent example of content that’s often hiding in plain sight. Think about the last customer you helped.
- Why did they come to you?
- What were they trying to achieve?
- Did they have any particular concerns?
- What did you do for them?
- And what was the result?
There’s potentially a compelling story there. Let’s imagine you’re a personal trainer who has been working with somebody who initially felt uncomfortable going to the gym. Rather than simply publishing a photograph with a caption saying how pleased you are with their progress, you could explain their original concerns, how you approached their training and what they’ve achieved. With their permission, of course.
That story could resonate with somebody who’s experiencing exactly the same problem. It also gives potential customers a clearer understanding of what working with you might actually involve. The same principle applies to accountants, tradespeople, consultants, photographers, designers and almost every other type of service business. Your customers’ experiences help bring your services to life. They also provide social proof, which can be much more persuasive than repeatedly telling people how brilliant your business is.
Good Social Media Content Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect
There’s something else worth remembering when you start creating more content from your everyday work. Not everything needs to look like it was produced by a professional film crew. If you’re filming a quick explanation while working, you don’t necessarily need elaborate lighting, multiple cameras and an expensive microphone. If you’ve taken a genuinely interesting photograph during a project, it doesn’t need to be transformed into a complicated graphic before you can publish it.
And if you’ve got something useful to say, you don’t always need to spend hours trying to write the perfect caption. Quality still matters. Your content should be clear, relevant and appropriate for your business. But sometimes small business owners become so concerned about creating perfect social media content that they end up creating nothing at all.
A useful video filmed on your phone is generally better than an elaborate video concept that never gets made. The same goes for photographs, customer stories and educational posts. Focus on whether the content provides something valuable to your audience rather than whether it looks exactly like something a major international brand might publish.
Start Paying Attention to What Your Audience Finds Interesting
Once you begin publishing more content based on your everyday business activities, pay attention to how people respond. You might discover that your audience loves seeing the process behind your work. Perhaps your educational videos generate lots of saves. Your customer stories might encourage people to send you messages.
Or maybe your team photographs consistently generate more engagement than your carefully designed graphics. These are useful signals. Look at your Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn analytics and identify the content that appears to resonate with the people you’re trying to reach. Don’t become obsessed with individual posts, though.
One Reel performing poorly doesn’t necessarily mean your audience hates the subject. And one video receiving thousands of views doesn’t automatically mean it generated anything valuable for your business. Look for patterns over time. Which subjects repeatedly attract attention? Which posts encourage meaningful conversations? What content leads people to visit your website or enquire about your services? Use that information to improve your social media content strategy. The more you understand your audience, the easier it becomes to recognise which everyday business activities are worth turning into content.
You Probably Have More Content Than You Have Time to Create
After more than a decade of helping small businesses with their social media, we’ve found that a lack of interesting things to talk about is rarely the biggest problem. The bigger challenge is recognising those opportunities and finding the time to turn them into consistent, engaging content. Business owners are understandably focused on running their businesses.
They don’t always think to take photographs while they’re working. They forget to record interesting customer questions. They complete fantastic projects without documenting them. And even when they’ve collected plenty of material, finding the time to turn everything into Reels, graphics, captions and scheduled posts can be difficult. That’s one of the reasons working with a social media manager can be so useful. You already have the industry knowledge, customer relationships and interesting stories.
A social media manager can help you recognise the content opportunities, develop a strategy around them and turn that raw material into content that supports your business. It’s a collaborative process. You don’t have to become a full-time content creator simply because you own a small business.
Your Next Social Media Post Might Be Happening Right Now
Before you spend another hour searching Google for social media content ideas, have a look at what’s happening inside your own business. Think about the conversations you’ve had today.
- The problems you’ve solved.
- The work you’ve completed.
- The questions you’ve answered.
- The decisions you’ve made.
- The things you understand that your customers probably don’t.
There’s a good chance at least one of those things could become an interesting social media post. And once you start recognising those opportunities, you’ll probably find yourself spotting content ideas everywhere. You might even reach the point where your biggest problem isn’t deciding what to post. It’s finding enough time to publish all the ideas you’ve collected.
At SMR Social, we’re a family of social media managers helping small businesses turn their everyday expertise, experiences and stories into engaging social media content. From developing a content strategy and creating posts to ongoing social media management and paid advertising, we can help you build a consistent presence without social media becoming another full-time job.
If you know your business has plenty to talk about but you’re struggling to turn it into effective social media content, get in touch with SMR Social . We’d love to help.