It’s the middle of the summer holidays. The weather has been pretty good, the kids are off school and towns across the UK are full of people eating out, shopping, meeting friends and trying to make the most of the sunshine while it lasts. So why does so much business social media still look exactly the same as it did in February?
If your customers’ lives change with the seasons, your social media content should change with them.
At SMR Social, we’ve always believed that some of the best content comes from simply showing what’s happening inside and around a business. And during the summer, particularly for local businesses, there’s often more happening than ever. You don’t necessarily need another carefully designed graphic telling people how brilliant your business is. Sometimes you just need to get your phone out and show them.
Social Media Should Reflect What Your Customers Are Doing Right Now
Good social media marketing starts with understanding your audience. At this time of year, many people are in a completely different mindset. Parents are trying to entertain their children for six weeks. People are taking annual leave. Families are going away. Friends are meeting for drinks while the evenings are still light.
Even the normal working week can feel a little more relaxed. Your social media content should acknowledge that.
If you run a café and your outdoor tables are packed on a sunny afternoon, show them. If you own a shop in a busy town centre, capture some of that atmosphere. If you run a pub with a great beer garden, don’t just tell people about it. Film it when it’s full of people enjoying themselves.
Social media gives businesses an opportunity to show people what they’re missing. Summer is the perfect time to take advantage of that.
Show It Rather Than Advertising It
Imagine you own an ice cream shop. You could create a beautifully designed graphic saying:
“Come and try our delicious ice cream this summer!”
There’s nothing particularly wrong with that. But now compare it with a quick Reel showing ice cream being scooped into a cone, chocolate sauce being poured over the top and customers sitting outside enjoying it in the sunshine.
Which one makes you want an ice cream?
That’s the difference between advertising something and making somebody feel something. Great social media content helps people imagine themselves experiencing your business. You don’t have to tell someone that your café is a great place to spend a sunny afternoon if you can show them.
Take Your Content Outside
If the sun is shining, use it. We’re not suggesting every business suddenly needs to start filming videos in the park, but summer naturally creates opportunities to make your content look and feel different.
Products can be photographed outside. Staff can appear in videos away from their desks. Local businesses can show more of the town or community around them. Even service businesses that don’t rely on physical footfall can embrace the season.
An accountant, estate agent or marketing company can still talk about subjects that are relevant to what their customers are experiencing during the summer. Seasonal content isn’t just for cafés, pubs and tourist attractions.
It’s about making your business feel connected to what’s happening in people’s lives right now.
Local Businesses Have a Huge Opportunity During the Summer
This is particularly relevant for local businesses. We’re based in Nantwich, and when the weather is good during the school holidays, you can physically see the town change. There are more families around during the day, outdoor tables are busier and people generally have more time to wander around and discover somewhere new.
That creates a brilliant opportunity for local social media marketing.
If somebody is sitting at home wondering where to go for lunch, what to do with the kids or where to spend the afternoon, there’s every chance they’ll pick up their phone. You want your business to be one of the things they see.
And showing them what your business looks like today can be much more persuasive than showing them a generic promotional graphic you could have posted at any point during the year.
You Don’t Need to Manufacture Content When It’s Happening Around You
We’ve spoken about this a lot at SMR Social. Businesses often treat social media content as something they have to create separately from actually running their business.
- We think that’s backwards.
- The best content is often already happening.
- If your restaurant is packed, that’s content.
- If a big summer delivery has arrived at your shop, that’s content.
- If you’re preparing hundreds of orders ahead of a busy weekend, that’s content.
- If your team is having a laugh while working outside, that could be content too.
Get into the habit of capturing these moments as they happen. You don’t need to stop everything and arrange a professional shoot every time you want to post something. A phone and ten seconds of footage can be enough.
Don’t Make Everything Look Too Perfect
There’s another reason we like this approach.
It feels real.
Businesses sometimes spend so much time trying to make their social media look professional that they accidentally remove all the personality from it. Perfect lighting. Perfect graphics. Perfect captions. Perfectly staged photographs. There’s absolutely a place for polished content, but it shouldn’t be everything you post.
A slightly chaotic video from a packed café on a sunny Saturday can tell us far more about that business than a professionally designed graphic ever could.
- It proves people are actually there.
- It creates atmosphere.
- It makes the business feel alive.
For many small businesses, that’s exactly what potential customers want to see.
Think About the Mood, Not Just the Calendar
Seasonal social media marketing doesn’t mean sticking a picture of the sun on your graphics every July. It’s about understanding how people’s behaviour and priorities change throughout the year.
Summer content can be lighter, more spontaneous and more visual because that reflects the way many people are spending their time. Then September arrives and everything changes again.
Schools go back. People return from holidays. Businesses get serious about the final few months of the year and routines start returning to normal. Your content can change with them.
That’s what good social media management should do.
Make the Most of What’s Happening Right Now
One of the easiest ways to improve your social media is to stop thinking quite so far ahead for a moment and look around you.
- What’s happening in your business today?
- What’s happening in your town?
- What are your customers doing differently because it’s August?
There might be a better piece of content right in front of you than anything sitting in your content calendar. At SMR Social, we’re big believers in planning content. But we’re equally big believers in knowing when to forget the plan for five minutes and capture something that’s happening right now. Because summer won’t last forever.
The outdoor tables will eventually disappear. The evenings will get darker. The kids will go back to school and normal routines will return. While your customers are out enjoying summer, make sure your social media feels like it’s out there enjoying it with them.