The 5 Categories of Posting on Social Media – What to Post on Social Media

Posting on Social Media can confuse many small to medium sized businesses who may not have the resources to deliver quality content on a day to day basis. However there are many examples of small businesses to the self employed, able to utilize this important platform to push their message and generate interest.

A frequently asked question is what do I post?

If you take a look at many successful social media accounts you will find that posts can be separated into 5 different categories:

Lifestyle – Posts on day to day living, this can include members of the team, scenery, holiday, nights out, food, hobbies, and more.
Educational– Information that is useful for people to know
Entertaining– Music, humour, interesting, time killer, quiz, games, and more.
Promotional– Giveaways, discounts, offers, highlighting your services
Quotes/Inspirational– “[A] quotation is a handy thing to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself, always a laborious business." (The Record Lie)” A.A. Milne, If I May

This is an important question because many of those that we speak to, find themselves not gaining any substantial traction or engagement from their posts. So a better question to ask is not what but why. Why do some social media accounts perform better than others?

Well, a good exercise would be to take a look at your own account and group them into the above categories. Then look at which category has the best engagement from your followers (the most likes, comments, shares, follows after the post was made).

Do your posts mainly fit into one or two categories?

If this is the case maybe it is time to start testing the response you receive from posts in alternative categories.

Are certain categories performing better than others?

If this is the case then it would be worthwhile focusing more attention on these, as this is what you followers are responding to.

So what if you feel like you do not have the time, or the creativity to post on a regular basis…

This is a difficult one, as it takes time to understand what works, and what does not. Also you need to discover your favoured platform, and your company voice. A great piece of advice that we can give to help boost your posting frequency is to not make it unnecessarily difficult to post. What we mean by this is to not create posts that require a lot of time to produce, this is where keeping it simple but effective comes into play. For example instead of spending time creating an image using illustrator, you can use lego men to tell a story. The time to set up a few pieces of lego takes minutes and you can move them around to create multiple pictures to use in your posts. Simple but effective! As mentioned this is just an example and creativity will be your biggest asset. This goes for additional categories above, if pictures are not your thing (even though we would suggest to include imagery where possible) writing a small paragraph giving a day to day round up can help achieve the same outcome.

Taken with an iphone, a sheet of coloured paper and a kids toy

The main takeaway

Think about your own social media experience. You scroll down a never ending page of posts from hundreds of different accounts. The main focus lies in staying in front of your followers eyes, so that they remember you when the time comes that they need your service. If you spend too much time creating ads your posting will not be as frequent, if you spend too little time the quality may not be the greatest. However there is a balance you can find that will help keep you relevant and have your social media account start working for you. Varying post categories, making them unique, and finding a way to tell story with the resources you have available are key. We hope highlighting these methods will help you on your journey to social domination! Have a great day 🙂