When I speak to audiences, one of their goals is often to get better at social media.

They want to be more consistent with social media and yet they find it hard to get started.  One of their biggest questions is almost always – WHAT DO I POST?

It’s a real roadblock for many of you – so today I’m going to tell you about a little rule I tell everyone in all my social media workshops.

It’s the 3 E’s Rule of posting on social media, and I’ll give you examples of the 3 E’s Rule in practice.

While this post will cover some ideas of what you can post on social media, if you’d like EVEN more – then grab a copy of my eBook 108 Social Media Content Creation Ideas – yep there’s 108 of them!  Simple go to my website here and grab it for yourself!

One of my big things I speak to people about in my workshops is the 3 E’s.  The three things every post you do on social media should fall under:

1. Entertaining your audience
2. Engaging them with value, or
3. Educating them

If your posts aren’t doing one of those three, then you need to ask yourself what’s the value in the post for your audience?  Remembering it’s not about you – it’s about them!

ENTERTAINING YOUR AUDIENCE

What can you be posting that would be entertaining your audience?

Entertaining is probably the most fun of the 3 E’s Rule.

I always talk about how YOU (the business owner) should be showing up more on social – people want to know the person behind the brand.  They want to engage with the person behind the brand.  Adding in that personal touch about your interests or showing your sense of humour (so as long as your sense of humour isn’t too warped for your audience!) – can be massive fun!

Video is great for creating those engaging and entertaining posts, and if you’re a little embarrassed or unsure of how your audience will take certain humorous posts – use them as stories, as they only last 24 hours that way!

One fun thing that is a good way to get confident in posting video content on your social media, is starting with a Boomerang video – I spoke about boomerang video on Episode 7 of my Podcast when talking about Instagram Stories – so if you’re not sure what they are head back there and have a listen.

You can also share funny memes that might relate to a theme – such as #fridayfunny.

Doing a “Live” and giving your audience a look at what “behind the scenes” looks like in your world can be very entertaining and interesting for your audience.

Other ideas that can be entertaining for your audience might be

• Gifs – use a clever gif
• Create a “how to” video on a product or a service you provide
• Ask True or False questions
• Share or retweet someone else’s post and put your spin on it
• Post live at events
• Give something away, a random gift
• Tell your audience about what you are watching or reading lately
• Do a throwback – go down memory lane of your business or even your journey to now
• Depending on the season – share your favourite recipe or family tradition

And remember, that entertaining doesn’t have to be humorous – just interesting enough to hold their attention!

ENGAGING WITH VALUE

Engaging with value means giving value to your audience.  Giving value up front with no string attached is one of the best ways I know to attract a prospect from online to offline.

With exceptional value up front, for free, your future client cannot help but be attracted – simply wondering if you’re this good for FREE what would it look like if I was actually paying you!

Engaging your audience with value gives them a change to get to know you, to like you and to trust you.  Trust is certainly something that’s hard to manage online unless you are putting some of your best information out there for free.

Of course, you need strategy around that because if you give away ALL your best stuff, there’s nothing to sell, but you do need to give away some of your best knowledge to gain a prospects trust.

There’s lots of ways to engage with value – including giving information that will solve your audience’s biggest problems.

You can do this in many ways including

• eBooks
• PDF guides
• Videos (live or pre-recorded – of course live is better for that algorithm!)
• Sharing blogs and vlogs – either yours or someone else’s that you know your audience will get value from (but not your direct competitors!)
• Be the first with breaking news – for instance if you are in finance or real estate or banking and interest rates go up – be the first to share the news. However – only share news that relates to your brand and audience – don’t share current affair news or anything that might cause division within your audience. For example, don’t get political if political isn’t your brand.
• Pinterest pins
• Have a weekly round-up of the podcasts or articles your audience “must” read
• Tell them what you’re currently reading/watching/listening to and why it’s important
• Share a quote – but don’t just share, it tell them why it’s important to them or what it means to you

EDUCATING YOUR AUDIENCE

Of course, lots of things mentioned in the two previous Es, entertaining your audience and engaging with value, will be also naturally educating your audience.

But other ways you can be educating your audience might be:

• Holding a live Q&A session or a Ask me Anything session
• Plugging affiliated partners within the business
• Sharing a webinar
• Highlighting an expert blogger
• Posting a creative or unexpected use for your product
• Sharing a work/life balance tip that works for you
• Celebrate accomplishment for an employee or better still a customer

I’ve given lots of ideas here but I have even MORE for you to boost your social media!  Head to the freebies section of my website and download the 108 social media content creation ideas there.

Finding something to post on social media is simple – but it’s not always easy.  I know.  I post on there too!

But with a little resource like mine or a little google research time you can find things to be engaging your audience with, educating them or entertaining them.

If you download the 108 ideas and you think of some I’ve missed, I’d love to know. Drop a comment below, send me a message or email or head into the Facebook group, Like Minded Business Owners and share your idea over there!

If you’re not a member of Like Minded Business Owners, simply click this link and it’ll take you right there: www.facebook.com/groups/LikeMindedBusinessOwners

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenn Donovan is a marketing strategist and social media extraordinaire, coach and mentor to savvy business owners.  Owner and Founder of Social Media & Marketing Australia.

With a passion for making business simple, because it’s isn’t easy but it should be simple or at least simpler, she’s built a reputation for helping other small business owners simplify their marketing and businesses so they can reach their goals, be more profitable and live the dream (finding the freedom they set out to achieve when they started … the illusive small business owner freedom dream …!)

Jenn believes in giving before asking and that’s why she’s the host of the popular Small Business Made Simple Podcast