How to work out what your “thing” is on social media

The one place where everyone is equal is in their social media presences. After all, we all start from the same position of zero when we started our pages and our groups.

And your own social media properties are the one place where all the attention is yours, and all the share of voice belongs to you.

So now you’ve set up a Facebook page, Instagram profile, Twitter account, LinkedIn company page or Pinterest board, what do you do now?

First, you have to figure out what your “thing” is. Are you a fun and funky business? Are you a serious and highly professional business? Do you sell a physical product that you can photograph, or are you a service that kinda needs a bit more imagination to create images and video around? Once you work out what your “thing” is, then you’ll have an idea of the kind of content that may be of interest to your audience.

So if you are that fun and funky business, photos of staff goofing around at your business, using your product and highlighting the fun you can have with your product can be cool. If you’re a fun business with fun products, why would you have photos of people standing around in front of logos and banners when you could be reflecting the fun that people can have with the food, drinks and products that you sell?

If you’re that professional and serious business, then education is going to be your primary type of content. If being goofy and fun isn’t an option for you, then educating potential clients on what you do, why it’s important and most importantly, what it means to the client, is the core of what you’ll produce online. Providing definitions, explanations of laws, translations of strange in-house words and phrases, and even descriptions of some of you non-confidential processes and procedures.

If you’re a service that is hard to create content around because you don’t have a product to photograph or do a demo video on — or you yourself are the product, then you’re going to be doing a lot more personal branding. If the service revolves around you, then you’re the one who has to get in front of the camera to talk, smile and explain. Success stories, examples of how you’ve helped people (without mentioning names or personal details of course) and short, informative videos where you preview the kind of help you provide are going to be your best friend on social media. Also consider talking about what’s actually in it for the client — not just explaining what you do. It’s a skill, but it’s one you can learn easily by simple asking yourself before you start, “I know what I do, but what are the end benefits to the customer or client?”

Dante St James is a digital business advisor with Treeti Business Consulting, a Lead Trainer for Facebook Australia, carries over 80 individual business and technology certifications and is the founder of Australian regional digital marketing agency, Clickstarter.