Social Media

What to Post on Each Social Media Outlet

What to Post on Each Social Media Outlet

Published: 4/28/2015 | Last Updated: 9/12/2017

All too often, bloggers and business owners go into their social media blindly. They’re not strategic with their posts, they post whatever and whenever something comes to mind, and they just leave it at that.

Guys. If we want to have a successful social media strategy, we can’t just let our social media go to the dogs. We have to work for it. Plan. Strategize. Spend some time to make it quality. Schedule. Interact. Whatever other verbs you can think of, add ’em to the list.

This is why I have a job. It’s why people hire me to help them manage their social media. Because it’s hard work, it takes strategy, and it takes time.

The point is, you can’t be all willy nilly with your social media. It’s a marketing tool for your blog or business, which means that it’s serious shiz and you need to make sure that you’re doing it right.

So my job here is to help make sure that you’re doing it right.

Today we’re going to talk about what to post on each social media outlet. Meaning, what is your perfect post for each specific social network. Just like no two snowflakes are the same, no two social networks are the same, either. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, so it’s important to play to those strengths in your social media strategy. I’ll go through each social media outlet and explain what kinds of posts do the best on each and why.

Facebook:

We all know how to use Facebook–I mean, most of us have probably been active Facebook users since way back in ’07. However, Facebook Pages need to be a bit more strategic. You can’t just post a million pictures of your cute kid, sappy song lyrics, or political rants on your Page like you do on your profile.

Oh, none of you post those things on Facebook? It’s just me? Oh, okay then. Moving on.

As a brand, you have to pay attention to what your audience likes. Keep track of your insights, but keep in mind that these are typically the types of posts that do well on your Facebook Page.

Behind-the-Scenes Photos

Your people love to see what things look like behind-the-scenes. They love to see you work, they love to see how things are done, and they love transparency.

It gives your readers or customers a better clue as to who you are. They can get to know who they’re buying from and that helps to create brand loyalty more than anything.

Quotes

Seriously, who doesn’t love a good quote? You can use an inspirational quote, a quote that relates to your business, a quote from an industry leader in your niche, etc.

Create a visually appealing graphic with your branding colors and fonts to share on your Facebook Page. You can caption your quote with something as simple as the quote reiterated or you can explain your thoughts behind the quote.

Questions

Posting regular statuses containing questions or trivia or even true/false questions do really well for Facebook pages. These posts are practically begging for engagement and they’re a great way for you to take reader/customer surveys.

Here are a couple of examples of good questions to ask:

  • Would you purchase a workbook about ______?
  • Do you choose to DIY more tasks for your business or outsource them?
  • What would you consider your blog’s niche to be?

Some questions can help you to know if your audience would be interested in a product you’ve got at the back of your mind and others get your audience to think about their answers.

Blog Posts

Well, sure, this one was a little obvious. Isn’t that what all bloggers and business owners want to do with their Facebook Page? Promote their own content?

I’ll answer this one for you–yes.

Always post your blog posts to your Facebook Page, but keep in mind that social media is meant for a lot more curation and interaction than only self promotion!

Whenever you’re posting a blog post, it’s a good idea to write a creative snippet about it in the caption–don’t just put the post title. We can already see it in your link or image!

Announcements

If you’re gearing up for a big launch, are announcing your launch, are rebranding, or any other exciting business announcement, your Facebook Page is one of the first places to go to garner excitement for it. Create an awesome image or landing page so that your followers have something nice to look at along with your announcement.

Videos

Video is a goldmine on Facebook. In fact, Facebook themselves predicts that their news feed will be exclusively video in five years. So you should definitely include video in your Facebook marketing strategy.

You can create fun videos of your team, informational videos of yourself speaking on a particular topic, or marketing videos promoting your business.

Branded Graphics

There are a few different types of graphics you can create to share on social media. Branded quotes (like I mentioned more specifically towards the top), statistics, informational tidbits, and more. Branded graphics pretty much covers the scope of any created graphic you could share that includes your branding colors and fonts.

Contests

Facebook is one of the best online platforms to host a contest on. They’re pretty particular about their rules and regulations, so make sure to do your research so your contest is compliant. But you can promote this via Facebook ads and add a tab to your Page navigation in order to get the most people possible to see and enter your contest.

Twitter:

I personally think that Twitter is the easiest social media platform to use for business. It’s so easy to gain a following, interact with readers/customers, and use as a free promo tool. Whereas Facebook has gone towards mostly paid advertising to get your Page out there, Twitter still has a ton of organic value as long as you’re doing it right.

Blog Posts

Of course, just like your Facebook Page, you want to share your own blog posts. Twitter is awesome because you can do this multiple times a day. In fact, link clicks account for 92% of all Twitter engagement, so you definitely want to share links (to both curated and created content) on Twitter.

Curated Content

Twitter is also your number one spot for shouting out friends and fellow businesspeople. In fact, you should be doing this even more often than promoting your own posts. (Ever heard of the 80/20 rule for social media?)

Quotes

Ahhh, nice, inspirational, moving quotes. On Twitter, however, you can choose to share your branded quote graphic, or you can simply share one of your favorite quotes in your tweet and smack the hashtag #qotd on it.

Industry News

Social media and content marketing is all about positioning yourself as an expert in your industry. Do this by sharing relevant industry news. Who cares if you’re not the very first person to see this and share it? You’re the first person to somebody.

Announcements

Yay for exciting announcements and launches! Really, these can go anywhere because they’re so damn exciting that everyone is attracted to them.

However, to make your announcement really pop, I recommend using personalized hashtags or branded images in your tweet.

Live Tweeting Events

This is a great way to share industry information with your followers. People who attend Facebook’s annual F8 conference are always tweeting the announcements and expert’s tips. Just today, everyone was live tweeting the #AppleEvent where they announced the upcoming iPhone X and iPhone 8.

GIFs

Twitter has its own GIF library now! Want some fun content to share on Twitter? GIF it. Use GIFs in your conversations with followers, in your promotional tweets, in your fun personality tweets. Just make sure you don’t use a GIF in a situation that requires a serious response, or you could be facing some backlash.

Polls

Twitter allows you to put a poll into your tweets, which is a really fun way to get opinions and engagement from your followers. You can ask industry-related questions, or you can ask questions just for fun to get your followers to interact with your tweets.

Instagram:

This platform can be a lot of fun if you have an eye for photography. It’s really important to keep a visually appealing Instagram feed in order to garner attention for your brand. Here are a few great ideas of content to share.

Workspace

Fellow bloggers and business owners want to ogle over your gorgeous desk space, so just let them do it. These types of photos are probably the types that I personally “like” the most and I know I’m not alone.

Quotes

Although Instagram is obviously a great place to share quotes, you’re going to want to be a bit more strategic here. This is the platform for you to head over to Canva or open up Photoshop and create your own quote template. Branded quote images will help followers (and even people who find you in the Popular Photos section) to recognize when an image belongs to you. Think brand loyalty!

Products/Services

Obviously this is for all platforms, but especially for one as visual as Instagram. Show off your products, or photos of services being rendered. If you have a visual product, that’s even better. And you can even use user-generated content to share on your Instagram as well.

Pinterest:

And last, but not least, we have Pinterest. Personally, I like to save the best for last, but I’m not trying to pick favorites or anything.

Pinterest is also an extremely visual social media platform. However, if you were to choose between focus on Instagram and focus on Pinterest, I would tell you to lose Instagram and go with Pinterest any day. (If you have a creative business, though, you really should be focusing on both.)

Pinterest is more than just a social network. It’s a search engine.

So you should put an emphasis on captions, visuals, and install rich pins so you can increase the amount of traffic you get back to your website from Pinterest.

Pro Tip: If you’re creating an image specifically for Pinterest, optimal dimensions are 735×1103 px. My blog post images are 800×1200 px, which automatically shrink to optimal dimensions on Pinterest.

Product Photos

Are you hosting a webinar, releasing an ebook, or launching a podcast? Create an image for it and pin it with a link to your landing page.

Infographics

These are eye-catching on Pinterest because they are so long. Marianne did a fantastic job of creating an infographic to go along with her blog post that I am sure has done magnificently on Pinterest. If you have the means of creating an infographic, do it.

If not, just curate others’.

Quotes

Are you starting to see a bit of a pattern here? No matter which social platform you’re on, everyone just freakin’ loves quotes.

Pinterest does better with portrait images, though, whereas Instagram uses square images, so make sure that you’re adapting your quote images to a more optimal size.

Blog Posts + Curated Content

Sharing relevant and industry related content to your Pinterest is key, as well as sharing your own blog posts. Just make sure that you’re branding your blog post images!

From your experience, which types of posts do best on each social media outlet?

20 Comments

  • April 28, 2015
    Sydney @ Modern Granola

    Pinterest and Buffer in cahoots?! I flipped out when I heard. This is such a great post. My favorite part is the reminder of the 80-20 rule and to remember the quote post. I love your thoughts on this! Thanks for continuing to demystify social media for me!

  • April 30, 2015
    Nora Cornad

    This is SOOO helpful! There is so much information here, by far the best description and guide for social media posts that I've seen!! Thank you :D

  • April 30, 2015
    Sarah

    Wow ! What a wealth of information. For someone who got into social media late in the game, this info is very helpful. I love Instagram so much because I like styling and creating images for all to see. I only wish I could find the time to do it more often. I tend to use Pinterest to curate images that inspire me, but have slowed down using it of late. Ideally I'd like to get yo the point where I can carve out time each day to work on my feeds. Thanks again!

    • April 30, 2015
      Chloe

      That's a great use of Pinterest! I'll have a post up tomorrow on creating a Pinterest audit and getting more purposeful with your pinning if you're interested!

  • April 30, 2015
    Angel Y.

    This is such an in-depth article! Will be sharing with others as well. :)

  • May 1, 2015
    Farida

    love this so much, I'm gonna include it in my favorite links! I see blogger copy paste everything every time! but you didn't mention G+ , I know lots of people don't like it , but itas great one for food bloggers

  • May 2, 2015
    Elke Uyttenhove

    Hi! I really liked your article. Nice tips! Every friday I share in Fri-A-Way on Yellow Me. a blogpost with some topreads for the weekend. Just wanted to let you know: this article is one of the topreads. I think my readers would like it too. So you can find a link to your article on my blog. Have a nice weekend! Greetz Elke

  • July 27, 2015
    Carina

    Wow, there really is so much more to social media than simply posting random stuff! I especially liked your section about the Facebook page. I've been wondering about how to use it properly for a long while now and didn't really come to terms with it. I've got a blog tab installed that automatically updates all new blog posts to my page, making it easy for non Bloglovin/Wordpress or whatever people to follow my blog. However, I hardly ever post anything else, but I love the idea of behind-the-scenes stuff and questions! Thank you so much for your great tips. I was wondering if you're using Tumblr as well and if maybe you'd have some tips for that one? xx Carina

    • August 3, 2015
      Chloe

      Hi Carina! Thanks for your comment! I actually don't have much experience with Tumblr, but I do know that it is more for visual content...images, GIFs, and things like that. Hope that helps! :)

  • January 29, 2016
    Marlo Wilkes

    This is an informative article on social media. And, I really enjoyed the tips.

  • July 23, 2016
    Asia

    This was so informative! Thank you!

  • October 5, 2016
    Lisa

    Hi Chloe, I happened on your blog searching for "what to post where" . I'm starting a website/blog/business with my own handmade women's fashion and am trying to decide which social media outlets to use--using all of them just isn't an option (not enough time!). Will be looking around on your blog for more info. Really nice looking website!

  • January 26, 2017
    Tisha

    Thanks for this great info Chloe! I suck in pretty much everything related to social media, but I am learning. Baby steps. This post is really a great help!

  • April 6, 2017
    Cybergenic Associates Int’l

    Hi Chloe amazing blog by the way! thanks for posting this. You're definitely right about being responsible about what we should post on social media. Hopefully, we can join Instagram since we already have facebook and twitter account :) http://www.cybergenic.net/

  • June 4, 2017
    Stephanie Chrystal

    Great post Chloe! Will definitely be bookmarking this one for reference and inspiration! Off to check out the rest of your blog :)

  • January 18, 2018
    Victoria Banners

    Thank you so much Chloe. I am starting to publicize my fiancé's science fiction/fantasy novel and was struggling with the big daddy of all questions - where do I start? I came across your blog post via a course I am pursuing on Future Learn. Your content has been the most beneficial to help me get started. Are there are any websites (apart from the ones mentioned here) that you would suggest for promoting a book? Wishing you all the best with everything you take up in the future xxx

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