Strategies for Genuine and Engaging Social Media Content

Is growing a business and marketing going to be a lot of work? Yes, of course it is! But what I want to do is make your life a whole lot easier by making the process as simple as possible. Stay tuned because I’m revealing exactly what I do to create good content, in less than five minutes. I want to help you create better content, so let’s dive in so you can start today!

In this episode we’ll be covering:

• Understanding your audience's needs and mindset for relatable content
• Questions to ask yourself before making your next Instagram post
• How to apply the 4 H’s when creating your content
• The types of content that we save and share most
• Why we follow so many people and what makes us hit that follow button

Want to hear more about the Four H's? Head over to Episode 2 for a breakdown of applying the Four H's to your content.

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Transcript

0:05

I am your host, Shanna McKinstry. Welcome to Good Content, the podcast where I remove the never-ending content creation guesswork and overwhelm so that you can actually enjoy being on social media again and growing your business with what has always worked, good content. Welcome back to the Good Content Podcast. I am your host, Shannon McKinstry, and I love nothing more than helping people make content That's actually good. That's not just here to trick the algorithm. That's not about tactics and whatever to get people to watch. As business owners, we started our business for a reason. 1 obviously to probably make money and have flexibility and freedom and all that good stuff, but also just serve. Literally, I mean, if I was in it for money, that would have been a joke. I couldn't get anyone to pay me anything in the beginning. I started being a social media manager in 2013. It was kind of a joke at the time. I think people thought social media was still a fad at that time. My background was in marketing, so I was really excited about it. And I love social media in a personal way and a business way. So I was like, you know what? Let me do this. But I did not make any money for years, years. And I wasn't even growing my own platforms. Instagram wasn't even going the business route yet. At the time, I was only managing LinkedIn and Facebook. And so it was very different. It was a very different landscape. But I've always had a strong passion for good content, not just, again, trickery. I'm here to serve people. I'm here to help people grow. And I want to do it from an honest place with just really good things that people will find valuable. And like I talked in the last episode, even human connection is valuable. It doesn't mean you have to give a masterclass to be valuable. It doesn't mean you have to give away, again, solve the world's problem in every post. So with all that said from the last previous episodes, if you're thinking this sounds like a lot of work, here's the deal. I mean, we're growing businesses here. It's a lot of work. Marketing is a lot of work, but that's why corporations, businesses, teams, have marketing people on their team. And if you're your marketing person, that's why you're listening to this podcast. I'm going to make your life a whole lot freaking easier. I'm a marketer. That's how I think. I don't do my own bookkeeping. I don't even do the editing of this podcast because I don't have the time. My brain works in marketing. My brain works in content. But I know a lot of you are like me. So, well, some of you just really wanna learn it, right? It actually excites you, which I love that for you. Others are like me in the beginning of my business where I did everything. I did all of it. I didn't have anyone help me with nada. So if that is you, I want to help you create better content and good content. I really want you to think of your person right now. I want you to think, like for anyone who's like, I haven't posted in a while or I really want to post today. I got to get something up. First of all, you don't have to do anything. But if you do want to get a post up, I need you to think this. What is on your person's mind today, right now, like whatever time it is, whatever time zone you're in, your person just picked up their phone. What would help them? Again, the 4 H's I love to talk about. Or what would make them feel heard? What would make them laugh? Or what would make them interested? Ooh, wow, cool. Glad they're doing that, right? That's the happenings category. But again, what would make them laugh? What would make them smile? What would make them feel really seen and secure and vindicated? Or what would help them? That's it. What's 1 little thing that you can share? And when it comes to good content right now, a lot of it is humor and empathy. Because if you think about it, I know we talked tips last 1, and we need to educate our people in that new, cool way that we're educating folks. But also, we need to make sure our people feel seen and heard. And that's where empathy comes in. That's where humor comes in. So the reason we follow so many people is because we relate to them. Another reason we follow people is because we feel like they could bring us to a better version of ourselves, right? I, y'all, if you saw the corner of this room over here, you'd know exactly what I mean. I'm not the most organized person. I actually have home organizers I work closely with that come over and help me, because I'm like, I'm gonna lose it. It's not how my brain works. I get very overwhelmed when there is too many projects in our house. So I follow home organizers. I know darn well I'm not gonna do any of the tips they're sharing, but it kind of in my mind, I'm like, oh, I could do that. That makes me feel like a better person knowing that like I have that knowledge now. Do you know what I mean? A lot of this stuff we save and share, we're not actually going to do, which kind of makes it kind of hilarious. But again, we follow a lot of people that are going to make us feel better about ourselves or make us want to be a better person. So it's either they relate to us and we're like, oh my gosh, we're all in misery, or oh my gosh, all of our lives are the same. Have we ever had 1 unique moment in our lives? I love the TikTok comments always say that, like, we're all living the same lives, that type of content. So what I tell people to do for that type of content and the same with empathy, right? So relatable and empathy almost kind of crossover because both of them make us go, this person gets me, I need to follow them. But of course, the humor is more relatable as in poking fun at us, poking fun at our day-to-day stuff, poking fun at things that happen that we can relate to, whether in our past, present, or future. That's the humor part, the entertaining, if you will, content pillar. And then of course, herd, what I like to say for empathy and inspiring, etc. That's the type of stuff going, Hey, mama, you're doing just fine. Or, Hey, home buyer, I know you've lost out on all that, but your house is out there, I don't know. Those inspiring little things that just give someone a pep talk or saying, hey, I don't know who needs to hear this, but you need to stop XYZ if you want XYZ, right? Or you have to stop X if you want Y. Those types of things, just like little pep talks that are like, get out of your head, whatever it is. So I hope that helps. So anyway, take those 2 categories, relatable and empathy, and I want you to create a Google sheet, okay? And I want you to write at the top situations your person regularly faces that frustrate them, relatable situations that they'll laugh at, and kind of go down the line with like things that frustrate them, things they'd roll their eyes at, things they'd smile at, and just dump in columns those things because here's what happens. When it comes time to create content, good content, you've got all your ideas on a Google sheet. I literally have a Google sheet because I create a lot of relatable content for social media managers on TikTok. I don't do a lot of that on Instagram, but I create a lot of content on TikTok for people in my field. And I literally have a Google sheet called relatable social media manager hooks, meaning just the text on screen that's a relatable situation. So I'll do ones like when a client Slack messages me, you know, ask for this picture of their dog to get up, it's urgent, right? Or When I'm on a discovery call and they say they thought social media managers only charge$100 a platform. Stuff like that. I'm like, what do social media managers literally bang their head against a wall over? What do social media managers roll their eyes out? I've got it all in a Google Sheet. So then when I hear a funny, trending sound, what do I do? I go to the Google Sheet and I go, which 1 of these situations matches up with that trend? And I'm done in 5 minutes. Okay. Empathy, when there's a really pretty like melodic audio that's going around, I'm like, what are some things that I've said either on threads or X that I've been like, Hey, it's okay guys, right? Like for me, it's, Hey, you're more than your follower counts. So yeah. So my versions of pep talks, tough love are like, don't ever let anyone make you feel like your following is too small. Or just because a piece of content failed once doesn't mean you can't do a couple tweaks and fix it. Right? It's like little things like that, that just make people go, Oh, it's a sigh of relief. I have a Google Sheet with all those. So I have, this is how I get content out and how I get good content out. But again, it's because I know my people. I know what will make them smile and I know what will make them laugh and I know what tips they want. Okay, so there you go. Those are the 3, heard, humor, helpful, and then of course happenings. Like I throw those in based on, you know, when things are happening in my life. Like if like I'm going to speak in New Orleans soon, I'll do a photo dump if you will, of that, things like that. So anyway, that's to make sure you guys know that it doesn't, again, it's not that deep. If you want to get deep on Instagram and bare your soul, go for it. I'm all for it. But again, you're here to serve. You started a business to serve. You started a business to help people. You also started a business to help yourself and your family. And when you think about posting today, or tomorrow, or the next day, I want you to open your phone and say, what is my person feeling right now? Do they need to smile? Do they need a little pat on the back, right? And they wanna smile. Do they need to laugh? Do they need a little comic relief? Or Do they need something helpful? And there's your posts. And it's that simple. And that'll be good content, because you know your people. All right, that's it for this episode. I hope you guys are loving this podcast as much as I'm loving recording it. Again, as things change and shift in the social media world, when I see a trend come out that I'm like, you guys got to get on this, that's what this episode is for. When I have a prompt that goes crazy for a client or a student, y'all will be the first to hear it. There is no gatekeeping here. But what you can do in the meantime is get that market research done and start writing those things in the columns. You