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510 Content Ideas To Make Your Social Media Stand Out
6By the year 2020, there will be nearly 3 billion social media users worldwide.
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8That’s nearly 3 billion people that are using these online platforms to communicate, share, and express themselves.
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10If you want to have a unicorn business, it’s imperative that you participate in sharing social media content.
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12It helps to increase engagement, expand reach, and make your business stand out on social media and outshine those other donkey businesses.
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14I hear it all the time: business owners have social media, they know they should be using it, but they just don’t know what to post or what social media content will benefit their brand.
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16There are a lot of different types of social media content, so it can definitely be tough to know what to post.
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18I want to help make it easier.
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20Keep reading for 10 practical social media content ideas and methods to help you transform your business into a unicorn.
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2210 Killer Social Media Content Ideas
23There are a lot of ways that you can utilize social media to gain new customers and engage with current customers, but here’s a few ideas to get started:
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251. Share Your Story
26Every business has a story.
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28A lot of the time, it’s a business’s story that intrigues it’s potential customers and drives them to learn more.
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30Sharing your business’s story is a great way to get social media content on your pages.
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32You can share your business’s story in a bio or an “about” section, a blog, or…you can make it interesting.
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34Perhaps you create a photo or video series that slowly reveal the story of how your business came to be.
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36Perhaps you share your story through several different status updates.
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38Sharing your story in social media blog content is an effective way to build loyalty and keep customers engaged with your business.
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402. Share Behind-the-Scenes Photos & Videos
41Sometimes, businesses can seem inhuman to their customers.
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43Not because the business isn’t comprised of and built by humans, but because it seems like all they do is create a product or provide a service.
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45Often, customers don’t know what happens behind closed doors, and rarely, do they know the many faces that make up a business.
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47Sharing behind-the-scenes photos and videos of your business creates social media content that makes your customers feel closer to you.
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49Here’s an example from Test Kitchen, where they show the behind-the-scenes process of testing out bacon recipes:
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53It’s interactive and it shows followers what happens behind-the-scenes at Test Kitchen.
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55You can use this tactic for your social media content, too.
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57Do you have an annual holiday party in your office? Sharing those photos will show your customers your playful side.
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59Does your business participate in monthly volunteer days? Share videos of the work your employees are doing to make a difference in your local city or town and show your customers your charitable side.
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61There’s many different opportunities to humanize your business by sharing social media content that shows what your employees do and enjoy behind-the-scenes.
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633. Share Information About Your Products & Services
64Here’s an obvious but extremely useful option for social media content: sharing information about your products or services.
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66Social media is an easily-accessible place where your customers spend a lot of time.
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68In fact, a lot of people like to learn through social media, including by using social media to get their news.
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70This is because social media often displays information in quick, efficient ways.
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72Creating status updates, video content, or nice-looking infographics is a great way to share information about your products and services with your customers who interact with your business on social media.
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74Another great way to use social media content to share information about your products and services is by implementing a Facebook Messenger chatbot that your customers can talk to.
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76The chatbot can give your customers information about your business, about your products and services, and more.
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78Here’s an example: using a Facebook auto reply bot.
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80A Facebook auto reply bot is a chatbot that is implemented on a Facebook post.
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82When users comment on the post…
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86…they get a message from the chatbot.
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90This is a great social media content idea that engages users and makes it easy to teach them about your products.
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924. Share Testimonials from Your Customers
93Customers believe other customers.
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95If you want to expand your reach and generate new leads based on the positive feedback of your previous customers, consider using customer testimonials as social media content.
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97Customer testimonials can be shared in status updates, graphics, video content, and more.
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99You can ask customers to fill out a feedback form, or, if you know for sure that one customer had a very positive experience, you can specifically ask them for a testimonial.
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101Using customer testimonials as social media content is a great way to show that your business is popular among its customers and that you have a good track record of impressing customers.
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1035. Post Polls to Collect Customer Feedback
104Customer feedback is incredibly important to a growing business.
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106Customer feedback helps inspire future business decisions, determine areas of improvement, and increase engagement.
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108Customer feedback is also a great idea for applicable social media content.
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110Most social media platforms allow you to post polls or ask questions in status updates.
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112On Facebook, you can post a poll or ask a question right from the status editor.
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114On Twitter, you can post a poll from the Tweet editor.
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116On Instagram, you can post polls and ask questions from within Instagram Stories.
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118These polls and question boxes are great ways to efficiently gather a lot of customer feedback.
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120The best part is that you’ll be gathering feedback from some of your most engaged customers.
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122Of course, this isn’t a faultless method of collecting feedback — posting social media content intended to gain feedback comes with its share of response bias problems — but it’s a great jumping off point to see firsthand how your customers feel about your business.
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124Polls and questions aren’t only for collecting feedback, either.
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126This same social media content idea can be used purely as an entertainment method to engage and excite your followers.
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128Take this example from NASA’s Instagram Story:
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132They began their story with an interactive poll asking a question, and then followed up with information related to the poll.
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1346. Implement Messenger Drip Campaigns
135Messenger Drip Campaigns can be implemented through a Facebook Messenger chatbot, and are a variety of social media content that is great for engagement.
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137Facebook Messenger drip campaigns, as opposed to typical email drip campaigns, offer higher open rates and better engagement.
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139They function in the same way as email drip campaigns, however; sending multiple non promotional messages slowly over a period of time.
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141They’re great for onboarding new customers or selling solutions that have a learning curve or benefit from training.
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143Messenger drip campaigns allow your business to communicate at a large scale with your customers while keeping those leads engaged.
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1457. Join In On Popular Hashtags
146Social media is known for its ability to bring people together over common interests, often reflected in hashtags.
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148Hashtags (usually look something like #SundayFunday) are clickable tags that group social media content together.
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150When you click on a particular hashtag, you’ll see everyone’s posts that use that hashtag.
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152They’re a great type of social media content for expanding reach and increasing engagement for your business.
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154There are certain hashtags that are quite popular and will likely help your business get a lot of engagement.
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156Some of these are:
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158These three popular hashtags could be highly beneficial to businesses.
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160Posting a #PhotoOfTheDay will allow your business to keep up with regular social media content, which improves engagement.
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162Sharing a #TBT to a previous product, event, or social media post from your business is fun for customers because people like reflecting on days past.
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164Sharing a #Repost, maybe of another user’s social media content that tags your business or shares something about your business, will show people that they could make an appearance on your page if they interact with your business.
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166Using hashtags in your social media content will expand your reach dramatically, helping you improve your engagement and generate more leads.
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1688. Run Contests
169People love contests.
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171Holding contests not only provides your business with great social media content, it also engages your customers and expands your reach.
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173You can hold contests in a number of ways on any social media platform.
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175Contests are a great way to combine a couple of social media content ideas that we’ve covered already.
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177For example, your business can post a photo that asks your customers to share a video of them explaining why they love your product or service.
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179Then, the customers can use a hashtag to make it easy for you to view all of the contest entries.
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181You can share the best entries on your page, providing you with even more social media content and rewarding the engagement of your customers.
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183Then, you can pick any number of winners — or, everyone can be a winner, and they can all receive a discount or a free product.
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1859. Promote Your Offerings
186Here’s another way that your business can combine previously-discussed social media content ideas while increasing engagement and sales.
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188Promotions are a beloved way for customers to get products.
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190You can push promotions through social media posts or by using a Facebook Messenger chatbot.
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192Perhaps, the winners of your contests can receive special promotions.
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194Or, those customers that send in customer testimonials can be rewarded with promotions.
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196There’s many ways to engage your customers with special business promotions, so get creative.
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19810. Host Webinars
199Webinars are efficient ways to help a lot of customers at once.
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201They are also useful bits of social media content.
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203Host webinars to teach customers how to use your products, or about the services your business provides.
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205You can go beyond simply hosting webinars about your business, however; consider having guest speakers host webinars about industry topics like new and exciting marketing concepts, cool technology, or fun products.
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207Unicorn Content Means Unicorn Engagement
208Having great social media content will, without a doubt, boost your business’s online engagement.
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210And better online engagement means and increased reach and more potential for sales.
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212In order to keep up with other businesses and the changing world of online communication, it’s important for businesses to keep up with social media evolution.
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214Social media content changes all the time, and it’s a fun process to keep up with.
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216Try out some of these social media content ideas and then come up with some of your own.
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22110 Great Programming Projects To Improve Your Resume And Learn To Program
2221. A web scraper that posts top 10 blogs without human intervention
223One of the issues we find with some project recommendation posts, is that they recommend projects that aren’t implemented in a way that excites the programmer to continue development. For instance, I see that a lot of people recommend building a web scraper.
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225Once you’ve built that web scraper and scraped the data, what are you going to do with it?
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227Instead of just scraping the data, why not build a website with that data. It doesn’t have to be fancy or get a lot of views. This scraper could pull the data into a database and then select the most popular posts. From there it could copy the title, along with a few sentences, and then create a post that it shares online. This would be an impressive and simple project that you can actually show off.
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229You’ve now shown that you can do more than just code a small segment of a system. Instead, you can think through an entire system. You need to consider how you are going to automate the process, manage the database, create the website and select the posts. This also allows you to actually have a tangible end product.
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231Without a tangible end product, it’s really easy to become unmotivated and simply stop at only a web scraper.
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233In addition, you never know, maybe your site will become popular!
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235Skills: Database, web scraper, automation, web development (for the blog), and general programming.
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2372. An event-alert system using Meetup and Eventbrite APIs
238Have you ever wanted to go to a band or comedian show, but realized it was last week? Maybe there was a free conference in your area on data science or big data and you missed out because you forgot to check.
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240Why not make your own aggregator using the Meetup and Eventbrite APIs, that will warn you when keywords are in event descriptions or titles? Now, I assume both Meetup and Eventbrite have similar options. But it is always fun to try to build your own system.
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242You can customize the system to work the way you want, and maybe even allow other people to make their own alerts by making this a website. What we enjoy about this project is that you can practice working with two different APIs. This will allow you to compare and contract what you like and dislike about them. That way, if you’re ever in charge of building an API, you’ll have a better picture of what works and what doesn’t.
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244Skills: APIs, database, automation, web development, and general programming.
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2463. A 9GAG copy cat 9GAG
247You don’t always need to try to reinvent the wheel when creating your own projects. Simple projects like a site that lets you login, post photos, GIFs, and lets you scroll through a feed, provides an opportunity to create a solid base site first. Then you can add lots of interesting features like following, liking, and search. Search in particular would be a great chance to learn how recommendation systems and machine learning work!
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249It’s always fun to try and replicate popular sites. In fact, it is actually a great way to learn because you have to reverse-engineer each feature. Reverse engineering is a great skill, because as a software engineer you will constantly be maintaining other people’s code and you will need to get in their heads.
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251Skills: Machine learning (for recommendation system), database, automation, web development, and general programming.
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255How To Get Better At Street Photography
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260It goes without saying that if you want to get better at something you have to practice. Simple, right? The thing is, that unlike more structured pursuits such as sports or music, the idea of practicing street photography seems a bit hard to wrap one’s head around.
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262But before we get into that, we should establish the best methodology for practice in in general.
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267A shot I’ve taken before many times (not in this spot, but the same idea) before getting this awesome opportunity. Regular Practice vs Deliberate Practice
268Regular practice happens any time you do almost anything. If you think about it, that’s how we learn most things in life: from using a fork, to talking to tying our shoes. If you just do it, you’ll gradually get better at it. It applies to more specific skills as well. If you sit down to jam on guitar for 30 minutes, you just practiced a bit. Shoots hoops after school? Practice. The same goes for street photography—shoot for an hour: that’s practice.
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270You can certainly have revelations and make improvements with regular practice. And it’s a lot of fun! But there is a more refined approach, commonly called “Deliberate Practice.”
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272Deliberate practice is when you make a conscious effort to practice very specific skills in a targeted manner. It also includes feedback and consistent rules or a set of constraints. Let’s break all that down.
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274To use analogies in sports and music again, it would be like running drills of very specific actions or movements, and in particular targeting ones where you think you have a weakness. In basketball it might be shooting from the free throw line, or perhaps it might be playing a particular part of a song again and again on guitar until that one part is perfect.
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276Deliberate practice is about breaking skills down and targeting weaknesses. But how can we apply that to photography?
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281Orange stripes on a 28mm lens (Ricoh GR II)… 
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284…and the same place a few weeks later on a 40mm lens (Nikon D4). Constraints are the Key: Prime Lenses
285In photography, especially street photography, it’s hard to break down skills into sub-skills and drill them. What are you going to do, run around with the camera like a soldier in boot camp? It sounds silly. When practicing photography, it’s most useful to focus on the last part of deliberate practice: constraints.
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287We can put constraints on many aspects of our photography, the most obvious being focal length. I believe this is why prime lenses are traditionally so highly praised by street photographers. The common wisdom is that prime lenses spur creativity, but I believe that underlying this commonly held notion is the fact that by constraining the field of view, the photographer must learn how to compose the frame by moving their body (the cliché of “zoom with your feet”) which, over time, results in a better spatial awareness and understanding of the effects of that particular focal length.
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289However, as mentioned above in regard to deliberate practice, it’s good to tailor this advice by focusing on weak points. If you’ve been shooting with a 35mm prime lens for years, perhaps trying a 28mm or a 50mm for a few weeks will help you improve your skill with those focal lengths as well.
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291Eventually, using a zoom lens will become a more mindful and deliberate shooting experience where your own positioning (and therefore, your perspective) become less influenced by the lens. You will more easily be able to choose either a perspective and then match the focal length, or a focal length (effectively, a field of view) and then adjust your perspective to make it work.
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296I had my 28mm on the camera, but felt this would have been better with my trusty 40mm (this shot is cropped a bit). Nonetheless, I feel that having a prime lens helped me make an interesting composition in the heat of the moment. The constraint stimulated my creativity.
297Of course, you could learn all of this with a zoom lens, but it’s more efficient to apply the deliberate practice method by giving yourself this focal length constraint. And if you don’t have many (or any) prime lenses, that’s okay! Just tape your lens to a particular focal length and go out and shoot that way for a day or two. Bam! Instant prime lens!
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299After this kind of practice, I now think of a zoom lens more as a series of prime lenses than a single continuously zoomable lens. That’s not to say that I look at the markings on the lens and set it to exactly 35mm or 50mm or whatever before I take each photo. It’s just that in my mind, I think to myself “I need about 35mm for this shot,” or “around 50mm would suit my idea for this composition.” And I got to that point by shooting on primes for a few years almost exclusively.
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301I somehow instinctively knew that the simplicity of primes would force me think in a different way with them. It wasn’t until years later that I learned about deliberate practice (mostly when I read the book The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle) that it clicked for me: prime lenses create constraints, and that’s why they are a great tool to help us build an understanding of the relationship between focal length and field of view while developing spatial awareness.
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306Shot in Aperture Priority, this shot required a 3-stop underexposure, something I expected from having practiced with both Aperture mode and Manual mode for quite some time. Constraints in Exposure: Manual Mode
307By using prime lenses, we can apply a constraint to our field of view. Another way to constrain the way we shoot is to use Manual Mode. Generally, I don’t think Manual Mode is a must for street photography. I feel it can be a hindrance in some cases, although in others it does allow for more precise, accurate and, most importantly, consistent exposure.
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309For the most part, I use Aperture Priority when walking about town and shooting street photos; however, in the context of this article, I feel that Manual Mode is a must for training one’s understanding of exposure. It applies a constraint in the sense that it forces the photographer to think about the three main settings that are available in almost every camera–shutter speed, aperture and ISO–and understand how they relate.
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311It’s also possible to take it a step further and “lock” one or two settings for a day. That is, you can choose a particular combination of settings for two of the three, and then only adjust the third one to maintain a correct exposure. For instance, on a sunny day, you can select f/8 for the aperture, and 1/500 shutter speed, and the only adjust the ISO as needed in order to get the correct exposure. Similarly, say at night, you can choose f/2.8, 1600 ISO, and then adjust the shutter speed as needed. The point is to get an inherent understanding of how these settings work together and individually. Once you have this intuition, it becomes much more obvious what’s happening when shooting in semi-auto modes like Aperture Priority with Auto ISO enabled.
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313The ultimate goal of all this is to move beyond the phase where the camera’s operations are some sort of “black magic” and move into a mindful awareness of what the camera is up to at all times. This will allow for more consistent exposure when you’re out doing street photography, which is very beneficial in a photographic genre where speed is important and there are few second chances.
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321…while I shot this one with Saul Leiter in mind. Constraints in Theme: Emulate the Masters
322So, we’ve talked about ways to constrain your framing and exposure. The third constraint that can be applied for the sake of deliberate practice is a constraint of style or theme.
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324An easy and fun way to do this is to “emulate the masters.” What that means is that you can find a photographer whose work you admire, or even simply has certain aspects or qualities that you wish to include in your own work. Once you find such a body of work, identify the consistent themes and choices that the “master” has made in his or her work, then go out and keep these themes in mind: constantly asking yourself “what would _____ do in this case?”
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326I try to avoid pushing my specific preoccupations when giving “study” advice for photographers, but I think it’s useful to illustrate this idea with a few example masters from whom I’ve drawn influence. The first is Alex Webb, whose work emphasizes multiple layers and subjects, all coming together to a single whole. Basically, he’s a master of having many individual subjects in one frame.
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331Something I learned from Saul Leiter, but made my own—obscuring subjects with bold splashes of color in the foreground.
332The next is Saul Leiter, in whose work we can see an abstract approach to color and form. He sometimes avoids giving a direct portrayal of his human subjects instead opting for compositions that are more abstract, emphasizing splashes of colors, often blurred in the foreground. To the same end, he regularly employs reflections and glass in his images. Shooting in ‘bad’ weather is also common in his work.
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334Finally, I enjoy the work of Siegfried Hansen, who is a master of geometry and in particular utilizing lines and shapes in his work. Much of his work does not involve people, which is a bit unusual for most street photographers, yet he makes it work. All three of these photographers employ color to greatest degree, having little to no work in monochrome.
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336Of course, the work of each of these photographers can be analyzed in much more depth, but these visual elements and ideas are what I took from them and keep in mind when I am out shooting and practicing. Find the masters that inspire you and do the same!
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341I’m certainly a fan of Saul Leiter’s work… Self-Feedback and Mentors
342The last piece of this “deliberate practice” puzzle is feedback. This is arguably the most important part, and in general it is not unique to the deliberate practice model. Everyone can agree that critiques and feedback are crucial for artistic growth. The problem arises when we can’t find a mentor to give us feedback… so… how can we get around this?
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344What I’ve learned is that being your own mentor is possible by channeling the masters. Just as I mentioned above, when you’re out shooting you can think to yourself “how would ‘so and so’ compose this scene?” Or even more concretely, you can focus on specific aspects of your composition: “what would ‘so and so’ say about this framing, or this element in the shot, or my timing?”
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346From this idea you can create for yourself a mental checklist of dos and don’ts. For example, here are some that I often keep in mind:
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348What (if anything) can I remove from this frame to make the story stronger?
349What (if anything) is in the immediate vicinity that I can add to the frame to make the story stronger?
350Can I improve any leading lines in the scene, by moving them into the corners, etc.
351Is my timing as good as it can be? Did I catch the action in the perfect moment?
352Can I imagine a better subject here, that is, a more suitable passerby that would enhance my composition?
353And so on… The mental checklist can be anything that you think you need to work on. You can, and should, think of specific weaknesses or aspects you would like to improve, and then keep those in mind. It’s totally fine to write these things down to help you remember them.
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358An example of more reps: I had plenty of time to shoot here, so I took quite a few frame of this scene. Notice the general idea is not much changed, but the composition changes quite a bit from shot to shot…. 
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361…with the door handles… 
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367…and finally with a tilt—this is the shot I chose as the final. Focusing (Your Mind) and Doing More ‘Reps’
368As a final note, I want to mention a few concrete and specific things that I do when I’m out shooting street photography.
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370The first is to make sure I give myself every opportunity to focus. This means I put my phone on airplane mode, or put in my bag. Another thing is that I typically bring only one camera and one lens. This can be a drawback at times, but it also makes for less indecisiveness. I don’t stand there wondering if I should switch lenses. I just focus on the gear I have and make do. This goes right back to the idea of constraints to spur creativity. To further enhance my focus, I tend do as much shooting as I can on an empty stomach. I find that having lunch first is the death of creativity, but when I’m hungry my senses seem heightened and my awareness and perception are increased. Also, getting some nice food after a few hours of shooting is a great reward!
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372Finally, in the words of Muhammad Ali, “I don’t count my sit-ups; I only start counting when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count.” In photography, when you are presented with a scene worth shooting, the first few shots “don’t count” when it comes to practicing and stretching your “perception muscles.” Even if you’re satisfied with that first shot, take more anyway. Give yourself a specific goal, like “shoot each subject from 10 different perspectives” (or any number you like). This is commonly boiled down into the phrase “work the scene.” In any case, the point is to force yourself to think harder about how to frame the shot. Do it until it hurts!
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374As always, I hope I’ve inspired some new ways of thinking about your own photography. And if you have anything specific you want to practice, please let me know in the comments and I’ll be happy to give any advice I can to help you come up with a training regimen.
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376About the author: Lukasz Palka is a freelancing Tokyo photographer who is the co-founder of EYExplore photography workshops. You can find more of his work on his website or by following him on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. This article was also published here.