Creating social media content can sometimes feel like a never-ending cycle of opening Instagram, deciding you need to post something, staring at Canva for far too long and eventually wondering why you have somehow spent an hour choosing a font.
But creating good content doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, before you even open Canva or start writing your caption, there are five simple questions I recommend asking yourself. They’ll help you create content with more purpose, make your social media strategy easier to manage and, importantly, stop you posting simply because you feel like you should.
- Who is this post actually for?
This sounds obvious, but it is one of the most important questions you can ask before creating any piece of content.
Your answer shouldn’t be everyone. It shouldn’t even necessarily be all small business owners. The more specific you can be about who you are talking to, the easier it becomes to create content that feels relevant and personal.
Think about the person you most want this post to reach. What are they struggling with? What are they worrying about? What questions are they asking? What would make them stop scrolling because you have just described something they are experiencing?
When your content tries to speak to everyone, it often ends up connecting with nobody. You don’t need every person on Instagram to be interested in your post. You need the right people to recognise themselves in it.
- What do you want them to think, feel or do?
Before you create your post, decide what you want it to achieve. Not every piece of content needs to generate a sale, but every piece of content should have a purpose.
Perhaps you want your audience to learn something new, see a problem differently, feel reassured that they aren’t the only person struggling with something or understand your expertise a little better. Maybe you want them to save the post, visit your website, send you a message or book a call.
Your content can have different jobs depending on where someone is in their journey with your business. Some posts build awareness, some build trust, some demonstrate your expertise and others encourage people to take the next step.
The important thing is knowing what that job is before you start creating. Otherwise, you can very quickly end up posting for the sake of posting, which isn’t particularly helpful for you or your audience.
- Why are you posting this?
I know this sounds similar to the previous question, but there is an important difference. Asking why you are posting something encourages you to think about whether the post actually deserves a place in your content strategy.
If the answer is simply that you haven’t posted since Tuesday and you feel like you probably should, that is your cue to pause.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to stay consistent on social media, but consistency doesn’t mean churning out content for the sake of hitting an arbitrary number of posts each week. Your audience doesn’t need you to appear on their feed every five minutes. They need useful, interesting or relevant reasons to pay attention to your business.
Before creating your post, consider whether it is educating your audience, demonstrating your expertise, starting a conversation, sharing your personality, building trust or promoting something you offer.
Once you know why you are posting it, creating the actual content becomes much easier.
- Does it connect to your business?
Not every post you create needs to be directly promotional. In fact, I’d actively encourage you not to turn your social media feed into one giant advert.
Your personality, opinions, experiences and even some of the everyday things happening behind the scenes can be fantastic content because they help people get to know you and understand what it might be like to work with you.
But there should still be a connection between your content and your business.
If someone spends weeks following you, they should gradually understand what you do, who you help, the problems you solve and why you are good at what you do. Your content should help build that picture.
So yes, share the dog. Share the coffee. Share the holiday. Share the behind-the-scenes chaos. Just make sure your audience isn’t left wondering what any of it has to do with the business they might eventually buy from you.
- Would you actually stop scrolling for this?
This is probably the question I want you to ask yourself most often.
Imagine your post appearing in your own social media feed. Would you genuinely stop scrolling to read it, watch it or find out more?
Or would your thumb have already moved on before you got past the first sentence?
We are all competing for attention online, and your audience is busy. They aren’t sitting there waiting patiently for your latest post to appear. They are scrolling through hundreds of other pieces of content, messaging friends, checking emails and probably trying to remember why they opened Instagram in the first place.
That means your opening needs to give them a reason to stop.
It doesn’t need to involve clickbait or a ridiculous promise. It simply needs to be relevant, interesting, useful or intriguing enough to make someone want to keep going.
If your post doesn’t pass your own scroll test, go back to the beginning and ask how you could make it more interesting or more relevant to the person you are trying to reach.
Good content starts before you create it
The biggest mistake I see small business owners make with social media is jumping straight into content creation without thinking about the strategy behind it.
They open Canva, choose a template, start writing and then wonder why creating content takes so much time.
The actual creation is rarely the difficult part. The difficult part is knowing what you should be creating in the first place.
Taking a few minutes to think about who you are talking to, what you want your content to achieve, why you are posting it, how it connects to your business and whether it is interesting enough to stop the scroll can make a huge difference.
And no, you don’t need to answer all five questions perfectly every single time. This is a guide, not another thing to add to your already very long list of things you apparently need to do as a business owner.
But if your social media currently feels random, overwhelming or like a never-ending game of what the hell am I supposed to post today, these five questions are a very good place to start.
Because your business probably doesn’t need more content.
It needs better content, with a bit more thought behind it and a strategy that actually fits around running your business.
If you are ready to stop wondering what you should be posting? Book your free content check-up with me and let’s get your content working a little harder for your business. You can book here.