Learn how to overcome your marketer creative block.
One of the critical requirements for effective social media marketing is to consistently create content and put it out on different social media platforms. However, this is easier said than done. Coming up with content that is not only interesting but also relevant to your business is time-consuming. It comes with challenges, irrespective of your years of experience.
Most social media marketers grapple with a creative block at some point in their careers. This is precisely why, in this article, we’ve elaborated on the different ways social media marketers can get rid of creative blocks.
So if you find yourself struggling for ideas and wondering how to get over your creative block, keep reading!
Tried and tested tips for social media marketers to beat creative blocks
1. Spend time on social media
At the outset, this may seem like a given, but ultimately to create content for social, you need to look for inspiration on social. Couple this with a never-ending fascination and curiosity, and we guarantee you it’s an effective way to get over your creative block.
Scrolling through your social media, picking up on trends, reading through posts, and hitting the ‘Save’ button on what you need is a great way to start building on effective ideas. You can observe what’s been performing well and use these trends on your social media channels. By jumping on successfully performing trends and posts, there is a high chance that your social media posts can generate pretty strong results.
2. Don’t be afraid to repurpose
Creative blocks are a normal part of any content creator’s journey. However, when the ideas seem hard to come by, it’s okay to go back and repurpose some of your old content. One of the most significant advantages of repurposing is that it gives you the time to slow down and focus on coming up with new ideas while giving you enough content to post consistently across your social media channels.
An excellent example of repurposing would be to convert a high-performing blog post into infographics, short video bytes, or you can even turn it into a fun and engaging Twitter thread.
The best part is that repurposing allows you to redeem old content that has not been performing too well in the past.
3. Stick to your social media calendar
Your social media calendar should be the baseline for all your content ideas. Most social media managers plan out their calendars keeping in mind their target audience, type of social media platform, type of content, and other factors.
This gives you a clear direction as to how your ideas should progress and takes away some of the hard work involved in content creation. It is also a great way to overcome creative block since all you have to do is build on your content calendar.
4. Make use of important dates
Another great way to overcome creative block and create fresh and engaging content is to leverage important dates such as holidays, national days, and celebration days. This is a low-effort way to come up with some brilliant ideas for social media campaigns.
Choose dates that are relevant to your brand and build your social media strategy around them to start some fun and engaging conversations with your audience.
For instance, February 3 is marked as National Golden Retriever’s Day. A doggy retail brand could easily use this to create campaigns around pet products and even run some exciting offers on social for pet owners.
5. Look out for new sources of inspiration
Take a walk, feel the breeze, venture out into unfamiliar places. There’s nothing like a break from routine to help clear up your mind and get over the annoying social media creative block. You can take inspiration from everything around you and pen down interesting ideas as and when they come.
6. Don’t forget about brand storytelling
People love good stories and if your brand has got one then we say go ahead and flaunt it. There’s a lot you can do in terms of brand storytelling and its one of the best social media marketing tips you can follow to overcome your creative block.
You can take your audience through your brand’s origin story, include thoughts and opinions from founders and early employees, and even give them a glimpse into the making of the initial ideas, logos, products, and so much more. Such insight is also great for developing stronger connections with your audience and perhaps even striking an emotional note with them.
7. Behind the scenes are always a great idea
Filming aspects like a day at work or what goes into the making of a campaign or even a virtual tour of your office can give you a lot of exciting content for your social media channels. You can choose to uncover as little or as much of what goes on behind the scenes and yet make it super interesting for your audience. Besides, its a great way to generate ideas for when you are going through a creative block.
8. Leverage social media listening tools
What better way to create content that resonates with your audience than to look out for what they want from your brand? We’re talking about social listening.
For the uninitiated, social media listening is nothing but actively listening to mentions of your brand or product on various social media channels and then responding or creating appropriate content in response to these mentions.
For instance, a customer might tweet about how they love using your product. You can respond to this tweet and perhaps even take a screenshot and post it on your own social media as a customer testimonial. With due permission, of course.
Another good example is spotting conversations where users are trying to solve a particular problem or challenge where your product could just be the right solution. There are plenty of ways to approach social listening and it is a great way to get ideas flowing to overcome your social media marketer’s creative block.
You can get started with social media listening using Radarr. It is a comprehensive social intelligence tool that allows you to analyze your campaigns and get the best insights into customer conversations, trends, and sentiments.
9. Introduce team members
If you are struggling with a social media creative block, one of the most easiest ways to churn out engaging content is to do a social introduction of your team members. You can highlight what they do, their hobbies, quirky personality traits, and so much more. Its a super easy way to generate consistent content and all you have to do is interview willing participants, create some cool designs, and you’re good to go!
10. Ask your audience what they want
If you are suffering from a lack of ideas for content creation, check in with your audience every once in a while. You can conduct surveys, polls, and Q&As to get audience feedback on the kind of content they’d like to see more on your social media pages. Not only is this great for generating ideas, but a good way to measure what your audience thinks about you and your brand. It can help you grow your social media followers fast and effortlessly.
11. Create industry-specific content
A great way to provide value to your audience is to create content that gives specific insights and details into the industry. You can post regular updates about what’s currently going on in the industry, how you are creating solutions to address the present challenges, and more. This helps you come out as a credible and authentic source of critical industry information while also helping you tackle creative blocks.
12. Check out what your competitors are doing
Studying your competitor’s social media pages can unlock valuable insights into how they are managing their social media and find out what’s been working for them. A lot of these insights can help shed some new light on ideas, and you can then leverage these to generate some quality content. Don’t plagiarize, though!
13. Go back to analytics
If you want to get your creative juices flowing, a good place to start would be to study analytics from your previous posts. This gives you a brief idea of what’s been working and what’s not. Going through previously published posts and seeing what’s been getting a lot of attention can help you build on what’s already working. Further, it may even get your gears turning when you are in a social media creative block.
For this too, you can actually just use Radarr to see how your campaigns are performing – both organic and paid. The social media analytics dashboard brings together all the key metrics you need to monitor to plan marketing in a better way!
Summing up
Social media creative block is a more common occurrence than you would think and it can take a toll on content creators.
However, the more important thing to remember is that sometimes it’s not just about putting out the best at all times.
You can use all or some of the above tips to stay consistent with content creation and put out content that your audience truly cares about and resonates with.
Ready to break out of your creative block and create awesome content?