If you run a small business, it’s important to find creative ways to attract new customers. But coming up with new ideas can be challenging. A lot of the time, marketing and advertising ideas come in waves. You’ll get a good idea and then nothing much else for a little while—and then another one hits you out of the blue.

Creative marketing is the most effective way to reach your audience and enhance your results. Creative ideas are also a great way to provide a fresh approach for your existing marketing campaigns. But what about when those creative juices stop flowing?

Everyone (who is involved in social media anyway) gets stuck with a creative block now and then. This blog post is designed to give you great ideas for marketing on social media.

Get inspired to get creative on social media

Social media is an incredible and effective tool for building your business. It can be used to market anything with the right techniques and strategies involved. 89% of business-to-business (B2B) companies view social media as a top content distribution channel. 96% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn, and 82% use Twitter.

Being creative on social media can be tricky. You need a unique way of approaching content, an engaging manner with potential customers and hosts, inventive design, and positive interactions with followers. Through this blog post, we’ll take a look at different ways to be innovative with this type of marketing. We’ll cover the fundamentals of creative marketing and provide you with many ideas for increasing traffic and brand awareness.

Content should be about customers, not your business

Before we dive in, I just want to be clear: Content, especially on social media, should be centered on your customers, not your business. It should be created to improve the lives of your consumers.

Ask yourself: What kind of content will provide value to your customers? What kind of content will help them feel an emotional connection with your brand?

Identify your audience

First things first: what are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to reach out to potential customers? Do they already know about your product/service? It’s essential that you know who your target market is before creating content for them–otherwise there’s no point in creating social media posts at all.

Make sure your posts speak directly towards your audience (and not just general people who might be interested).

Start building your plan

You want to use social media creatively. You want to build a story that your audience wants to follow, and you want to build a brand that will make them fall in love with you.

But where do you start?

First, consider how much time you have. If you’re trying to do this all by yourself, it’s going to be tough to become the next Twitter sensation. So think about how much time you can realistically dedicate to this. If you’re aiming for something big, like a huge campaign across multiple platforms or a web series, consider hiring some help.

When you know how often you can consistently post, build a content calendar you can use to plan and organize your posts. Content calendars are great tools for managing your social media content. Although they are most commonly associated with blog posts and articles, you can use them to plan out any type of content.

Focus on the types of content you want to create, but also make sure to include holidays and events that may be important for your brand. You don’t want to overwhelm your audience with too many messages at once, so be realistic about how much information they can process in one post or one day.

A simple Google Spreadsheet is an effective way to plan out your marketing content. Include the following columns:

• What type of content you’ll publish (video, infographic, etc.)
• The topic or theme of the piece
• Which social media channel it will be posted to
• Who will write it/create designs (if you’re outsourcing)
• When it’s due
• Publication date and time

A calendar doesn’t have to be a spreadsheet or a wall calendar—you can just make a note in your phone or sticky notes on your computer. The point is to keep yourself accountable to your goals.

Content calendars can help you and your team stay organized, always know what to publish next, and create posts in advance when you have extra time. Plus, they let you see your editorial schedule at a glance, so you can keep track of the frequency with which you are publishing content on each channel.

B2B social media content ideas

Prioritize the most important messages you want to send. By identifying these messages, you can make sure they are included in your posts and that they are consistent and cohesive.

To implement creative marketing ideas, you need to plan and execute with your team. Here are some helpful tips on how to make the most of your strategies:

1. Get inspired by other B2B brands

If you want to cultivate a creative environment in your office, you need to set aside time each day for brainstorming sessions. A great way to get started is by asking your team members to share their favorite posts from other B2B brands on social media. Then, take some time to discuss the elements that made them creative and interesting.

2. Tell stories

Storytelling is a great way to use social media creatively. People love stories, and they can help create engaging content online while also building your brand identity and personality. For example, if you’re a pet food company, consider telling the story of how you got started or why it’s important for your business to be cruelty-free. These kinds of stories will engage people on an emotional level and attract new customers who are interested in what you have to say.

3. Share updates

Another way that companies use social media creatively is by sharing updates from their business. Update people on what’s new with your business. Whether it’s a product launch, an upcoming event, or something else entirely, keep people up-to-date so they know why they should care about you!

4. Create multiple pieces of content from one event or piece of research.

One way to get more mileage out of your content is by repurposing it into other formats. For example, if you publish a blog post about an industry study you’ve done, turn it into an infographic, a SlideShare presentation, and a video as well.

5. Make use of humor

Make use of humor and storytelling.

Humor is critical for effective content marketing—especially when it comes to making your brand seem human. Humor can help make the topic more interesting or entertaining for the reader (and therefore more memorable). Humor can also help keep your audience engaged while they read through long-form blog posts or other material that requires their undivided attention.

Places to find inspiration

If you don’t have any ideas for content yet, don’t worry! There are lots of places you can look for inspiration: Pinterest boards and Instagram accounts dedicated to specific topics like food, fashion, or art; DIY blogs; magazines. Just spend some time browsing around and jotting down ideas as they come to you—don’t worry about whether they seem like good ones right away.

The goal at this stage should just be getting all those random thoughts out on paper so you have a place where they’re not cluttering up your brain anymore!

Use tools like Google Trends or Google Keyword Planner to see what people are searching for online. Search for keywords related to your product or service and take note of the topics that come up in the search results. Then, create content around those popular keywords and topics.

Make it a conversation

Use social media to create a dialogue between you and your customers. Post engaging questions on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or other platforms and ask for feedback from customers and fans. You can also use social media as a way to gauge customer sentiment about certain products or services by posting polls and surveys on these platforms.

Plan an effective way to measure success

Make sure you establish clear goals and track the performance of each individual marketing social media campaign. The more clear you are on your goals, the easier it will be for you to evaluate how effective the campaign is.

Have an overarching goal in mind and keep track of the metrics that help you achieve it. Then apply the lessons learned to new creative marketing ideas and goals you have in the future.

Ultimately, the best way to improve your marketing strategy is by testing and experimenting. Try different things and measure their effectiveness. And remember, experimentation means making mistakes—take note of your mistakes and you’ll be on your way to finding out what works best for you.