You don’t need to write epic social media posts to make sales in your business. 

In this episode of the Courageous Content Podcast, I share the 15-word social media post that turns browsers into buyers. 

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Why I'm fed up with LinkedIn polls (and why it matters - even if you don't use LinkedIn for business) (podcast)

Instagram Reel, Grid or Story? How to decide what to post where… (podcast)

3 myths about using awareness days in your content (podcast)

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IMPORTANT: THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED. WE GIVE IT A QUICK CHECK THROUGH BUT WE DON’T CORRECT EVERYTHING AS IT’S INTENDED TO HELP YOU FIND PARTS YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO AGAIN - NOT AS AN EXACT TRANSCRIPT. SO THERE MIGHT BE A FEW QUIRKY WORDS/PHRASES HERE!

Is a round of toast, one slice of bread. Can you listen to music while you're working? What was your first car and how many times did you have at your driving test? I'm Janet Murray, one of the UKs leading content marketing experts. And in this short episode of the courageous content podcast, I'll share a style of social media posts. That's super easy to create typically 15 words or less put one that's vital.

If you want to turn browsers into buyers. A few years ago, I was having my hair blow dried in this trendy hair salon in Shoreditch, east London. When I noticed there were dogs running all over the place heads up here, I am definitely a cat lady. I have three cats, Rupert Tigger, and the according to my husband, unfortunately lamed Snowdrop.

And I wouldn't say I disliked dogs. I'm just a bit nervous around them as a runner. I've definitely had a few snapping around my heels over the years. So I wasn't quite sure about how I felt about having dogs running around the hairdressers. So that's exactly what I posted from my salon chair. Would you go to a hair salon where there were dogs running around the place?

By the time I left the salon, there were more than a hundred comments on my Facebook page and it seemed that people had really strong feelings about it. I've also had some very successful posts on whether you should use your real name in Starbucks. Yep. I make one up because I don't like them shouting my name around the cafe, whether you can work and listen to music at the same time.

I definitely can't. I love music too much and get too distracted. And what was your first car? Mine was a powder blue mini Metro, by the way. And I managed to bring it three times in the first six months of having it. My dogs in hairdressers post really opened my eyes to how important it is to create content that starts a conversation with your audience and not to feel like you always have to stick to business.

If you have a podcast like I do, or a YouTube channel or a Facebook live share, one of the most frustrating things can be that you work really hard to create this piece of content, which you know, people are interested in. You can see that from the downloads or the views, but people don't always interact when you post about your latest podcast or YouTube video.

And of course, the way the algorithm works on most social media platforms is that when you post something on your Facebook page or Instagram or wherever it might be, it will show it to a percentage of your followers. And if it gets good engagement, it will be shown to more people. One of the ways you can improve engagement on that kind of post is to kind of sandwich them between what I call community posts.

These are posts where you're asking questions. You're starting conversations sometimes about business-related topics, but other times, just about stuff that people are interested in talking about kind of like water cooler chat. And yes, this can be a way to boost the algorithm because if you have a successful community posts about dogs in hairdressers, or whether you use your real name and Starbucks,

then the next post you put on that platform will typically be shown to people because you've just had a pace. That's got tons of really great engagement, lots of comments and interaction, and the great thing about community posts. Well, actually there's two. They often take just a few minutes to write and they can easily be reused and repurposed. For example,

I typically do a paste. Every world tastes day, which is today. If you're listening on the day, this podcast episode goes out February the 24th. Well, I simply ask is around, have toast, one slice or two. You would be amazed how many people have opinions and quite strong ones on that topic. Can you listen to music when you're working?

It's perfect for world music day on June the 21st national quiet day, September the eighth. What was your first car? There's name your car day on October, the second car food day, September the 22nd and pasting those kinds of posts on a day where it makes sense because it's awareness day, then that's only going to help with your engagement. And as I've shown you there,

there are often different awareness days that would link to the very same pace. So for example, with my toast post, that runs doesn't it. I could bring that back out for any awareness day that relates to bread. If you have a copy of my courageous content planet, then you'll know that it has hundreds of awareness, days to spark ideas like that.

Or you may also be aware of the four styles of content that I recommend using trends, inspire community and educate. I've talked about them on many podcasts, but a quick one down. So news and trends is when you're talking about something that's new or in the news, or just something timely. So a piece of content that has to go out at a particular time for it to make sense.

So for example, I typically do a monthly podcast and social media posts with content ideas for the following month. So it's no good me doing my four content ideas for February in September. Well I can, but it's probably not going to get as much engagement. So in using trans is just about things that are new in the news, things that are timely and relevant,

then you've got your inspire content, which is about connecting with your audience often about reassuring them, making them feel better. Your sales content can also come under inspire. It's about inspiring people to take the next step, to solve their problems. Then we've got community content, which I'm talking about in this episode, which is about getting to know your audience better and also helping them to get to know you better,

really important. And your behind the scenes content generally comes on under that as well, where you're maybe taking people behind the scenes, if your office or your studio, or showing them something that you're working on, unboxing packing up orders to send out to clients, all of that stuff helps bring you closer to your ideal customers or clients. And then you've got your educate contempt,

which is when you're solving your ideal customers or clients problems and answering their questions, using trends and educate are quite similar by the way. The difference is that with news and trends, your looking to make it more timely and relevant. So that piece of content needs to be published on that particular day or week or month while all of those sides of content are brilliant for connecting with all the different types of people you need in your audience.

And if you've listened to any of my previous podcasts on this, you'll know that at any one time, we all need to be thinking about three types of people are hot audience. So these are typically our existing clients, previous clients, people who have invested in our products or services, we need authentic create content for our warm audience at there. People who might follow us on social media,

listen to our podcast or read our blog, or they're on our email newsletter list. So they're definitely interested. There's a relationship there. They just haven't invested in our products or services yet. And then you've got your cold audience. People who don't even know about you. Now they've got the problems that your products or services solve, but they've never heard of you.

And because people will typically be finding out about you at different points, you need to be thinking about creating content for people at all stages of their journey. So community content typically is brilliant for nurturing and it's particularly good for that warm audience. There are people who are interested in you, they're probably interested in your product or service, and they certainly have the problems that it sold,

but they just need a bit more time to get to know you. So where can you use community pays well, they're brilliant for Facebook groups. If you struggle to get engagement in your Facebook group, you find the postings that people don't respond to community posts can be a great way just to get the conversation started. Remember that when somebody joins a Facebook group,

it can be quite intimidating. You need to make it as easy as possible for people to interact. And community posts are brilliant for this because there's very little waste that you're going to make a fool of yourself or look silly. You don't need any massive amounts of knowledge or expertise. Think everybody can say whether they think a round of taste is one or two pieces of bread.

Also great for Instagram stories. So you can use the poll function. LinkedIn also has polls of that. I would probably avoid the poll function because the LinkedIn poll trend is getting a little bit tired. I do have an episode on that, which I'll link to in the show notes, brilliant for Twitter. If you're active on Twitter and can work really well on your Facebook page as well,

one place, I think community content doesn't tend to work as well is your Instagram grid because your Instagram grid is more like your kind of shop window. And I have got, again, a podcast episode on this called Instagram real grid or story, how to decide what to post or hat. So if you want to know the reasons why that's a good episode to listen to,

and I will link to that one in the show notes, but the general rule of thumb for me is your Instagram grid should be about content. That makes sense to people. If they come along in 3, 6, 9 months time and adds value to them, crucially, I'm not sure you asking whether around a toast is one slice or two is going to add value to somebody who stops by your account in six months,

which is why you're using trends and educate is probably going to be better. And also to an extent inspire content. So I hope you've found this useful and it's inspired you to create community posts. The other thing about this is you can create a whole bank of these posts. Well in advance, you could do a whole quarter or a whole year. If you wanted to save yourself time,

also worth listening to is three myths about using awareness days in your content. If you think that when his days are silly or too light-hearted for the kind of business you have, that's definitely worth a lesson. So as ever, I do love hearing from you. If you have any questions about what you've heard in this episode, or you just want to say hi,

the best place to connect with me is on social media. I'm at Jan Murray on most social media platforms. Instagram is usually the best place to catch me.