Social media can be really hard to keep up with as an entrepreneur and small business owner. There are constant updates, the algorithm is always changing, and what worked last month is likely different from what’s working right now. 

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As a small business owner and social media manager with over 10 years of experience, I have a decent handle on what’s working and what isn’t. My clients range from wellness professionals with followings of 40k+ to tech start-ups with followings lower than 1k. I’ve had the pleasure of partnering with quite a few companies at Raleigh Founded over the last year and a half! With all clients that The Social Rising works with, we focus on storytelling to connect with your target audience and make authentic connections for your business.

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Here are a few examples of post types that are currently working on Instagram as well as ideas for how you can adapt these posts to work for your business, no matter what niche you’re in.

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1. Voiceovers: Voiceover posts are when you add narration to the video before posting. Examples of how this could work would be to educate, add stream of consciousness as lifestyle content, or read a poem or motivate. 

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Examples for different businesses:

• For a gym, personal trainer, or therapist: You could add voiceover to a video of your gym during peak time, a video of you training, or a clip of you sitting and talking (you don’t need to show who you are talking to). The voiceover could be talking through different class styles or what to expect in a session with you. 
• For a restaurant, coffee shop, or bar: This would work well for a chef-driven restaurant. You can get a video of your specials and then add a voiceover talking through your inspiration for creating them and flavor highlights.
• For a service-based business like house cleaning, landscaping, or interior design: Record a clip of your before and after and add a voiceover talking about what your client asked for, your process, and what you delivered.

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Here are a few examples of this style of posts:

• Example One: Narrating why she structures her workouts how she does and the science to back it up.
• Example Two: Using the simple clip of the soup to catch your eye but then really pulling you in through storytelling about creativity.

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2. Introductions: These are posts where you introduce yourself (if people would be working 1:1 with you) or your business. Just because you’ve done this before doesn’t mean you never should do it again. Try to do this about once per quarter!

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A few ways you could do this:

• One short video with multiple sentences spaced out over the top like this one.
• Multiple clips of your business with a caption talking about why you’ve developed your brand how you have, like this one.

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3. B-Roll: If you scroll Instagram and come across social media advice, chances are you’ve seen people talking about b-roll. B-roll refers to the clips that don’t necessarily have a purpose. Think clips of you making coffee or drinking tea, walking your dog, working in your office, your team during a meeting, or your chef prepping for food service that night. All of these clips can be captured and saved for MANY purposes later.

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Here are a few ways you can use them:

• To educate: You can take a b-roll clip and then add an educational component that fits your brand. For example, my functional medicine client talks about ingredients that negatively affect her patient’s health so we used this clip of her grocery shopping and turned it into a high-performing educational reel.

1. To connect: Have you seen those posts that say “POV you..” or “Imagine This”? Those are targeted to connect with their ideal audience. Take any b-roll (really any, it does not have to apply to the topic of your post) and add super-targeted text over the top that connects to your ideal customer’s emotions. For example, as a house cleaner, it could be “Imagine This: You’ve just got off your fifth Zoom call of the day and instead of having to spend your downtime cleaning the house you can cuddle up on the couch with a good book and decompress because you’ve hired us to take care of the cleaning.” 

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Need an example? Here are a few great ones.

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• Example One: B-roll of her using the product with listed benefits over the top
• Example Two: Clip of her making a salad with text that stays the same the entire time (so there is no rush to read it) over the top. In this one, she’s giving tips to help her ideal audience with something they struggle with.
• Example Three: A lot of people join a gym to make friends - even if you don’t own a gym, why might someone frequent your business? Use any clip of your business (maybe a bookstore or coffee shop) and add text over top talking about what people could gain from going there.
• Example Four: This interior designer is telling people with one short clip that if they follow her they’ll see a specific type of style. Perfect way to tell people what you’re about really quickly! 

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Understanding what works and what doesn’t in social media takes a lot of time and comparison of metrics. There will always be social media gurus offering you quick solutions to go viral, but that rarely leads to conversions for your small business. I hope these ideas were helpful to you! If you’d like further support, The Social Rising offers a variety of packages to meet your needs whether it’s monthly coaching or monthly full-service social media management with content creation days included. Reach out or book a call with me to learn more here!

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