I hate to break it to you, but small-business owners must be content creators and online influencers to thrive. You may not love the camera or may not understand how the platforms work, but at the end of the day, what you sell and how you help people has to get out into the world. Your silence is allowing the competition to find your customers first.
So if it’s not you that’s talking to the camera, then who? If it’s not now, then when?! How much longer will you put this off? Charge up your phone and get the tripod ready, my friend, because you’re about to go viral. Or at least I hope you do!
Marketing has evolved so that consumers go to social media first to discover and choose the brands they want to support and buy from. With 33% of pet ownership held by Millennials, and Gen Z quickly pulling up behind, they are your target market. You’ll always find them on their mobile devices. With only 8 seconds (or less) to grab their attention, you better have a wow factor to stop the scroll.
One of the most common things I hear as a pet-business coach is, “I don’t know what to talk about on social media.”
Don’t overthink your content creation strategy. In fact, the less you overthink it, the more ideas will come to you. You can repurpose, you can put a new spin on existing content, and you CAN be consistent with your social media marketing. That’s the most important thing.
Here are 10 content ideas for your pet business:
Use them on social media, share it in your weekly email newsletters, talk about it on a podcast, create YouTube videos, make it a blog post. There are so many ways to distribute your content.
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1. Tell the story of why you started your business.
Stories, especially the ones that fuel your passion, build bonds with your audience. Depending on how much you want to share, they might even make you a bit vulnerable, but guess what — vulnerability makes you RELATABLE! And relatability equals trust. Don’t be afraid to share your stories!
2. Introduce the pets who inspired what you do! Share their stories, too!
Pet lovers will ALWAYS stop the scroll to ogle over a cute pet. Sharing your pets with your audience is an easy way to make you more relatable as a pet owner. Introduce your pets, share funny stories or ask your audience to guess their breed! Use reel templates to montage videos of business pets in action (or sleeping on the job) and set it to a trending sound.
3. Repurpose your reviews with a spin.
Let your raving fans create content for you! Sharing the words of your pet business’s biggest fans will encourage others to want to support you, too, and showcase how real customers are receiving your business. Lay a screenshot of a review behind you while you record a heartfelt thank you or explain the service they are raving about.
4. Do a poll.
Polls are easy ways to encourage engagement with your online audience. You can do this in your feed, in your Instagram stories, or create video content to ask your audience to comment with their vote. You can poll your audience on anything and everything!
?BONUS TIP?– Poll your audience on what they’d like to see more of on your social media (behind the scenes in your pet business, new product releases, more of your irresistibly cute dog, etc.), so you know exactly what type of content to focus on moving forward!
5. Share a tip about something you sell or answer the most common questions.
Do you have a service or product you get the same question about often? How about a product you’d love to highlight by sharing an exclusive tip or demonstration about how to use it? Use your content to answer your audience’s specific questions and then ask them for more questions!
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6. Meet your team.
Your team members are the faces of your business (other than yours and the more slobbery faces of your pets.) The more familiar your audience becomes with both you AND your team, the more they will trust your pet business as a whole.
Ask your team members for stories they’d like to share, see if they want to do any special segments on your social media (like Q&A sessions, for example), or play “Two Truths and A Lie” to allow your audience to interact with your content while getting to know your paw-some team.
7. Pose a question pet lovers cannot resist.
Keep it simple, but make it easy (and irresistible) to answer. It may be unrelated to your business, but it shows the algorithm that people are into what your page has to say, especially to those engaging. So it will more likely serve up your posts to them again in the future.
Examples:
? Dog hair don’t care? Or lint roll everything?
?Big dog person? Or love the small but mighty breeds?
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?Let the dogs sleep in your bed? Or dog beds only?
?Dogs? Cats? Or BOTH?!
?Tell us how many pets you have in the comments using ONLY emojis.
8. Post a day in the life of a pet business owner.
Use the time-lapse option on your phone to record some of your day-to-day tasks — whether that is stocking shelves, bathing and grooming dogs or doing administrative work (yes, you typing at your computer).
Share what you’re doing in the caption, or add a text overlay! Even the tasks that feel mundane are insight for your audience members. Share the details, even if they don’t seem exciting to you. Your audience wants to see what it’s like to be in your shoes and experience the dedication you put into each day.
9. Promote your events and sales.
Your audience members are busy, so sharing reminders about your events or upcoming sales is always a good idea! They may forget to mark their calendars, so they’ll appreciate multiple shares so they don’t miss out. Want to know when you should start marketing for upcoming events? I address that question in episode 42 of the “Boss Your Business Podcast.” Check it out!
10. Record a video of a pet engaging in a service of your business.
Watching other people’s pets engage within your business paints a picture for your audience and makes them imagine their pets doing the same. Ask pet owners if you can record a short video of their dogs engaging in your services. Chances are they’ll be excited for their pet’s big debut on your social media!
Each of these ideas above can be photos, graphics, pre-recorded videos, lives, reels and more! Imagine sharing just three ideas from each of these categories. You’d have 30 days of content!!
You’ll find more marketing strategies and tips during Pet Boss Nation’s Pet Business Bootcamp happening July 16-21, 2023. Access to the six virtual workshops is only $10.
You’ll learn how to…
✅ Attract more of your ideal customer… on repeat!
✅ Convert more lookers into buyers with a simple process that works multiple times per day!
✅ Watch more customers return… again and again!
✅ Learn how to increase loyalty and engagement in your pet business (and get ahead of your competitors!)
Hope to see you there!
Visit PetBizBootcamp.com to get your ticket!
