Facebook and other social media sites are obviously hugely popular, and have great potential as marketing tools for small business owners and entrepreneurs. For free, you can reach almost anyone in the world. However, when I am working with coaching and consulting clients, I find that folks are often faced with “writer’s block” after they have set up their Facebook business page, Twitter account, or other social media profile.

One of the most common questions I am asked is “Now what do I say to all these people?” So, to help you with that question, and make sure that you never run out of great content ideas for your audience on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media platform, I will share with you my best ideas for content creation.

Please note that with all of these suggestions, I am providing ways that you can find inspiration for hot topics that you can discuss in your industry. You should never take someone else’s content and repurpose it as your own. I am not suggesting that you copy and paste other people’s blog posts or emails and pretend they are your own on Facebook. I am providing a list of great sources for topics about which you can write your own content.

1. Look at blogs about your industry. Most leaders in any niche have their own blog, and what these folks are talking about is likely to be what is top of mind and important to your customer base at any given moment.

2. Look into industry associations. Using Google, you can find industry association websites very easily. The topics that these industry associations are discussing on their websites and when they are marketing upcoming trade shows are clearly relevant to your business.

3. Sign up for email newsletters of players in your industry. By staying in the flow of timely information about your business, you will find references to relevant topics coming right to your email inbox.

With all of these sources, ask yourself how you would improve the discussion, or what your opinion is about a certain topic, and then write about that in your status updates, blog posts, email updates, tweets and other communications to your audience.

Another important thing to keep in mind is the “golden rule” of social media, and that is “Give Before You Get”. This means that your content should be helpful, relevant or entertaining information, photos or videos that your audience will appreciate and possibly want to share with their friends. If you are only sending out commercial messages, then your content is going to fall flat in the social media world. It’s critical that your presence in social media is building you up as a nice person, and as the type of person that prospects and possible customers in your industry would want to contact when they are ready to take advantage of your products or services.

Your goal with social media is to build awareness, build yourself or your company up as a leader in the industry, and to encourage your audience to interact with your company via social media. This naturally grows your presence on sites like Facebook, where the site itself reports such interactions to users’ friends. This means every time a user on Facebook interacts with your page (for example, makes a comment or shares it) as a result of your great, helpful content, a little message goes out to all of their friends News Feeds reporting this interaction. This is just one example of how great content builds your business via social media. And, this illustrates why it’s critical that you follow the golden rule of social media, and put your audience first in your selection of content. Remember, it’s a social conversation, and you are looking to build a relationship.

Author Bio: Facebook is the largest, most effective and easiest to use marketing and lead generation tool available today. Once you are using Facebook’s business tools to generate new leads, drive traffic to your website and grow your business, you can chart your own course. Discover how to harness the power of Facebook marketing to achieve your business dreams. Learn more at: http://HowToMakeMoneyOnlineWithFacebookPages.com

Category: Marketing
Keywords: facebook, content, marketing, social media, twitter, what to say, article marketing, content ideas