Say you run a neighborhood bakery and want 20 more weekend preorders a month. You could post a photo of a pastry box on Friday morning. But can someone looking at that photo tell what’s in the box, when orders close or how to get one?
That fictional bakery was our working example on Nov. 3, when I taught the first session of Social Media Marketing That Works for Metropolitan Community College Business Development at The Ashton in Omaha. The class is designed for small business owners, marketers, nonprofit staff and people getting ready to start a business.
They may have different reasons for opening Instagram on a Tuesday morning, but they all have to decide what’s worth sharing and what they hope someone will do with it.
I asked participants to look at their three most recent posts. Anyone without a business account could use one they admired. For each post, we asked who it was for, what it gave that person and whether there was a clear next step. Looking at three posts together also raises a question that’s easy to miss when you’re writing them one at a time. What would someone learn about your business from spending a minute on your page?
From there, we picked one goal for the next 30 days and one way to measure it. For a business owner, that might mean generating 10 qualified inquiries and tracking them through direct messages and website contact forms. For a nonprofit recruiting volunteers, it might mean tracking completed sign-ups. A post can get plenty of likes while leaving a prospective customer unsure how to place an order. Looking at inquiries, orders or sign-ups gives you a way to tell whether the content is doing the job you gave it.
When we talked about audience, I asked participants to think of one person they wanted to reach. What question would that person ask before buying, signing up or walking through the door? What would help them feel comfortable taking the next step?
A bakery customer might want to know whether pastries bought on Friday will still be fresh for Sunday brunch. A first-time volunteer might wonder what happens during a shift and whether they can come alone. A service provider might hear the same question on every introductory call. Those are all post ideas, and they come from conversations people are already having in the course of their work.
The worksheet asked participants to choose three recurring topics, sometimes called content pillars, and three words for how they wanted their brand to sound. For the bakery, we went with a warm, friendly voice and gave each post a different job. One shared tips for keeping pastries fresh. Another showed how the dough was prepared each morning. The third told customers they could preorder a weekend pastry box by noon Friday.
That’s the part of the lesson I wanted people to be able to use right away. You can answer a question, show how you work, or invite someone to take a clear next step with material you already have.
For the workshop, I asked participants to plan three posts of their own. One would teach something, one would build trust, and one would invite an action. They used the worksheet to decide who each post was for, what it needed to say, where it would run, and what photo, video, or link they’d need. Then they shared one idea with a partner to see whether the message and next step made sense to someone reading it for the first time.
On Nov. 10, we’ll turn those ideas into captions, platform-specific formats and a content calendar. On Nov. 17, we’ll look at what to measure and build a 30-day plan around it.
In the meantime, try the three-post exercise on your own account. If someone saw only one of those posts this week, what would they learn about your business? And would they know what to do next?
