One of the challenges social media managers face is the perpetual task of finding “stuff” to write about; let alone how to make it interesting and readable. In the field, we refer to this as content… content, content, content!

Every conference, meeting, article or webinar available promises to tackle the “content dilemma,” which usually sounds something like this: “I love to blog, but I never know what to write about,” or “how do I know people will be interested in reading what I have to say.”

But it’s not just the hapless blogger. This content dilemma follows us however we share, whether via Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Flickr or YouTube… all of these social channels require us to present valuable and relevant information to our customers.

Yes, our customers.

The content we share should be exciting and educational for our customers, not ourselves. We aren’t reading our own social streams, after all. (We already know what we think!)

To keep readers interested in your posts and blogs, you need to do more than just type in a status update. Be sure to change it up a bit. For instance, mix photos and videos among your regular posts.

Most of all, ensure your content is easy to share. Pithy, to the point, with a great headline.

To help get your creative juices flowing, here are some of the shareable content ideas that Jeff Bullas offered up at last month’s Social Slam in Knoxville, Tenn.:

1. Make lists
2. The power of negative… share things that you shouldn’t do
3. Infographics
4. Images… 50% of all shares are images
5. Video
6. Curated content… pull together other blog posts, and give proper credit… saving saves people time
7. How To’s
8. Solve problems… instructional videos
9. Share the news (but not yesterday’s news)
10. Case studies
11. Research
12. Reviews
13. Statistics and facts
14. Quotes… inform, inspire, entertain, educate

To understand what your customers enjoy most in your content sharing, keep an eye on how they respond to your posts. Once you get a feel for what is the most engaging way of sharing, you can put your time and effort into those types of posts.

You see, content development doesn’t have to be a drag. Have fun finding new ways to share your content, and you’ll not only please your readers, but you’ll make it less of a chore for yourself.

You can read a brief synopsis of my day at Social Slam by clicking here.