Episode 104: 9 Posts That Build Relationships with Your Audience

Subscribe: RSS

Want your audience to actually respond? Tired of crickets when you put out content? These engagement post ideas will help!

Engagement Posts Ideas to Build Relationships

Welcome back to episode 104 of Chasing Simple. I’m your host – Amanda Warfield, and today I’m sharing about posts you can create to build relationships with your audience. I’ll share about different types of content marketing strategies, 3 post categories you’ll want to start adding to your content rotation, and then 3 examples of post types within each category. Oh, and I’m also sharing the number one most important part of a successful content marketing strategy, so grab your pen and paper! Let’s dive in, and I’ll share all of those engagement post ideas!

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Grab your FREE Ticket to Chasing Simple: The Summit!
Speaking of Disney planners … if you’re looking for a travel agent that specializes in Disney, check out my other business!
This week’s action step: Take a moment to brainstorm ideas for each of these post categories and types of posts.
This week’s book recommendation: The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth
Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield

Did you love this episode?

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at hello@amandawarfield.com!

Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!

*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate.

Welcome back to episode 104 of Chasing Simple. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. And today I’m sharing about posts that you can create to build relationships with your audience. I’ll share about different types of content, marketing strategies, three post categories. You’ll want to start adding to your content rotation and then three examples of post types within each category.

Oh, and I’m also sharing the number one most important part of a successful content marketing strategy. So grab your pen and paper and let’s dive in.

So before we dive into these nine different types of posts, I wanna take a moment and talk a little bit about different types of content marketing strategies, because there are quite a few out there and. I think sometimes we get caught up and focused on trying to do all of these at the same time, instead of focusing in on just one.

So we’ve got relationship building strategies, we’ve got engagement strategies and we’ve got growth strategies. So a growth strategy is when you are Focused first and foremost on getting your content in front of new people. Maybe that means that you are really dedicated to trying to go viral. Maybe that means that you’re really dedicated to getting shares.

Maybe that means that you’re really dedicated to putting money into ads, whatever that looks like. You’re trying to get in front of more people. You’re trying to get more followers, more audience, all that stuff, an engagement content marketing strategy is when you are focused on getting engagement.

In the hopes of that growth, right. You’re focused on, okay, how do I get the most responses to my stories? How do I get people to actually interact with my stories, whether that’s a poll or a quiz or a question box or whatever that may be, how do I get people to actually comment and like, and save my post when that’s your focus?

You’re in an engagement strategy. And then you’ve got relationship building strategies. And I personally think this is the best one to focus on, especially if you are a smaller business, which I think pretty much everyone here is. I don’t think we have any like mega big businesses here listening. I think this is the way to go with your content marketing strategy, because when you focus on building relationships with your people, with your audience.

When you have relationships with them, you’re much more likely to get that engagement and to see that growth. But you have to start with the relationship building and it’s almost like a trickle down effect. So when someone has a relationship with you, they’re much more likely to actually engage with your content.

They’re much more likely to respond to comment, to like, to who participate in a poll, the people that you see participating and commenting and engaging with you over and over again. Those are the people that. Typically have a relationship with you of some sort. And the same is true for the growth. If someone has a relationship with you, they’re so much more likely to share your post, to give it valuable real estate in their stories, right?

If someone has a relationship with you, you’re much more likely to see that engagement and that growth as a byproduct and engagement is great, but. Personally, I don’t want engagement just for engagement’s sake and I don’t want growth just for the sake of growth. I wanna make sure that my audience, even if it’s small, that we have a relationship that I am intentionally cultivating a relationship with them because that’s gonna do so much more for my business than just growth and Engagement and seeing new people coming in.

I want people to come and stay. I don’t want people to come and go like a revolving door. so that is why I implement relationship building strategies in my content marketing. That’s why I do that for all of my clients. That doesn’t mean to say that you can’t also have posts that are meant for engagement and you can’t also have posts that you are hoping to see some virality with.

That just means that you want your focus to be on relationship building, which is why these nine different posts that I’m gonna share with you. They are all geared towards that relationship building content marketing strategy. So there are three different categories of content that we can put out there.

So there’s tutorial posts, there’s personal posts and there’s problem centric post in each of these, I’m gonna share three different posts that you can create for each of those categories. So. The first type tutorial post, the first post would be X ways to do a thing. How many different ways can you tell someone to do something?

So let’s say this, for example. Kind of this could kind of follow between this and the next one, some of these interchange, but I’m telling you nine ways that you can build a relationship with your audience that would fall under this. How many ways can you do a thing?

Then the second post would be X steps to achieve an outcome. So this could be something like five steps to planning your day five steps to. Cleaning your house, five steps to

whatever that may be, how many steps step by step, do this thing, this thing, this thing, this thing, this thing it’s like a, a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 kind of thing. You’re, you’re walking them through a process versus X ways to do a thing or a, a grouping, uh, of ways that you can do something. So nine posts to build relationships with your audience.

You’re not, I’m not saying. Do X ways to do a thing, then do X steps to achieve an outcome. Or then this, then I’m not telling you to go in that order. I’m just saying. Here are nine different posts that you can take and implement into your content marketing.

So that is one type of tutorial post. The next is step by step. Here are the steps to take, to do this thing. X steps to plan your next Disney World vacation.

Then the third type of post with tutorial posts would be just giving tips, just saying, Hey, if you are looking to plan your next Disney vacation and you’re struggling with choosing a hotel, ask yourself this question. If you are struggling with achieving your goals, here’s this one quick tip that I have implemented. That’s been helpful. If you’re struggling to get up in the morning on time, try putting your phone across the room. Giving one quick tip is also a type of tutorial post, and it’s giving them something that they can take and take action on.

So three types of tutorial posts. How many different ways that you can do a thing steps to take to and achieve an outcome. And then just giving tips, you can give one tip, you can give multiple tips, but just say, Hey, these are some things that you can do to take and run with. All of these are actionable posts.

And the reason that this builds relationships with your, our audience is because. They feel like you’re giving them valuable content. They’re like, oh, this is really good. I’m gonna take this and I’m gonna implement this and I’m gonna try it. And then when they do that, they’re gonna come back for more, anything that you can give them that is valuable content in that way, that is going to give them actionable steps that is going to build their relationship with you.

Because when they take action, they come to trust you. The next category is personal post. I love to sprinkle these in mm, a couple times a month. throughout my content throughout my client’s content, because I think it’s so important for most of us in this online business space to really share. who we are, because that’s how you’re gonna build a relationship.

If you’re hiding behind your offers and you’re hiding behind your business, people, aren’t gonna build a relationship with you, right? So this is a really important type of post to sprinkle into your content. And it builds those relationships because you’re opening yourself up. You’re sharing about who you are.

So the first time. is pull back the curtain type post, where you were saying, this is what’s going on behind the scenes in my life. Sometimes that can be really deep. I have shared about failed launches in the past. I’ve shared about, when I like first got diagnosed with glaucoma, things like that, where I’m saying this is something that I’m really, really struggling with right now.

This is a hard thing that’s happening. Here’s a little peek behind the curtains. It’s not just, you. and then you’ve also got introduction posts where you’re, you’re sharing. You know, this is who I am. This is what I do. And here are a few fun facts about me and that gives them a chance to connect to those different facts.

Maybe they also really love coffee. Maybe they also are a cat lover. Maybe they also cheered in high school. all these different things that you can just quick connection points that people can make with you. So you’ve got the heavy and then you’ve got the light and then you also should be putting in posts or you can be putting in posts.

I will never say should, but you can be putting out posts that are just things that you love, things that make you use. So for me, a couple things I’m always talking about on social media, my cats, obviously, reading and. Gamecock sports, right? Those are three things that I share about a lot on social media, because those are three things that kind of make up my everyday life, like a really core centric part of who I am.

And so sometimes I’ll put up reels literally just about the cats that have nothing to do with my business, nothing to do with anything going on in the business space. But it’s a way for people to connect with me now, I’m not saying only do those type of posts at all, but these three types of personal posts are a great way for people to connect with you.

So you can kind of take it from a bird’s eye view of introduction posts. This is who I am. This is what I do. Here are a couple fun facts about me. You can really narrow in on some of, of those fun facts about yourself. I would stick more so to. things that people know to relate to you though. So like with introduction post, one of my examples was, oh, I cheered in high school.

I would necessarily make a full post just about the fact that you cheered in high school. sometimes you like, sometimes it can be relevant, right? If there’s a trend or whatever, but typically you wanna keep it something that people know about you or that you want people to know about you. If you’re just getting started with that.

And then you’ve also got those deep, heavy pull back, the curtain posts, let me just caveat that with saying you don’t have to share the hard things as you’re going through them. You don’t have to share anything you’re not comfortable sharing and you don’t have to share anything.

You don’t wanna share. Just throwing that out there. people have different levels of vulnerability that they’re okay with being online. and that’s totally fine. and just know that when people, like I share, pull back the curtain type post a lot, but that doesn’t mean that I’m sharing every bad thing that happens in my life.

I’m sharing the things that I’m okay with sharing and having out there in the public. Right. And. , you don’t have to share everything about you in your life. There’s so much about my life that I don’t share online. for example, my, my husband, honestly, people probably look at my feed and they’re like, is she like, is she married?

we we’re, we’ve married eight years, but he just has no interest in being on social media. And that’s fine. I respect that. And so I don’t post a lot about him and things we’re doing together and, different things going on in our world as a couple. because that’s not, that’s not something he’s interested in.

So just throwing that out there, like, don’t feel like you need to share everything. I’m not saying that I’m not saying that you need to have a vulnerability hangover in any way. Just wanna share that caveat. And now the third category of posts would be the problem centric post. So three different ways that you could do this three types of posts that you can share within this category.

First share a story of when you struggled with the same problem. So what’s a problem. that your audience has that you can help solve. We want these to these problem centric posts to really focus on what it is that you do and how you help your people. Your audience has 1,000,001 struggles. They have 1,000,001 problems we all do.

I want you to just focus on one or two that you can actually help them with though. Please, don’t try to solve all of their problems for you and in a couple weeks. Episode 1 0 6 will go into this in much more detail, but for now, just know, just pick the problems and talk to the problems that you can actually solve for them.

let’s say that I’m just gonna use the Disney planner example again, let’s say that my client’s biggest struggle. My audience’s biggest struggle is that they are just overwhelmed by all the decisions that you have to make it. To plan a Disney vacation. They are overwhelmed by knowing all the little details they’re overwhelmed by trying to do all of the research.

They’re overwhelmed by the vast amount of information out there about Disney and then making the decisions that’s their problem. So I could share a story of a time that I struggled with that same problem for example I could talk about how. the first time my husband and I went to Disney together. My first time going as an adult, without my family, I spent hours and hours and hours online, researching all the things I needed to know.

I had already been many times, many times as a child, as a teenager, my family went, that was our family vacation. A lot of times. I was very obsessed with Disney at this point, like this, this wasn’t new stuff, but I still spent hours doing the research and I could share a story of that and share about that same struggle that they probably have had and talk to that same problem.

So that’s one type sharing that struggle through the point of view of I’ve been there. , you can also share a story about a client struggling with that problem. So sharing in effect that same struggle, that same problem, but Hey, I had this client and this, they were struggling with this and this is how we solved it.

Right. Sharing it through the point of view of a client, not just you like, Hey, it’s not just me and you. It’s other people too. and then you can share something that they need to know about something that they struggle with. So if you say, Hey, I know that you have a hard time planning, your Disney trips.

Here’s something that’ll make it easier. Don’t forget about this thing. Here’s a resource that could help frame it through the lens of, I know you’ve got this problem. Here’s something that can help. so problem centric post. The reason that these build relationships is very similar to the tutorial post you are sharing.

It’s not always necessarily actionable content that you’re sharing with them, but you are sharing in a way that says, I get it. I know what you’re struggling with. And because I know what you’re struggling with, I can help you. And when someone feels seen, when they feel understood and they feel like you can help them, you’re gonna be able to build that relationship with them.

They’re gonna be much more likely to say, Ooh, , I’m gonna comment on this because I enjoy this. I’m going to, respond to that story because I, I, I resonate with this so much, and here’s the thing, a key part of relationship building content marketing, not even key, the most important part of relationship building content marketing is having some sort of call to action that invites them further and then responding.

if they do the work to take it a step further, meet them there. If they respond to your story, respond back. If they respond to a poll, send them a message. If they, and I’m not saying send them a salesy message. Just keep it simple. Keep, oh yeah. I struggle with that too. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I’ve been there. I I’ve done that.

Respond and meet them there though. If you ask them to comment, reply to their comment, if you ask them to share, thank them for sharing, whatever it is that your call to action is, if they take that step, you need to meet them there. That is the most important part of relationship building content marketing.

You have to actually build a relationship. It’s not enough just to put the content out there and then leave. So I’m gonna go back through those three categories and then the nine different posts. Tutorial posts, personal post and problem centric posts. Those are the three categories. And then the nine different types of posts are X ways to do a thing, give them different ways that they can take action on something.

Number two X steps to achieve an outcome. Give them a step by step plan of action number three. Give them a tip or two. Just give tips of, Hey, try this, try this, try this. Number four, pull back the curtain post. These are typically deeper, heavier, a little more vulnerable. A look at this is something I struggled with in the past.

Here’s something that has been on my heart. I don’t want you to struggle with the same thing, or I want you to know that you’re not alone. Number five introduction posts, give ’em some fun facts that they can connect with. And number six, just post about those things that make you, you, and that you want people to connect in their mind with you.

So for me, I post about my cats all the time. I am a crazy cat lady, 100%. Absolutely. And that is something that people connect me with. Right? So post central centered around those things, number six, share a story of when you struggled with the same problem that your audience has, the problem that you can solve.

Remember. Number seven, share a story about a client struggling with that problem. So you’ve shared about your own story. You’ve now shared about a client story. I think I’ve lost my number in here. Last one. I think I messed that up somewhere, but the last one is to share something they need to know about the thing that they struggle with.

So maybe that is a tip. Maybe that’s a resource. Maybe that’s a. before you can even solve this, you need to solve this kind of thing, whatever that may look like. Those are the nine different posts that you can start putting out there that will help you build a relationship with your audience. Remember to take it that step further though, include a call to action.

And when they take action, meet them there. Now your action step for this episode this week is to take a moment and brainstorm ideas for each of these post categories and types of posts. I would love to see how many posts that you can set a timer for 30 minutes and just go to town. Don’t sensor yourself.

Just write there’s no such thing as a bad idea in the brainstorming phase okay. . So just sit down and think about how many different posts you can create for each of these different types of posts. Each of these categories, I would love it, DM me after you’re done.

And let me know how many you came up with. And then this week’s book recommendation is The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth. This book is full of twists and turns. it was a, it was a lot, there was a lot of twist and turns in this. So it’s a, it’s a thriller surrounding two grown twin sisters and their relationship, including just how far they’ll go for each other and how far they will not, I’m gonna leave it at that.

But if you like the thrillers, it, and it’s not a. It’s not a scary thriller, I guess it’s more of a psycho thriller, an unreliable narrative type book. but if you like those, definitely check out The Good Sister. Bye Sally Heworth. And until next time, I hope that you will go out and Uncomplicate your life and biz?