If you’re a business owner or social media strategist, you’ll know that content never stops! To boost your organic visibility, build a loyal following, and drive sales, you need to post consistently across your social media channels. But all this posting requires time, effort, and conscious social media planning, making it very possible that you’ll experience creative block at some point.
Coming up with fresh content ideas, unique angles, and interesting campaigns is easier said than done. While it’s one thing to jump on a social media trend, creating engaging content that resonates with your audience and remains relevant to your business can be difficult.
If you’ve found yourself stuck or grappling with creative block recently, know that it doesn’t have to get in the way of your social media planning. With these helpful tips and tricks, we’ll cover everything from its causes to how you can combat it to ensure you have a surplus of creative ideas to draw from. Let’s dive in!
What causes creative block in social media planning?
You’ve got a long list of thought starters, but no campaign ideas spring to mind. The more you look at them, the more frustrated you become, losing all sense of motivation as you struggle to see your ideas come to life. So, you decide to go back to the drawing board only to find yourself staring down a blank page, devoid of all inspiration and creative genius.
Creative block might look different for everyone, but this feeling of exasperation is universal. Here are some reasons you might be suffering creative block in your social media planning.
You don’t have a clear social media strategy in place
Every business needs a social media strategy to help you understand what goals you’re working towards and how you’ll reach them using social media marketing. With a strategy in place, you’ll have your broad content themes and pillars mapped out, giving you an abundance of ideas to stop creative block in its tracks.
Take the example from Fenty Beauty, whose Reel showcasing a customer finding her perfect shade of concealer is both educational and relatable for audiences looking to discover the makeup range themselves.
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You don’t know what content resonates with your ideal audience
When it comes to creating content, your audience should always be front and centre. And the best way to track this is by diving into your social media analytics.
Using Plann’s free Instagram analytics, you can pinpoint your highest and lowest performing posts to understand the content themes, formats and even color palettes that resonate with your audience. Then, you can use these to inspire your next content ideas!
You don’t know where to look for inspiration
Inspiration can come from anywhere if you know where to look for it. Keeping an eye on your competitors and industry leaders will help illuminate the trends in your industry. Your long-form content (like blogs, podcasts and lead magnets) are also filled with content ideas that you can repurpose on social media.
It’s important to remember that inspiration can come from many different sources—even those outside of your industry.
Consider the example from the sexual wellness brand Love Honey, which immediately took the trending image of Miley Cyrus from the Grammys and created a carousel of memes that reflect the brand’s cheeky tone of voice and product range. In just 24 hours, the post clocked up more than 2.5k likes and 41 comments, boosting the brand’s visibility across socials and engagement with its audience.
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5 practical ways to combat creative block during social media planning
If you’re struggling to consistently post or create content due to creative block, you’re not alone. Try these practical tips to combat creative block, no matter what part of the planning process you find yourself stuck with!
1. Plan your social media content pillars in advance
Planning out your content pillars in advance will help give you a scaffold to work with when it comes to content creation and campaign ideas. By using a tool like Plann’s visual content planner and strategy building blocks, you’ll have a clear direction for where you want your brand to go, helping you better create content that sees you achieve these goals.
2. Scope out your competitors and find gaps in the content they’re posting
Keeping up-to-date with what your competitors are posting on social media and how they use the platform is important for any business owner. Not only does it give you an insight into what resonates with your target audience, but you can also learn from the posts that are working well and those that aren’t.
Things to consider when analyzing your competitors include:
- How frequently do they post?
- What type of content generates the highest engagement?
- What social media platforms do they use?
For instance, if you see a competitor with a big following that focuses primarily on Instagram, you can seize the opportunity to post more on TikTok and Facebook to capitalize on this untapped opportunity.
3. Repurpose your long-form content like a pro
Just like you can gain inspiration from competitors and other creatives, so too can you seek inspiration from yourself. You may be stuck on ideas, but repurposing old content can help you overcome creative block and refocus your attention.
When it comes to repurposing content, consider how you can make it relevant to audiences now or transform it for a different platform. This could look like repurposing an Instagram carousel into a Facebook post, turning a long-form blog post into an infographic that can easily be shared on Instagram, or cross-posting a Reel on Instagram to TikTok.
Along with granting you the ease of posting consistently across your social media platforms, repurposing old content allows you to redirect your time towards thinking of new ideas. Take the cooking platform Mob as an example, which repurposes recipes on its website to Instagram as a Reel or YouTube as a longer tutorial.
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4. Use GenAI to quickly brainstorm new ideas
Generative AI has its pros and cons, but it can be a great tool to assist with brainstorming new ideas. Whether it’s coming up with content ideas surrounding public holidays or events like International Women’s Day or coming up with witty captions that resonate with audiences and utilise trending hashtags, AI programs like ChatGPT can inform your content by giving you a springboard for ideas and help save you time.
Consider using a feature like Plann’s AI caption generator tool to help you overcome creative block when captioning your content. If you’re stuck on the wording for a post or unsure how you can create a compelling call-to-action that inspires your audience to engage with your content, this feature can save you time and energy.
5. Harness practical resources and done-for-you content calendars
Consistent posting across social media platforms can be an intimidating task. From coming up with creative content ideas to staying abreast of social media holidays and keeping tabs on trends, showing up consistently can feel like a struggle month after month.
If it all feels a bit overwhelming, the good news is that there are a number of practical resources and tools available to streamline your social media planning – just look at Plann’s monthly done-for-you content calendars. With daily post ideas serving as inspiration, along with caption starters, repurposing tips and Canva templates to make your own, we’re making content creation easy and efficient.
Beat creative block on social media with Plann
Creative block can strike anyone at any time, but as we’ve outlined, there are a number of ways you can beat it and stay on track to grow your business on social media. Even so, if you’re struggling to come up with ideas that allow you to post consistently, Plann is here to help.
From a visual content planner to AI-generated captions and more, Plann’s range of features and tools will ensure you’re never pressed for ideas when it comes to your social media planning.
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