How to Create Content for Social Media: A Simple 6-Step Guide

Creating content on social media can be powerful, both for businesses and aspiring creators — but it can be tough to figure out where to begin.

You’re hemming and hawing over which social media platforms you should be on, which content creation tools you should use, and building a social media content strategy. It’s all too…overwhelming. Where do you even start?

As it happens, right here.

We've created this guide to be a one-stop shop: your action plan to start, scale, and maintain your social media content creation.

Content formats and the social platforms that support it

Before we get down to business, you must know which social media network supports what content formats. There are broadly four types of social media content:

• Text posts are simply written content on social media. You can type your social media content and hit publish. Here’s an example:

• Image posts are single images or carousels (a collection of image posts in a single social media post). These can be graphics, testimonials, selfies, photo dumps, etc. Here’s an example:

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A post shared by Buffer (@buffer)

• Video posts are Short-form videos or long-form videos depending on their length. Here’s an example:

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A post shared by Buffer (@buffer)

Most social media channels contain multiple types of content formats. You can mix and match them to get the best reach and engagement. Here’s a quick table showing what content formats are available on the major platforms:

Social media network

Text posts

Image posts

Video posts

Instagram

❌

✅

✅

TikTok

✅

✅

✅

YouTube*

✅

✅

✅

X (formerly Twitter)

✅

✅

✅

LinkedIn

✅

✅

✅

Pinterest

❌

✅

✅

Facebook

✅

✅

✅

Threads

✅

✅

✅

Bluesky

✅

✅

✅

Mastodon

✅

✅

✅

🗒️Note: YouTube contains text, image, and interactive social media posts only in the YouTube community posts.

You’ll notice most social media channels contain nearly all content formats. That’s a good thing! You can create content that’s easy and fun for you. 

But remember, some networks are primarily focused on one format. For example, TikTok has the option of image and text posts, but it’s still primarily a short-form video platform. You could technically build a community using only carousels and text-based posts, but it’s going to be tough. 

It’s worthwhile getting familiar with  the algorithms of different social media platforms to understand which content formats they prefer. Here’s our guide to the Instagram algorithm, TikTok algorithm, YouTube algorithm, LinkedIn algorithm, and the Threads algorithm to get you started. 

Do your homework: 5 things to do before you start social media content creation

Starting social media content creation without getting your basics right is like building a house on an uneven piece of land. You need to do the following five tasks to create a useful social media strategy.

1. Deeply understand your target audience

Understanding your target audience deeply is crucial not just for social media marketing but for your overall business — whether you’re a creator or a small business owner.

You should have an in-depth idea of your audience’s problem areas and how your product, services, or content can help resolve it — better than your competitors. For social media, you should know three primary things:

• Which social channels your audience prefers. Studying the user demographics can give you a good idea of which social platforms your potential customers use. Look beyond age — also notice the gender distribution, if a certain social channel is more popular in your niche, etc.
• How they behave on social media. Your audience might be on LinkedIn and TikTok and use both very differently. They might prefer more entertaining and trending content on TikTok, but hunt for educational content on LinkedIn. Similarly, they might prefer written content on LinkedIn but video content on TikTok. This information can help you create social media content based on your audience preferences.
• What they expect from creators like yours on social media. You can create impeccable social media content all day, but your audience might still scroll away if you don’t know their expectations. Let’s say you create content around curly hair care. Your community might expect you to elaborate on how to maintain curls, which products to use, and other educational info — but you’re creating funny social media content around the struggles of curly hair. The type of content you’re creating is important, too, and has its place. But you need to satisfy your audience’s expectations first.

Where do you get this information about your target audience? Audience research tools like SparkToro can help, but the best way is to speak to your audience. Participate in private communities, see what questions your audience is asking in your comments and DMs, and practice social listening.

And don’t worry if you don’t have everything figured out about your audience with 100 percent certainty. Audience engagement on social media will teach you a lot about your target audience and their expectations of you. The more content you share, the more you’ll get to grips with what will resonate with your audience.

2. Understand the unique culture of your chosen social media platforms

When TikTok was briefly banned in the U.S., experts like Rachel Karten reminded people about its unique culture. While short-form video as a content type is also available on other social channels, like Instagram, TikTok has a different ‘vibe’ than Instagram.

yes, there are other places to post short form videos. but not enough people talking about the culture of tiktok and how that's not as easy to transfer as some might think.

— Rachel Karten (@milkkarten) January 17, 2025

This is because of audience preferences and differences in algorithms. Some social media channels are conversation-starters, others are for goofing around, and some are prominent in new brand discovery. Each platform has its place.

When you choose a social media platform to build your audience as a creator, or practice social media marketing, understand the ins and outs of the specific culture of that social channel. How? By spending lots of time on it as a consumer.

• Understand what the algorithm puts front and center for you and dissect why
• Read comments on the posts you like to witness what other people are saying
• Keep an eye out for platform updates and see which types of posts get the most engagement

Knowing the above will help you build a social media presence that fits the platform perfectly. You’ll understand general audience expectations better and create the kind of content your audience expects.

3. Set tangible and achievable social media goals

Social media content creation is just guesswork if you don’t know the purpose behind it. Why do you want to create social media content? Maybe it's to increase brand awareness or build a personal brand. Whatever it is, ensure you create social media content that helps you achieve those goals.

Two things to remember while setting objectives:

• Your social media goals should help you achieve larger business objectives. Social media doesn’t work in a silo. Use it as a means to achieve your larger goals. Let’s say your business goal for the quarter is to improve website traffic. Your social media content creation should work toward achieving this goal. If you’re a creator selling digital products, your social media efforts should work in that direction to increase sales for them.
• Make your social media goals measurable and time-bound. Instead of aiming to “increase engagement,” try setting more specific goals that can be measured using a metric. For instance, you can aim to increase your engagement rate by 20% in one month. Choose key metrics you want to keep an eye on to measure success. Tying your goals around tangible metrics gives you an idea of what success looks like. And if you’re a social media manager, you can also present these results to stakeholders.

Setting social media goals will help you focus your attention in the right place and create content that helps you meet those objectives.

💡Learn more: 9 Social Media Goals You Can Set for Your Business (and How to Track Them)4. Analyze your competitors

Doing a competitive analysis can help you identify content gaps and how you can fill them — and this step isn’t just for businesses, either. Creators can really benefit from understanding what works for creators in their niches, too. More on this below.

Go to your core competitors’ social media profiles and evaluate:

• Which kinds of posts engage audiences the most? Maybe you notice short videos outperform carousel posts for most of your competitors. Or perhaps you find a pattern where behind the scenes content is a major hit for all your competitors.
• What kinds of comments does the audience leave on your competitors’ posts? This is where you can leverage content gaps. For example, if you notice most audience questions are about a particular topic in your niche that your competitor hasn’t addressed, you can create content around it. You’ve got proof that your audience wants to know more about it.
• What’s your competitors' social media content strategy? Examine your competition’s social media profiles across various networks to see how often they post, what content formats they stick to, and the engagements it’s getting them. This will help you create comparative reports and have a realistic yardstick for your own social media journey.

As I touched on above, competitor analysis isn't restricted to brands and businesses on social media. You can also use them as a creator. 

To start, narrow down a list of creators you aspire to be. Try to find patterns in their work: How do they click with their audience? What kinds of content gets them the most engagement? Do all the creators have the same kind of questions in their comments? Use your competitors’ work for inspiration and for audience analysis.

A competitive analysis is ultimately a subset of social listening — it helps you gain insights into your audience’s interests. Use it for research purposes and to identify content gaps. But don’t let a competing social media strategy be the reason you shift your goals and plans. Let your competitors’ work inspire and guide yours, rather than shape it. 

5. Choose a set of content creation tools and social media management software

Consistent content creation is no walk in the park. You need all the help you can get to create compelling content. Usually, this includes two kinds of tools:

Social media tools like Buffer to help you schedule posts in advance, track metrics to analyze campaign performance, and maintain a content calendar.

Content creation tools like Canva for graphics or video editing software like CapCut. These are tools that help turn your rough content ideas into social media friendly versions easily.

Source: CapCut

Choose the tools you’re most comfortable with before you start social media content creation. This will ensure you work more efficiently and don’t have to pause your content creation in the middle to hunt for the right software.

How to create content on social media in 6 steps

Now that you’ve solidified the foundations of social media marketing, it’s time to start opening that blank canvas and creating content.

Set content pillars (or use the MP3 framework)

Content pillars are essentially the core topics you will post about on your social media. For example, if you’re a career coach, your pillars can be:

• Networking
• Acing interviews
• Building resumes

These are the primary topics you’ll post about — as a part of your social media niche. The goal of these content pillars is to ensure you never run out of valuable content ideas. If you know your audience well, content topics will flow easily into one of your content pillar buckets.

Now, how do you choose your content pillars? It’s an overlap between your audience’s expectations, niche, and social media goals.

Many people often find the content pillars restrictive. An alternative could be Erica Schneider’s MP3 framework. She suggests a three-prong approach instead:

• Market the problem: Your social media content creation should involve doubling down on your audience’s problem. Think: What keeps my buyers up at night? What nags them in the middle of the day? Create content around these problems.
• Market the process: This is the behind-the-scenes of your own business. How do you help your audience solve the problem they struggle with? How did you come up with this solution?
• Market the proof: Share the evidence to build trust. How have your existing buyers fared after trying your solution? This includes case studies, testimonials, visual content showing social proof, etc.

Source: Erica Schneider

Content pillars and the MP3 framework can also work together to help you brainstorm content ideas and craft compelling content for your audience.

When you come up with your core content topics, remember you need to keep an ear out for emerging trends on the topic. For example, if one of your content pillars is technology, you need to keep up with the rapid developments of that world. Doing this will help you create a content mix of evergreen and trending content.

Step 2: Repurpose your existing content for social media

Repeat after me: You don’t always need to create social media content from scratch. Repurposing the content you already have is the lowest-hanging fruit. That’s where you should begin.

• Do you have a blog? Convert your blog post into multiple posts and spread it out on your content calendar.
• Do you have a podcast or webinar? Cut out snippets and repurpose them into short videos or audio clips.
• Do you share a newsletter consistently? Revamp old content from it into carousels.
• Do you have a research report? Convert your own data into a shareable infographic for social media.

I could go on. Repurposing should not stop even when you have a full-fledged social media strategy. It allows you to double down on successful content and reach more audiences with a single piece of content. Colin and Samir are a great example: They regularly repurpose their video podcast into Instagram Reels.

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A post shared by Colin and Samir (@colinandsamir)

Start by repurposing your most successful pieces of content. If a blog post has ranked at the top in search engines, people are likely to hear about that topic on social media, too.

After that, bake repurposing into your marketing strategy as a whole. Repurpose every piece of content you create into various content formats for social media to get the best reach possible.

💡Learn more: How to Get the Most Out of Every Piece of Content You CreateStep 3: Schedule time to create content

Content batching is when you create content in advance for social media. You decide your content topics and script one day, get ready and shoot videos the next day, and edit them a third day (or on the same day).

Content batching is useful because if you rely on willpower to create social media content daily, you’ll never stick to it for the long term. Plus: Social media content creation requires deep focus. It’s best (and easier!) to get in the flow and continue creating when you’re already in the zone.

How far in advance should you schedule posts? A week is the perfect amount of time for most niches. If you create content in advance for longer than a week, you risk creating irrelevant content. Not to mention: A week’s worth of posts is a lot on your creative muscles. You need some rejuvenation before you can go at it again.

What if inspiration strikes you randomly (as it usually does)? Store it in your notes app or even better, in Buffer’s Ideas tab. This way, you already have a list of post ideas to work with when you sit to batch-create content.

⚡Pro-tip: Leave some room in your social media calendar for creating trending content. But otherwise, schedule posts in advance and see the magic of consistency yourself!

To help you, we’ve recently launched Streaks in Buffer to help you gamify consistent social media content creation. No better way to keep your motivation high!

Step 4: Collaborate with other creators on social media

The best way to instantly boost engagement is via social media collaborations. If you’re a creator yourself, find other content creators who share your target audience. Ask them if you can create a post together.

This will help you both reach new, targeted audiences. A great example is the collaboration between food creators Sadia Badiei and Nisha Vora.

If you’re a brand, influencer partnerships can help you gain your audience’s trust and reach new people at the same time. I loved this collaboration between Filmora and Sandra K.

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A post shared by Sandra K | Brand designer • Content Creator • Editor (@sandracreatess)

Social media collaborations nurture community building in the best way possible. You get in front of fresh faces and borrow the seal of trust of your collaborator.

Step 5: Engage with your audience and be receptive to their feedback

Social media is a two-way street. Pay attention to your audience’s comments, ask them for feedback, and be responsive to them publicly and in Direct Messages (DMs).

As a business, you’ll also find useful product feedback you can take to your stakeholders here. For example, skincare creator Aishwarya Kandpal shared an Instagram Story for Solved Labs requesting them to improve the packaging of their cleansing balm.

Every day, slot 15-30 minutes in your calendar to respond to social media queries, questions, and DMs.

Step 6: Adjust your strategy based on social media analytics

Once you start posting consistently, your social media analytics will tell you what your audience likes and dislikes — rooted in tangible numbers.

You can see if you’re reaching the right demographics, what kind of content is resonating the most with your audience, and how your existing month’s performance compares to your last month’s. Almost all social platforms have native insights, but if you use a social media tool like Buffer, you can gain insights like this in one place.

Not to mention: Buffer makes it really easy for you to answer pesky questions like the best time to post, the best type of post, and more — all for your account.

Try Buffer for freeSocial media content creation should be fun

The easiest way to stick to any form of social media schedule is to enjoy the process of content creation. If you enjoy content creation, engaging with your community, and spending time on a social platform, the whole process will become a fun challenge rather than a daunting task.

If you’re wondering where to begin, warm up your muscles on a platform you already use. Why? You’re already familiar with it and enjoy using it. It’ll be easy to create content here. You can move up to add more channels and gradually increase your posting frequency in the content calendar.

And remember: It gets harder before it gets easier. The first few times, social media content creation will take more time, energy, and resources than you anticipate. Stick to it! You’ll soon polish your skills and become more efficient. Pinky promise.