Recent Facebook algorithm changes mean organic content isn’t reaching as many people as it once did. Brands and businesses are now rethinking the way they post and the kind of content they promote. Need digital content ideas for your brand? Read on!

Key retail periods like Christmas, Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day are prime opportunities to create digital content ideas for your brand and increase engagement through social media.

But when these periods are over, what about the rest of the year?

How we do it

At Whitewall, we spend a lot of time creating digital content ideas. Whether it’s National Stationery Week, the Royal Wedding or International Kindness Week, we’ll know about it.

First, we think about what would work best with our audiences. Is it geographically relevant to roll out portfolio-wide? What are British Land’s goals, and what are the centre’s? Our experience allows us to implement ideas with minimal effort and cost to our clients, so you can be sure you’re getting the most from your budgets.

Here’s a couple of examples…

National Dog Day

To celebrate National Dog Day we ran a competition on nine sites to win a £10 Poundland voucher (donated by the retailer). To win, customers simply uploaded a photo of their dog on the social post.

The remainder of the portfolio had a website piece with an RSPCA approved pup-cake recipe that customers could make at home.

A total of 984 pup pics were received, reaching nearly 100k people with an average engagement rate of 3% on Facebook. The total campaign reached nearly 130k people on Facebook, and 7.5k on Twitter with 1.6% average engagement.

Key learnings:

• Low value prizes do generate engagement
• Photo sharing mechanics are popular with customers
• Pets are a great source of engagement – especially when customers can share photos of their own!

Roald Dahl Day

To celebrate Roald Dahl Day and to encourage footfall, we organised a golden ticket hunt in 17 centres. Customers had to find the hidden golden ticket and take a selfie for the chance to win a Roald Dahl book.

The campaign was supported on social with some fun Roald Dahl inspired video content. In total we reached over 120k people on Facebook alone, and an additional 14k on Twitter.

Key learnings:

• Centre teams need to be engaged in campaigns that involve a physical element
• People prefer to share photos of something rather than selfies – most people uploaded a photo of the ticket rather than of themselves
• A longer time frame needs to be considered for campaigns that involve customers visiting the site

How you can do it

There are hundreds of opportunities throughout the year to create digital content ideas for your brand

Whether it’s a National Pizza Day (an opportunity to run a competition in conjunction with pizza restaurants), an event such as the London Marathon (the chance to promote and giveaway running shoes) or simply a Bank Holiday weekend (a good time to giveaway picnic items or outdoor games), there are opportunities every month for engagement.

Our top tips for getting inspired…

• First port of call should be your Whitewall account manager. They will advise on the best mechanic for your idea and help you roll this out digitally.
• Identify what you want to achieve. Greater social reach and engagement? Increased footfall? An increase in database numbers? This will determine how your campaign will roll out.
• Get retailers involved and encourage them to donate prizes for competitions which will help drive footfall and engagement.
• Keep an eye out for what competitors and other brands are doing, what’s trending on Twitter or being sold in supermarkets – keep a calendar which can be amended each year.