How to Create Social Media Content That Helps Convert Followers Into Customers

Social media marketing is easy right? You post on LinkedIn every now and again and someone on your team remembers to update Facebook most weeks.
However you’re finding that your social media presence isn’t supporting actual business results. The posts go up, maybe get a few likes, you see some traffic spikes to your website then… nothing.

Sound familiar?

You’re not alone. Recent surveys show around half of B2B marketers say social media is effective for driving awareness and top‑of‑funnel demand. Many small business owners though are posting content that looks active without it truly working for them.

The good news is that you don’t need a bigger budget or a dedicated marketing team to fix this. You just need a smarter approach to what you’re posting and where you’re posting it.

Step 1: Answer the questions your customers are asking

Looking into the week’s marketing activities for most businesses, I often see that the social content starts with “What should we post this week?”

Rather than asking this, instead, try this question: “What did multiple customers ask us about this month?”

When three different clients ask you the same question, there lies a golden content opportunity. It means there’s a gap in your market’s understanding, and filling that gap is how you become the obvious expert in your space.

Think about it this way: Research suggests B2B buyers typically consume anywhere from 3–7 up to around 13 pieces of content before making a purchase decision. Your job isn’t to sell to them in every post, but rather be one of those 13 helpful pieces of content they remember.

How to spot content in your daily work

It’s true that your best social media ideas are already sitting in your inbox, your call notes, and your team conversations. Here’s how to capture them:

Set up a simple system: Create a shared document (a Google Doc works perfectly) where your team can drop questions they hear from customers. Review it once a month. Those repeated questions? That’s your content calendar, already validated by real people with real problems.

Look for patterns:

• If you’re a software company and three clients asked “How do we migrate data without downtime?” this month, that’s your next LinkedIn post.
• If you run a consultancy and keep explaining the same regulation change, turn that explanation into a post.
• If your sales team keeps hearing “We tried this before and it didn’t work,” address that objection publicly.

Step 2: Get your team involved (it’s easier than you think)

Studies of employee advocacy programmes show employee‑shared content can generate around 8x more engagement than posts from a brand’s official page.

Eight times more engagement. From the same post.

Why? Because people trust people more than they trust brands. When your team shares content from their personal profiles, it reaches their networks, who are likely full of potential customers, partners, and referrers you’d never reach through your company page alone.

This isn’t about turning your team into influencers though or forcing them to post constantly, it’s about making it easy for them to amplify your message when they want to.

How to make employee sharing work

Create a monthly content bank

Put together 8-12 pre-written posts each month that anyone on your team can share. Make them easy to personalise so they can add their own intro, adjust the wording, or share their own take.

Make it voluntary, not mandatory

Studies have shown that roughly three‑quarters of social media managers said employee advocacy programmes help build brand awareness, but only when people actually want to participate. Don’t force it, instead make it appealing by creating content that makes your team look good to their own networks.

Focus on value, not promotion

Your Operations Director sharing “Here’s how we solved a complex logistics problem this week” gets engagement. Your team sharing “Buy our services” does not.

Step 3: Match your content format to what works on each platform

You can write the most insightful post in the world, but if you’re using the wrong format for the platform, hardly anyone will see it.
Social media algorithms aren’t neutral. They have preferences and understanding what each platform rewards right now can make a massive difference to your results.

What’s working on each platform in 2026

LinkedIn

Recent benchmarks put LinkedIn’s average engagement rate for business accounts at around 6.5%, which is high compared with most major networks, but what you post matters as much as where you post.

• Carousels work brilliantly for educational content and step-by-step guides
• Text-only posts (under 150 words) perform well for hot takes and quick insights
• Short videos (under 90 seconds) work for case studies and showing results

Instagram

• Reels are still king for reach and engagement
• Carousels work for listicles and visual storytelling
• Stories are perfect for timely updates and behind-the-scenes content

Facebook

• Video content still outperforms static posts
• Community-focused posts (questions, polls) drive engagement
• Local updates work particularly well if your business serves a specific area

YouTube

YouTube Shorts has the highest engagement rate of all short-form video platforms at 5.91%. If you’re creating video content, YouTube deserves serious consideration.

TikTok

TikTok With a 5.75% engagement rate, TikTok works if your audience is there. It rewards authentic, unpolished content and educational material that doesn’t feel like a lecture.

How to use this information

Don’t feel pressure to be on every platform or try every format. Instead:

• Pick the platform where your customers actually spend time (more on this in Step 4)
• Test one new format per month on that platform
• If carousels get 3x the engagement of your usual posts, do more carousels
• Let your results guide your content format, not your personal preferences

Step 4: Choose the right Social platform for your business

Around 9 in 10 B2B marketers say they use LinkedIn for lead generation, and roughly 6 in 10 say it directly produces leads for them. But that doesn’t automatically make it the right choice for your business.

Your platform choice shouldn’t be based on what’s trendy or what everyone else is doing. It should answer one simple question: where do your potential customers spend time when they’re thinking about the problems you solve?

How to figure out which platform to focus on

The simplest approach? Ask your recent customers.
Review your last 5-10 customers and find out how they discovered you:

• If most say “I saw your LinkedIn content,” you’ve got your answer
• If they say “Someone recommended you in a Facebook group,” that’s where you should be active
• If they found you through Google, your content strategy should focus on SEO and potentially YouTube

A Quick Platform guide

LinkedIn

Best for: B2B services, professional audiences, businesses with longer sales cycles
Multiple studies report that well over 80% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn as part of their social media strategy, making it both competitive and productive for commercial services. If you’re selling to other businesses, especially at the management or director level, LinkedIn is likely your best bet.

Instagram

Best for: Visual industries (design, food, fashion, interiors), lifestyle businesses, B2C brands targeting younger audiences
If what you do is visual or lifestyle-adjacent, Instagram’s format works in your favour.

Facebook

Best for: Local businesses, community services, reaching audiences aged 35+, referral-driven industries
Don’t write off Facebook. It still has massive reach, particularly for local businesses and service providers who rely on community recommendations.

YouTube

Best for: Complex products that need explaining, educational services, establishing thought leadership
Around three‑quarters of B2B marketers now use video in their campaigns. If your product or service benefits from demonstration or detailed explanation, YouTube’s long-form format can work brilliantly.

TikTok

Best for: Consumer brands, younger audiences (under 40), businesses comfortable with casual, authentic content
TikTok works when your customers are there and when you can embrace its informal, personality-driven style.

What if you’re already on the wrong platform?

If you’ve been posting religiously on Instagram but your customers all come from LinkedIn, it’s okay to shift your focus. You don’t have to abandon Instagram completely, just redirect most of your energy to where it’ll drive results.
Better to post twice a week on the platform that matters than daily on one that doesn’t.

Step 5: Build a simple content system (not a daily scramble)

Most small businesses struggle with social media because they treat it like a daily task instead of a monthly system.
The successful approach isn’t posting every single day, but instead having a process that produces consistent, relevant content without requiring you to think “what should we post?” every morning.

The important bit is consistency matters far more than frequency. One post per week, every week, will deliver better results than four posts one week followed by radio silence for a month.

Start with what you can realistically maintain

If you’re just getting started or running a lean team, don’t feel pressured to post multiple times per week. Start with what you can actually sustain:

• One post per week? That’s 52 pieces of valuable content per year. Pick your day, make it useful, and be consistent.
• Two or three posts per week? Great, but only if you can keep it up for months, not just weeks.
• More than that? Brilliant, but make sure it’s not at the expense of quality or your team’s bandwidth.

A simple monthly system

Here’s a lightweight approach that works regardless of how often you post:

Once a month (1-2 hours):

• Review your “questions customers asked” document from Step 1
• Identify 3-4 themes that came up repeatedly
• Create your posts for the month (whether that’s 4 posts or 16)
• Schedule them using a free tool like Buffer, Hootsuite, or Meta Business Suite

Each week (30 minutes):

• Respond to comments on your posts
• Comment on 5-10 relevant posts in your industry
• Share something valuable from someone else

Every quarter (1 hour):

• Review what’s working: which posts drove engagement? Which led to enquiries?
• Adjust your approach based on actual performance, not guesswork

Balance your content types

Over time, aim for a mix that positions you as credible, helpful, and human:

• Authority content – Your expert opinion on industry trends and developments
• Educational content – Practical how-tos, frameworks, and tips your audience can use
• Personal content – Behind-the-scenes, lessons learned, team moments

The exact ratio depends on what resonates with your audience. If case studies drive enquiries, do more of those. If thought leadership posts get the most traction, lean into that. Let your performance data guide your content mix.

You’re Ready to Polish your social media marketing

Social media doesn’t need to be complicated or time-consuming, but it should be strategic.
To achieve real results from your social presence you don’t need to spend hours every day on it. Spend your time more effectively:

• Answer real questions from real customers
• Let your team amplify your message
• Use formats that work on the platforms that matter
• Build a simple system that doesn’t require daily creative energy

Start small. Pick the one change from this guide that feels most achievable:

• Maybe it’s setting up that “customer questions” document
• It could be testing carousels on LinkedIn for the first time
• Maybe it’s asking your last five customers how they found you
• Or scheduling two weeks of content in one sitting

You don’t have to overhaul everything at once. One improvement, done consistently, will get you further than trying to change everything and burning out in three weeks.
And if you’d like help building a social content approach that fits your business, not just a template copied from someone else, we have a team that have worked with dozens of SMEs to do exactly that. Get in touch, and we’ll show you what’s working for businesses like yours.