Most small business owners don’t lack things to say. You answer questions all week: from clients, from people who have just found you, from the person who rings to check one small detail before they commit. The trouble is that none of that ever makes it online, because there is no time to sit down and turn it into a post.
The good news is that a useful post is simpler than most people think. It is a plain answer to a question a customer has actually asked, written in the words you would use across a counter. This article shows where to find those questions and how to turn each one into a short post.
Start with a question someone has really asked
You do not need to invent topics. Your own business is already full of them. Look in these places first:
- Your sent emails. Search for the replies where you explained something at length. If you wrote it once for one person, others probably wonder the same thing.
- Your enquiry form and inbox. The first message from a new customer often contains the exact question that made them get in touch.
- Things you repeat. If you have given the same explanation three times this month, that is a post.
- Questions people ask at the start of a job. What they want to know before they decide is what other people want to know too.
Pick one question. Just one. A post that tries to answer three things ends up answering none of them well.
Answer it the way you would across a counter
Imagine the person is standing in front of you. You would not open with a speech about your company. You would answer. That is the whole method:
- Use the question as it was asked. If a customer wrote “Do I need to be there while the work is done?”, use that wording rather than a tidied-up version.
- Give the answer in the first sentence or two. Readers decide quickly whether to carry on, so give them the useful part straight away.
- Add one detail that only someone with experience would know. This is what makes a post sound like you. It might be the thing people usually get wrong, or the point where “it depends” actually depends.
- Stop. A few short paragraphs is enough. If there is more to say, that is the next post.
- Give one next step. A single, low-pressure invitation is plenty.
Here is how it might look in different businesses. A consultancy might take “How do I know if I need outside help with this?” A trades business might take “How long will it really take?” A clinic might take “What should I expect at my first appointment?” In each case the answer comes from what you already know. Nobody needs to be impressed. They need to be helped.
A quick check before you publish
Read the post back and ask: could someone act on this, or understand something they didn’t before? If yes, it is useful. If it only tells people how good you are, go back to the question and answer it more directly.
The real obstacle is time, not ideas
Once you know where the questions are, the next problem appears at once. Finding one, writing it, finding a graphic and posting it takes longer than it looks, and the week fills up. So the posts stop, and then restart in a burst, and then stop again.
That is the problem YorDigital Presence is built for. One finished post and graphic arrives by email each morning. You read it between other things. If it is right, you reply “yes” and it is published. If it is not, you reply “no, because it’s too long” or “no, because we’d never put it like that”, and a better version comes back. Over time it learns from those replies, so you spend less effort each week, not more.
We run it on YorDigital’s own social pages first, before anyone else gets it, and the same approach already produces daily social content for an estate agency. We have no customer results to quote yet. What we can say is that the work gets done every morning rather than depending on someone finding a spare hour.
A simple way to start this week
Even without any help, you can begin today. Open your sent emails, find the last question a customer asked that you answered well, and write the answer as a short post. Keep the customer’s wording, put the answer first and add the one detail only you would know. Then do it again next week with the next question.
If you would rather have that done for you, with the decision reduced to a one-word reply, that is what we are building.
See how it works at yordigital.com/products/presence.