Megan Sharma's Blog: The Savvy Surgeon's Wife

150 social media post ideas to steal right now for your brand or business

4/26/2018

Anyone who creates social media content for a brand or business knows that content is king.

Anyone with social media marketing savvy also knows that it’s not a one-sided affair: the goal of social media is to engage with people (namely: your fans and customers).

To keep things interesting, I’ve created this ultimate cheat sheet of 150 social media post ideas that get the conversation rolling.

HR professionals and trainers may like to try these ideas as icebreakers or get-to-know-you prompts for meetings, trainings, and events.

Keep things polished by using Pablo by Buffer or Canva to create free images for your social media posts.

Any way you spin it, your social media calendar will be full in no time!

150 social media post ideas to steal right now for your brand or business

This or that

1. Coke or Pepsi?
2. Cats or dogs?
3. Coffee or tea?
4. Books or music?
5. Ice skates or roller blades?
6. Train, plane, or car?
7. Pie or cake?
8. Beach or mountains?
9. Procrastinate or get it done now?
10. Pancakes or waffles?
11. Morning person or night person?
12. Text or call?
13. Library or museum?
14. Summer or winter?
15. Spring or fall?
16. Chocolate or vanilla?
17. Rain or snow?
18. Comedy or drama?
19. Burger or hot dog?
20. Reading or writing?
21. Skiing or snowboarding?
22. Pool or ocean for swimming?
23. Sweet or salty?
24. Alaska or Hawaii?
25. Shower or bath?
26. Pasta or pizza?
27. Candy or chocolate?
28. Sleep or gym?
29. Scones or cinnamon rolls?
30. Eggs--scrambled, sunny side up, or fried?
31. Monopoly or Life?
32. Villain or superhero?
33. Milkshake or ice cream sundae?
34. Chipotle or Qdoba?
35. Cooking or takeout?
36. Swim with dolphins or sharks?
37. Rice or potatoes?
38. Beer or wine?
39. City or country?
40. Nachos or cheese fries?

Fill in the blank

41. The women who have most influenced me are _________
42. If I could go anywhere in the world right now, I would go to _________
43. The best way to relax after a long day is _________
44. _________always makes me feel inspired
45. The best afternoon snack is _________
46. I've lived in _________ cities in my life
47. I laugh every time I think about _________
48. _________ is the most annoying celebrity on the planet
49. _________is the best quality in a partner/mate
50. _________ always cheers me up
51. I just called (texted) to say _________
52. _________is the most hilarious person ever
53. _________ does NOT belong in a salad
54. I think children are _________
55. I have never _________
56. I love it when _________
57. My idea of beauty is _________
58. The most important decision I ever made was _________
59. There is nothing I enjoy more than _________
60. I really look up to _________

Playing favorites

61. Favorite quote?
62. Favorite food--the one you could eat any day of the week?
63. What is your all-time favorite movie?
64. Favorite ice cream flavor?
65. Favorite toppings to add to pizza?
66. Favorite comfort food?
67. Favorite 80s movie?
68. Favorite animated movie?
69. Favorite music artists?
70. Favorite sport to watch?
71. Favorite sport to play?
72. Favorite holiday?
73. What's your favorite dish to cook?
74. Favorite sports teams?
75. Favorite place to shop?

Blast from the past

76. Confess: who were your teenage celebrity crushes?
77. How long have you known your best friend, and how did you meet?
78. How did you keep in touch before the days of social media?
79. What's the most embarrassing thing you did in high school?
80. What's your favorite childhood memory?
81. As a teenager, how did you spend your summers?
82. What was your very first job?

Travel and leisure

83. What would you do on a 'stay-cation'?
84. What do you love most about travel?
85. What do you hate most about travel?
86. Do you have a passport? If so, what countries have you visited?
87. What's your favorite thing to do on a plane?
88. What's the best or craziest road trip you've ever been on?
89. What destination is your favorite (so far)?
90. What destination is on the top of your bucket list?
91. What can't you travel without?
92. When you travel, what do you miss most about home?
93. Which country has the friendliest people?
94. What's the longest you've ever been away from home?
95. How do you document your travels?
96. What's your top travel tip?
97. When you travel, do you follow a schedule or go with the flow?
98. Window or aisle seat?
99. What's the longest plane ride you've ever been on?

Reading

100. What are you reading right now?
101. What were some of your favorite books as a child?
102. What super popular book that everyone else loved did you seriously hate?
103. It's a day of the week that ends in 'day'. Are you reading?
104. Where do you most often find yourself reading (bed, bus, hammock, etc.)?
105. What are you typically wearing while reading?
106. What's your reaction when someone buys you a book?
107. Would you rather read the book or watch the movie adaptation?
108. What's your opinion on e-books vs. traditional paper books?
109. You are stranded on a desert island. Would you rather have a pocket knife or a huge stack of books?
110. What's your worst reading habit?
111. Who are some of your favorite fictional characters?
112. Who are your favorite authors?

Random questions

113. What is the strangest thing your purse or wallet right now?
114. Who is your celebrity doppelgänger (lookalike)?
115. Which TV family is most like your own?
116. What's the best compliment you've ever received?
117. If you had 3 magic wishes, what would they be? (let's skip 'money' and 'more wishes', shall we?)
118. Name a song that best reflects your current mood
119. Are you a lucky or unlucky person?
120. Confess: Do you sing in the shower?
121. Are you crafty? What's the coolest thing you've ever made?
122. What's your dream job?
123. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
124. Describe yourself in only 3 words

Have you ever...?

125. Been to Europe?
126. Ridden on a motorcycle?
127. Lived in another state?
128. Met a celebrity?
129. Been to a Disney park?
130. Planted a garden?
131. Run a marathon?
132. Climbed a mountain?
133. Ridden in a limousine?
134. Been through a natural disaster (earthquake, tornado, hurricane, wild fire, flood, etc.)?
135. Driven a riding lawn mower?
136. Spoken a second language?
137. Played a musical instrument?
138. Sang or danced in public?
139. Been on a college sports team?
140. Sang karaoke?
141. Driven a go kart?
142. Gone skydiving?
143. Gone bungee jumping?
144. Ridden in a helicopter?
145. Broken a bone?
146. Stayed up all night?
147. Been on the radio or on TV?
148. Helped someone who was in danger?
149. Laughed so hard you spit out your drink?
150. Won a contest?

What are your favorite social media post questions? Share them in the comments!

You may also like these blogs by Megan Sharma:
The newbie’s guide to optimizing blog SEO in 10 easy steps
Writing tips: What I want to blog about vs. what I actually blog about
Try this new, no-brainer social media tool to support an author: Thunderclap
It's Here! Get My Free E-Book: 100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks and more
Business Email Etiquette: 50 Things You Should Never Say in a Work Email
Writing Quiz: What Percent Writing Genius Are You?
On The Write Life: 18 Ways to Support an Author (Besides Buying Their Book)
On The Write Life: Get Inspired! 20 Writers to Follow on Twitter
Book cover design: How I developed a concept for my indie author book cover
On The Write Life: 17 Incredible Possibilities if Writers Ran The World
For writers: All your writing fears, squashed!
A real, imperfect day in the life of a writer: me
Boss baby: 22 traits shared by 2-year-olds and bad bosses
Writing tips: Cutting down on word fat and other newsletter best practices
Writing tips for email: In 30 seconds, this message will self-destruct
Public speaking tips: How to move your audience from callous to captivated

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Writing Quiz: What Percent Writing Genius Are You?

3/9/2018

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Today's blog post is an entertaining little quiz to test your writing and grammar skilllzzzz.

In only 10 short questions, you'll know exactly what percent writing genius you are.

Share it with your friends, compare stats, and earn bragging rights.

Good luck, and have fun!

PS - Feel free to share your quiz results (without the answers) in the comments!

Take the quiz:

Create your own user feedback survey

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The newbie’s guide to optimizing blog SEO in 10 easy steps

10/27/2017

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When I first started this blog in March 2014, frankly, I was completely clueless.

At the time, I was working full time as an IT Corporate Communications Manager and was looking for a creative outlet. I could literally feel the creative juices escaping my brain and being replaced by business jargon (which is another art form, of course).

Funny enough, it was the college intern I hired to help me write corporate intranet articles who inspired me to create my own web site and online writing portfolio.

I was blown away by the fact that she even had a web site, with impressive media clips, to boot – while still in journalism school.

So, I built this web site as my digital portfolio, and launched my blog as part of it.

All I knew was that I wanted the freedom to write about whatever I wanted. The rest came with research, experience, and a knock-your-socks-off blogging course.

I’ve written this blog to help other newbies who may be struggling to get traffic to their blog, or who simply don’t understand blog SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

The following are ten straightforward blog SEO tips to increase traffic and your ranking (essentially, where you fall in Google search results).

The newbie’s guide to optimizing blog SEO in 10 easy steps

1. Determine the best keywords to use. First things first: you need to know what keywords people are using to search on subjects related to yours. Get ideas on Soovle or ubersuggest—plug in potential keywords and observe what word combinations are most popular.

2. Choose the right headline. When selecting your blog headline, incorporate your SEO keywords. You will also want to sprinkle it into your opening paragraph, in a subheading, and within the body content. Try to make it flow naturally.

3. Go for a straightforward title. Don’t go all ‘play on words’ or little-known pop culture reference in your blog title. Your title should be concrete and specific. For example:

Do this: Seattle travel guide: 10 most romantic hotels in the Emerald City
NOT this: Keep the love alive in the Emerald City

4. Images are key. Pair your blog with at least one image, preferably several interspersed throughout the text to keep interest and create white space. The main header image should include the title of the blog to make your content more sharable, and more likely to be seen.

5. Create your own high-quality graphics for free. You can use free tools from Canva and Pablo to design your own graphics, and free stock photos from Visual Hunt and Pexels.

6. Encourage social sharing. Include visible social sharing links to encourage readers to share your blog with others. If your platform doesn’t include automated sharing, create your own free HTML sharing code to embed in your blog here or try the free Sumo plugin.

7. Add categories. Tag at least one category to each of your blogs to help readers find content of interest. Like with blog headlines, this should be down to earth, not ethereal.

8. Leverage your platform’s SEO settings. Find the SEO settings on your blogging platform and add appropriate keywords and descriptions to each blog entry. These will often be located in the advanced settings for each individual blog post.

9. You may also like…Take the guesswork out of related content for your readers. Automate this if you can. Otherwise, copy and paste the most relevant links to your blogs on similar topics.

10. Leave a final impression. If someone makes it to the end of your blog and they like what they read, now is the time to keep their interest. Design a graphic to include at the end of each blog with a succinct call to action, such as subscribing to your blog RSS feed or email list, or connecting on social media. An image with text overlay pointing to a link works well.

See? Now you’re no longer a blog SEO newbie. Best of blogging to you!

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It's Here! Get My Free E-Book: 100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks and more

8/12/2017

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I am happy to announce that my new e-book, 100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved: Plug and Play Ideas From a Seasoned Corporate Communications Manager, is now available in a number of digital formats!

Here's the skinny on the book:

Even the savviest office workers struggle with awkward, sticky and downright tricky business emails. How do I politely tell a colleague that their request isn’t my job? What do I say when I’m behind schedule or over budget? What if I hate working with that person? 100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved has all these answers, and more, from an experienced Corporate Communications Manager (yours truly).

Cool! Where can I find it?

Grab a FREE copy of my e-book on these platforms:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Apple iBooks
Kobo
Smashwords
Blio

Yup, I'm an Amazon author! Dream come true! Feel free to check out my Amazon author page.

One more quick thing before you go.

If you want the downloadable, printable version of this e-book to stash in your desk (in case of communications emergency), click here. It's exclusively available to my weekly email subscribers.

You may also like these blogs by Megan Sharma:
Business Email Etiquette: 50 Things You Should Never Say in a Work Email
Vacation fun: 44 things you only do when you're on vacation or holiday
On The Write Life: 34 Ways to Stay Busy (and Productive) While You Wait for Your Book Release
On The Write Life: 17 Incredible Possibilities if Writers Ran The World
On The Write Life: Get Inspired! 20 Writers to Follow on Twitter
Article on The Write Life: Think Like a Journalist to Improve Your Writing (Trench Coat Optional!)
How to be the perfect friend: a guide for the ladies
Writing tips: What I want to blog about vs. what I actually blog about
One year after my major career change from full-time mom to full-time writer: reflections and lessons learned
For writers: All your writing fears, squashed!
A real, imperfect day in the life of a writer: me
Your writing conference checklist: how to make it worth every minute and every penny (takeaways from the 2017 San Francisco Writers Conference)
The write stuff: An author’s favorite books and authors
Writing tips: Cutting down on word fat and other newsletter best practices
All about writing: writing 'til it hurts

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Business Email Etiquette: 50 Things You Should Never Say in a Work Email

7/30/2017

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Business email etiquette has been on my mind as of late.

You see, I just wrote this cool e-book called 100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved, available early to my awesome email subscribers, and coming soon to Amazon and other digital formats.

The e-book gives tons of examples for things you can or should say when you really feel like wringing your co-worker’s neck, but need to be diplomatic.

Oh, but the list of things you SHOULDN’T say in an email with any professional association is practically endless.

That’s where I thought I would have some fun.

Too much fun

Generally, it’s best to avoid the following in business emails:

Put-downs
Foul language
Inappropriate jokes (jokes of any kind, really)
Attempts to procure money from your colleagues in the form of fundraising or otherwise
Anything illegal
Highly confidential or personal information
Politics, religion. The stuff that works your family into a tizzy at Thanksgiving.
Anything you wouldn’t want to see plastered on the front page of the newspaper or your company’s intranet page
Romantic overtures
Conflicts of interest
Subjects not related to your work. Period.

Now that we’ve established those ground rules, let’s enjoy the best of the worst of them.

Laying out the groundrules

50 Things You Should Never, Ever Say in a Business Email

This is a sacred place!

1. That outfit is heinous
2. Everyone knows that so-and-so and so-and-so are having an affair
3. I'm thinking of leaving to work for a competitor
4. I don't do much work. I mostly shop online all day.
5. OMG ROFL & LMAO

Photo credit: Jonas B via Visual hunt / CC BY

6. I can't stand working with Susie
7. A kindergartner could do a better job
8. Don't tell anyone, but I peed in the office coffee pot
9. Does Bob have a girlfriend?
10. I'm counting on you to support my Race for the (X Charitable Cause)

I'm running away from my co-workers who keep asking me for money

11. Holy F***ing s***!
12. Did you see last night's episode of "Game of Thrones"? Whoa.
13. My boss is slowly sucking the life from my soul
14. WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING???
15. I never have to buy pens any more. They're free at the office!

Office supplies are for use in the office

16. What are you having for lunch today? I’m craving sushi.
17. Sorry, my ex-wife took every last penny
18. Do you even read your emails?
19. You really screwed this one up, didn't you?
20. Rachel looks super sexy today

Photo credit: Ms. Phoenix via Visual hunt / CC BY

21. Do you know where I can buy some weed?
22. I think I feel a cold coming on…cough, cough (HAHA!). Looks like I'll have to take a 'sick' day :)
23. Can I borrow $20?
24. You're going to hell
25. All the free donuts in the world could not make me happy in this job

Donuts can be persuasive...sometimes

26. I am beyond hungover
27. How much do they pay you here?
28. I couldn't care less
29. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (Top Secret)
30. My dog is cuter than your kid

It's tough to beat a puppy in a cup

31. Let's hit the strip club after work
32. Are you in for online poker during our conference call?
33. I'm selling my old TV. Do you want it?
34. Anyone who votes for (X CANDIDATE) is an IDIOT!
35. I know you're Jewish, but Merry Christmas!

Merry...everything!

36. So a guy walks into a bar…
37. I'm supposed to meet with my parole officer at that time
38. Forward this email to 10 people or you'll have bad luck!
39. Macy's is having an awesome buy one, get one free online sale. You in?
40. I'd rather not sponsor a take your child to work day. I hate children.

Who wouldn't love this face?

41. WTF?
42. Remember, there is no I in team
43. I'm praying for your soul
44. I have a fantastic investment opportunity for you
45. It's obvious that she needs a makeover

Lipstick or no lipstick? None of your business.

46. Does this make sense?
47. That's not my fault
48. You're the only one to complain about this
49. No offense, but…
50. Anyone on the planet could do a better job than him

Photo credit: Hubble Space Telescope / ESA via Visualhunt / CC BY

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Free E-Book Preview: 100 of your Toughest Business Emails: Solved—Coming August 2017

7/20/2017

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Watch for my FREE e-book, coming August 2017!

This week I am super excited to share my latest project. I have written my first e-book, and I can’t wait to put it out into the digital world!

The best part: it will be completely free on all digital platforms. Woop!

I expect to release the book next month (August 2017), and will share updates on this blog and on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

So, what’s this e-book all about?

Here is a preview of what’s to come.

Free E-Book Preview
100 of your Toughest Business Emails: Solved
Plug and Play Ideas from a Seasoned Corporate Communications Manager

Introduction
Email. We live and breathe it at work. Most of us can’t get away from it. The average office worker receives 121 emails per day.

Our increasingly global economy also means that we work across time zones. When those time zones don’t match up, we often rely on email to get work done.

As a former Corporate Communications Manager for a fast-paced IT consulting company, I know firsthand the power of words to help or hinder.

I spent nearly six years ghost writing for executives and coming up with innumerable ways to say things that people might not like.

This experience bestowed upon me an unexpected gift: the ability to conjure up a tactful way of saying just about anything, usually on the fly.

Yet, most of us in the business world don’t have a Corporate Communications Manager we can run to when we’re not quite sure how to word an email.

That is why I have created this book.

I want to help you smooth over your email language while still making your point.

I want to provide you with an easy reference guide for whenever you’re stumped on what to say.

And, finally, I want to help you avoid some of the inevitable drama that goes hand in hand with business communications.

It’s important to note that much of the language found in this book relies on references and colloquialisms most familiar to American readers. When dealing with an international audience, please consider your reader’s likely familiarity with the language you choose.

With my plug and play templates, you, too, can master even the toughest of business emails.

Let’s dive in!

Photo credit: markus spiske via Visual Hunt / CC BY

A few juicy tidbits that you can look forward to in the book

That’s his/her job
He/she is the expert on…
He/she is the right person for…
He/she is best suited to…
He/she has firsthand knowledge of…
He/she is your go-to person for…
He/she is your best bet for...

I disagree
I disagree (sometimes it’s perfectly appropriate to say!)
I beg to differ
I don’t agree
I’m not so sure about that…
Not necessarily
I don’t see it that way
I see it differently
I have a different perspective
I have an opposing view

I don’t have time
I’m overcommitted
I don’t have the bandwidth
I’m stretched too thin
I’m afraid I’m not available to…
If I had more availability, I would be happy to…
My time is limited
I can’t dedicate the time
I’m pressed for time
I wish I could help
I wish I had more time
My schedule is full

Here is your 1,000th reminder
As I mentioned before…
As we discussed previously…
Per my previous email…
Per our recent conversation…
As you know…
Since our last discussion…
As previously agreed...

Over my dead body!
I’d prefer if we didn’t
Let’s think of some alternatives
Let’s brainstorm some ideas
I would rather not
It wouldn’t be my first choice
It’s not my favorite idea
I’m not a huge fan
Let’s take a different direction