Social media users engage with content that has an emotional effect on them and Inspirational posts are the easiest way to evoke a reaction in a user.
We all know the hashtags where this sort of post resides. #MorningMotivation, #MondayMotivation, and a variety of words prefixing #mindset and thousands of social media users contribute their posts to these hashtags every day. Not only that, but there are entire pages dedicated to just sharing inspirational and motivational posts daily.
It’s an entire subgenre of the internet and it’s one that you should be utilizing in your social media strategy.
What Is Inspiration vs What is Motivation?
Despite often being used interchangeably, motivation and inspiration are actually quite different.
Inspiration is an influencing emotion that stimulates people to achieve their goals. The important thing to know here is that inspiration comes from an external source. It is near impossible to inspire yourself to achieve a higher goal if you have not already achieved something similar. Think of this as trying to lose weight so looking at others success stories.
Motivation is the force that compels you to take action towards a goal. It’s deeply rooted in your psychology along with dedicated and discipline, and often comes from within. Most importantly, it is about behaviour and physical steps with a reasoning for doing so. An example of this would be getting up early to go to the gym.
There’s an interesting distinction between the effect that Inspiration and Motivation have on us. Inspiration comes with feelings of extreme positivity, excitement, and the feeling of achieving success. This is because inspiration shows us that there is an achievable path to our goals which leaves us with positive emotions.
Motivation tends to have fewer positive emotions behind it because it’s rooted in the real world. In most cases, motivation is what we need to hear as opposed to what we want to hear. If we go back to the gym example, this would be becoming motivated to get out of bed at 5am. This is not a nice feeling, but motivation will make it slightly easier than it would have been otherwise.
Why do Inspirational and Motivational Posts get High Engagement?
Social media users engage with content that has an emotional effect on them (or gets their brain working). This is because our brain loves to work (in this case, use itself) and rewards itself for the work by releasing dopamine (the chemical related to happiness). Your subconscious then connects the release of dopamine to the stimuli (your content) which then creates the connection that your content made them feel good. This then normally leads to the user engaging with the content.
A study into whether or not social media posts can have an inspirational effect on viewers found that 76.5% of those surveyed reported feeling inspired by a post. 34.9% of them reported having this feeling within the last week. It also found that content regarding feeling good, positive mindsets, and overall happiness had the biggest impact on those surveyed.
This is likely because, as mentioned in the section above, inspiration does not come from within. It has to come from an external source and so those sources then become quite valuable to someone looking for inspiration. Social media users follow pages based on the value that they provide for them, so this is an easy way you can bump up your rating.
Motivational posts can also get a lot of engagement, but this isn’t as guaranteed. There aren’t the innate positive emotions that inspiration carries, and therefore more relies on who sees your content rather than the content standing on its own. This can lead to a stronger emotional response, which is likely to lead to a page follow rather than just engaging with the post, but this will be less frequent.
How to Make Inspirational Social Media Content
The easiest way to deliver inspirational content on social media is in the way of graphics. These not only attract attention when they appear on a social media feed, but also get saved onto peoples systems which spreads your brand if you have your website on the graphic.
This is a simple 3 step process:
- Find an inspirational quote
- Find a background picture
- Put it all together
How to Find Inspirational Quotes
The key indicator of an inspirational quote is that it alludes to success, a higher purpose, achieving a goal, or improving ones life. They’re usually quite “basic” since they’re not dealing with actually achieving success, just the idea of success. Think of them as the quote that someone would hear which motivates them to change their life. It’s a starting point with desire for something greater.
The best way to find them is to google for inspirational quotes and then pick out quotes that follow those rules. Most websites will file all quotes under “motivational” quotes, so you’ll have to go through them and pick out the ones that you consider inspiring. A good method for this is to ask whether the quote applies to those on who are on their journey or are before their journey. If the quote applies to those who are on their journey, such as “keep going”, then that would be motivational.
There’s some debate on whether or not you should include the original author of the quote, but this isn’t something that I do unless space needs to be filled on the picture. If you do include the author, then choose a professional looking font and space it at least half or 10px smaller than the quote font size.
“It’s never too late to be what you might have been” –
George Eliot
How to Find Pictures to Create Inspiring Graphics
Finding pictures will depend on the software you use but stock images are your best option. All you need is a picture that will look crisp when in 1080 x 1080. Canva has a large selection of high quality free stock images that still look good when expanded.
The main issue you’ve got to contend is will be the spacing of elements within the picture. You’ll need to insert your quote into the picture in a way that looks good which normally means in an empty space. This is something you’ll have to consider when it comes to finding a good picture since most stock photos aren’t developed with this requirement in mind.
If you find a picture that you like but there’s no spacing then there are some methods you can use to create space. The best method would be to play with the framing to create a space. For example, if you have a picture of someone in the middle of the photo looking over a city, then you could expand the picture, so the person is to the left or right of the frame. This then allows you to place your text opposite them.
How to Put an Inspirational Graphic Together
This is the part that all comes down to personal opinion.
You’ll need to find a text font that you not only like but works within your picture. This can take time however it’s worth the hassle. I personally like “Finger Paint” which looks like someone has drawn out the words by hand. This font reminds me of me being a child and having big dreams that I hoped to fulfil one day. I feel like font works well with the idea of inspiration.
It’s a good idea to include your website somewhere in the graphic. The placement will depend entirely on the picture but usually somewhere in one of the corners or along the central horizontal line works best. This text should be in a slim but professional looking font as it’s your brand.
You can use colours to add an extra element to your inspirational graphics. I’ll often mess with the contrast of the background picture, and then place my text in the lightest area. I’ll then colour the text the darkest colour of the picture. This removes the potential harsh look that a pure black or white would bring and makes the entire picture look more professional.
Use the same colour method for your website link but the opposite of your main text (e.g., if your quote font is light then make your website font dark).
When is the Best Time to Post Inspirational and Motivational Posts on Social Media?
The best time to post inspirational content is in the early morning between 6 – 10 on all social media platforms. This is because most people will be on their way to work or beginning their projects at this time so an inspirational post will have the greatest effect on them. It also allows you to ride the wave of #morningmotivation which gets millions of views every morning.
The best time to post motivational content would be in the afternoon. This is because it’s a supportive type of post and most people will be deep into their work at this point of time, so it’ll have the greatest effect.
Overview
- Inspiration is for the feeling, motivation is for the act
- These types of post get a lot of engagement because they have an effect on people
- How to easily make inspirational social media content
- Find an inspirational quote. Make sure it’s inspirational and not motivational
- Find a suitable background picture that has space for the text
- Put it all together. Play with colours to create a professional look
- Post inspirational content in the morning and motivational content in the afternoon for the best results
