The Question That Writes Your Social Media for You
The reasons customers picked you over your competitors are almost never the ones you'd assume — and they'll happily tell you, if you ask. Here's how to turn one short conversation into months of social media content you didn't have to invent.
Dave Smith
# The Question That Writes Your Social Media for You
Most business owners spend ages trying to work out what makes them different. They sit in front of a blank screen, chewing the end of a pen, wondering what to post that might actually land with their customers. They guess. They overthink. They write something, delete it, write it again, and eventually give up and post a photo of a cup of tea.
Meanwhile, the people who could answer all of those questions are already on their customer list.
The thing about being too close to your own business
When you run a business, you stop seeing what's special about it. The bit that makes you different becomes the bit that feels obvious. You assume everyone offers a 24-hour callout, or that all bakeries use real butter, or that every accountant actually replies to emails. So you don't mention it, because why would you mention something so ordinary?
But it isn't ordinary to your customers. It's the reason they picked you over the seven other options that came up on Google. They noticed something specific. They had a reason. And nine times out of ten, that reason is nothing like the things you've been writing in your bio.
The fastest way to find out what makes your business worth shouting about is to stop guessing and just ask the people who already chose you.
How to actually ask
This sounds straightforward, but the way you ask matters. "Why did you choose us?" can sound corporate, like you're handing them a clipboard. People freeze when they're asked formal questions. You'll get a polite "good service" and nothing useful.
Try one of these instead, in a normal conversation or as a follow-up message:
- "Out of curiosity, what made you go with us in the end?"
- "Was there anything in particular that helped you decide?"
- "What were you worried about before you got in touch?"
That last one is gold, by the way. Because what they were worried about is almost certainly what your next customer is worried about too. And if you've already solved that worry, that's content. Several pieces of content, actually.
The best time to ask is right after a job is done well, or when someone leaves a positive review, or in a friendly follow-up email a week or two later. Not in the middle of a transaction. Not over a feedback form. Just a normal human question.
What you'll actually hear back
Here's where it gets interesting. The reasons customers give are almost never the ones you'd assume.
You'll think they chose you for your prices, and they'll say it was because you picked up the phone first time. You'll think it was the website, and they'll say it was because a friend mentioned you. You'll think it was the years of experience, and they'll say it was because your van wasn't filthy.
These aren't trivial details. They're trust signals. And once you know which signals matter to your actual customers, you know exactly what to put in front of the next batch.
A roofer who keeps hearing "your quote arrived the same day" now has a content angle. A florist who keeps hearing "you actually had what your website said you had" now knows that consistency is the story. A bookkeeper who hears "I could understand your email" has just been told that plain English is their unique selling point.
Turning the answers into posts
Once you've collected a handful of these, you've got months of content sitting in front of you. Not the bland, scheduled, sound-like-everyone-else kind. The specific kind that actually resonates because it came from a real conversation.
A few ways to use them:
Quote them directly. With permission, a one-line quote from a customer telling other customers why they chose you is worth more than any sentence you could write yourself. It sounds like a recommendation rather than an advert, because that's exactly what it is.
Address the worry they mentioned. If someone tells you they were nervous about the cost before getting in touch, write a post that talks honestly about pricing. If they mention they almost gave up because nobody was returning their calls elsewhere, talk about how you handle enquiries.
Use the language they used. Customers describe your work in words you'd never come up with yourself. Write those phrases down. Use them in captions. They'll sound more natural than any phrase you'd construct from scratch, because they came from someone outside your own head.
You don't need a hundred answers
You're not running a survey. Five or six honest conversations will tell you more than any market research report. Patterns show up quickly. The same two or three things will come up again and again, and that's your map.
Once you've got that, posting on social media stops feeling like guessing in the dark. You know what they care about. You know what they were worried about. You know what made them pick you. You're not making content up — you're repeating back what your customers already told you matters.
This is, incidentally, exactly the kind of thing Aunty Social is built around. Once you know what your customers actually respond to, turning it into a steady stream of posts across Facebook, Instagram, and X stops being the bottleneck — you just need a way to keep it flowing for £29 a month rather than figuring it out from scratch every Sunday night.
But honestly, the bit nobody can do for you is the conversation. That part is on you. The good news is it only takes a couple of phone calls to change what you're posting about for the next year.