social media

written by Peta Delahunty of Creative Copywriting

We all know how powerful social media can be in growing your community, generating leads and getting sales. However simply being on social media isn’t enough to get followers, you need to engage your audience and motivate people to click through.

Here are a some top tips for social media copywriting:

1. Keep it Short and Sweet

People have short attention spans and, in today’s digitally-focused world, there are so many distractions that many aren’t even really reading at all! With your audience quickly scrolling, get your message across in as few words as possible, with the most important information at the beginning.

Avoid long-winded stories, detailed explanations, or rambling paragraphs.

2. Show Your Personality

Social media provides entertainment. It’s a place to connect with others and learn new things. Your copy needs to show your brand personality and engage people to react. Be witty. Ask questions. Use exclamation points. Try out a pun or two. If you enjoy writing it, your audience will enjoy reading it!

3. Make It Actionable

Ok, so social media should be fun to engage your audience but don’t forget you’re writing on behalf of your business. Have a clear purpose for each post so you can craft the right copy. For example, is the post for:

• Branding
• Clicks
• Shares
• Conversions
• Followers
• Likes
• Comments or inbox replies

Your message must be easy to understand and clear what you want your audience to do. This also helps with measuring its success.

4. Complement the Visual

Visuals are vital – pictures and videos often get noticed more than text. But this does not mean the copy should be neglected, captions should elevate your images and videos. Both should work together to give a cohesive message.

5. Use Hashtags and Emojis Correctly

Emojis are a great way to give your copy personality and inject some fun! Just don’t overuse them. Avoid including emojis in every post, and only use one at a time. Hashtags can be great at getting your brand to be part of the larger conversation about trending topics or events. You can even create your own hashtag for bigger campaigns. Just make sure they are relevant, not too long, and you don’t abuse them! Emojis and hashtags can enhance your social media copy, but make sure you’re using them right!

6. Encourage your audience to join the conversation

Social media is more than a one-way conversation – it’s a social platform to engage with your audience. Encourage conversations with your followers by using phrases including:

• “Tell us your ideas…”
• “Sound off in the comments and tell us what you think.”
• “What are you looking forward to/excited about?”

7.  Leverage the Desire to Learn

Most people want to learn about new things and discover new insights etc. So include a variety of posts which also include:

• Industry news
• Quotes from industry leaders/influencers
• Industry statistics

8.  Write Copy that Leverages FOMO

The fear of missing out (FOMO) is a powerful motivator for many. It can be a great way to get people’s attention, especially if it uses:

• Exclusivity – reflects exclusive access or first “dibs” on an offering
• Urgency – communicates an offering available for a limited time only
• Scarcity – expresses limited availability on an offering

9.  Each platform is different

Each social media platform was created differently to serve different needs for different audiences. Which means you shouldn’t use the copy you write for LinkedIn on Twitter and vice versa. Each platform has different copy length requirements and tone, so when it comes to writing social copy, it can be confusing. Here’s a simple graphic that will help to differentiate a little: