HSocial media is essential for reaching new customers, building a loyal fanbase, promoting your products and growing your business, but it can be frustrating if you’re not getting the engagement rates that you need.
While there are a number of reasons that could be behind people not liking, clicking or commenting on your posts, the most likely one is that your copy isn’t up to scratch. People are consuming so much content across all the social networks that unless you are grabbing their attention with smart wording, there’s a good chance you’ll go unnoticed.
Competition is high – on Twitter, for example, nearly a quarter of verified accounts are journalists – but don’t worry, there’s good news. Your copywriting can be massively improved with just a few easy tricks. Here are 7 copywriting techniques to help you stand out on social media.
HAVE A CONSISTENT BRAND VOICE AND TONE
Your social media copy is how you show people your brand personality, and getting people to fall in love with that personality is how you appeal to your tribe, maintain a loyal fanbase and grow your business. You need to decide what you want your brand to sound like, make sure that it fits with your target audience, and stick to it. Think about what the persona of your brand is (friendly, professional, playful, inspiring), what kind of words you want to use (silly, serious, complex, simple), what your tone of voice is (authoritative, modest, cheeky, detached) and what your purpose is on social media (entertain, educate, empower, advertise). If people are charmed by your character they will engage with your content, share it with their friends and help you reach more customers.
KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY
This might sound very simple, but a lot of bad posts are missing the mark because of confusing or lazy messaging. Sometimes it’s a case of trying to fit too many ideas into one post; sometimes it’s not having anything to say and just trying to fill the box. Rather than relying on your image or video content to carry your post, think about exactly what you are trying to tell your audience and form your copy around the information that you are trying to pass on. Only focus on what is relevant and don’t just try to fill up blank space – if you have nothing to say, maybe you shouldn’t be saying anything at all.
DON’T MAKE IT ALL ABOUT YOU
The truth may sound a little harsh, but your audience on social media doesn’t necessarily care about your brand and its products or services. They care about how it will help them, whether it’s making their life easier, saving them money, giving them knowledge or even just making them entertained. When you’re creating a post, think about what value it will provide your customers. An effective technique is to state the problem that your product or service aims to solve before presenting it as a solution. This lets your audience know that you can relate them and builds trust in your brand as well as helping to drive sales.
WRITE FOR THE RIGHT PLATFORM
Each social media channel has a different purpose and a different set of rules for what will give your content maximum visibility. Twitter is primarily a news network where people go to see what is happening around the world and its 280 character limit encourages you to write short, punchy copy that gets straight to the point. While Facebook and Instagram allow you to write much longer content for your audiences, it’s not necessarily best to do so. On Facebook, posts with 40-80 characters receive the most engagement while Instagram posts perform best with 138-150 characters. Keeping in mind the ideal length of your posts on each network will increase the chances of your audience reading and interacting with them.
TALK TO YOUR AUDIENCE, NOT AT THEM
People don’t want to receive marketing jargon or one-way broadcasting from brands on social media – they want authentic communication. When your audience feels like you are talking directly to them, they are much more likely to listen up. This might involve using the words “you” and “your” to specifically aim your copy at your audience or asking questions in your copy to hook them in. It also helps to keep a casual, conversational tone with simple, natural wording rather than using any complex industry vocabulary or sales talk. The more you come at people on a human level rather than a business level, the more likely they are to interact with your content.
MAKE THE FIRST FEW WORDS COUNT
Social media users do not have a long attention span, and if your copy doesn’t reign them in right from the start then there’s a good chance they will just keep scrolling. This is especially true on Facebook and Instagram, where your captions are cut off after a certain number of words and require users to click “see more” for the full text. Try using a surprising statement, rhetorical question or catchy headline at the beginning of your post to capture their interest right away and make your audience want to keep reading. You can then provide more details and put your call to action at the end.
USE INTERESTING FACTS
Facts and statistics make for compelling and shareable content – they are a quick and easy way to relay information, they provide value to your audience in the form of knowledge, and if they are interesting people will want to tell everyone they know. You can use interesting facts to highlight the seriousness of a problem that your brand is trying to solve – if you are using recyclable coffee cups, for example, you may want to tell people how much non-recyclable coffee cups are having a negative effect on the environment. They can also provide a fun way to showcase how much people love your product – telling your followers that you have sold enough sandwiches to fill an Olympic swimming pool is much more engaging than telling them that your sandwiches are popular.
WRITE CLIFFHANGERS
Arousing curiosity in your audience is a sure way to get more interaction with your posts. Nobody likes to be left wondering what the answer is or what happened next. Rather than writing copy which gives people all the information at once, try using an intriguing question or statement which leaves them with the desire to find out more. Especially if you are trying to direct followers to a landing page, whether it’s for a product, event or blog article, creating a cliffhanger in your post will encourage them to click the link and discover the full story.