With Digital Marketing evolving every day, there are a lot of options for promoting your business. And one of the most popular and effective ways to reach your target audience is through social media!
No matter what field you’re in, social media can help you drive traffic, generate leads, retarget website visitors and a lot more.
However, it’s not as easy as it may seem. To get all the benefits from social media, you need to write captivating social media copy that not only grab attention but also lead your audience to take action.
You could easily hire a marketing agency or a freelancer to write copies for your social media but it’ll just add more expense to your business, especially if you’re just starting out. So, initially, you can easily experiment and write copies for social media until you’re confident you’re getting enough traffic from social media and it would be worth it to hire additional help.
With so many options for writing social media copy – Instagram captions, Facebook posts, Tweets, or LinkedIn posts, it can be confusing how to write captivating copies for all. In this blog, I’ll start with the basics of writing for the web, then build out to best data-driven practices.
Let’s dive in!
Take a look at the below graphic.
Grab’s attention, doesn’t it?
While it is relatively easier to get a picture to say a thousand words with the right idea, writing catchy copies can get a tad complicated. Here are a few easy tips to get you started with some writing social media copies. While the tips are universal; they apply to blogs, images, social media and all kinds of communication.
Copies can evoke various emotions or make you pause. Here are some of the ways you can make your social media copies enticing:
Ask – Like in the below example; a question is amongst the easiest and oldest ways to get the user thinking. If you can have them stop, scroll, and think, half the battle is won.
Seduce – Have you noticed how smartphone ads are more about a status symbol than about features and hardware? Sell benefits, not features.
Tease – Spark curiosity and leave them wanting more. One of the basic principles of headline writing is that it has to spark an interest in the consumer’s mind.
Emotion – Use the headline to elicit an emotion. A lot of attention-grabbing headlines follow this concept.
Here, McDonald’s sparked rage and then followed it up with the thought – we hire individuals.
Facts – Just like emotions draw strong reactions, so do well-timed topical facts. Some great headline examples tend to include a fact for punch.
While these are some of the classic hooks, there are others you may have witnessed such as-
Trends – One of the best ways to get noticed on social media is writing copies relating to the latest trends. Sometimes, a single tweet or a single video can make you viral! So be sure to write copies around trends and include it in your social media calendar.
Negative – Negative headlines tend to have a lot of pulling power. Calling out mistakes, misconceptions or myths will help you draw attention.
Do’s and Don’ts – These communicate that you are trying to help. Works especially well with research-oriented consumers. If you’re a freelancer, you can use these types of copy to write posts around the do’s and don’ts of freelancing, etc.
Quotes – Like with newspapers, use a quote from a speech, an interview or even a song to get readers hooked. This can include testimonials from your clients or customers as well!
Further, you can add more substance to your copy by using the 5Ws (Who, What, When, Where, Why), interesting examples or adding “how to start” to target beginners.
Now that you have nuggets of information to apply, let’s create a process or a template you can use it in.
A Foolproof Process Showing How To Write A Captivating Copy For Social Media
Step 1: Understand The Audience
First and foremost, you need to understand who your target audience is, what they like, how they communicate, where they go for learning, etc. Only then can you write captivating social media copy that will grab the attention of your audience.
This is because the importance of relevance in the era of multiple touchpoints and hundreds of ads or triggers cannot be overstated. Plus, this will more or less decide everything – the tone of the copy, the emotion it might evoke, the action you need your audience to take, etc.
Step 2: Create An Outline
While this is not something that you need to do each and every time, it’s something that can help you make social media copies in a faster way and give you a clear idea of what you need to write.
Keep the outline simple and cover all the important bases. Include keywords and key phrases that may stand out to your audience and grab their attention. Once you’ve created an outline, it will help you make a simple yet effective copy for social media that says everything you need to say.
Step 3: Have A Formula
Most bloggers and content writers have a specific formula for blog writing captivating copies and content. One such formula is – SHINE: Specific, Helpful, Immediate, Newsworthy, Entertaining.
Your social media copies should include any of these aspects i.e. your copy can be targeted at a specific audience group or it can be entertaining like a meme, etc.
Plus, you can always experiment and make tiny to large changes and create various copies. Read them out aloud, show it to your colleagues and get a feel of what it sounds like or whether they convey the message you want it to.
This may seem over the top and redundant but it’s a smart practice that will help you create captivating social media copy quickly in the long run.
Step 4: USP and/or Problem
Social Media might be the very first touchpoint you have with your potential clients. That is why it is essential to include your product’s or service’s main USP and what problem do you solve for your potential clients.
However, you cannot and should not only talk about your product or services. Along with posts about solutions you provide, you should also write and talk about what your audience might find interesting such as facts or latest news, etc.
You can always softly plug-in about your product or service’s USP and the problem you solve in the caption or via adding a link in bio.
Step 5: Write The Way You Talk
Last but the most important thing to remember while writing copy for social media is to write the way you talk and not in a robotic way. Write as if you’re speaking to your audience and not just passing information. Unlike a long blog piece or a formal press release, a social media post is an informal means of expression.
Imagine you’re sitting with friends or colleagues at a cafe and describing your business. That friendly tone, that choice of language and words, and that level of simplicity should be your ultimate goal. This way, your content will sound more natural, more authentic, and will be easier to consume.
Now, let’s move on to see how you can make your social media copies more engaging.
Hacks To Make Your Copies More Engaging
Keep it Short & Sweet
How people consume content has changed gradually and it’s not a secret how people’s attention span has decreased over the years. Nowadays, nobody would spend a lot of their time on reading something too long unless they’re researching some topic.
When it comes to writing copy for social media, you need to keep it short and crisp. And you need to ensure that you write copies that attract your target audience and keep them hooked enough to read the entire post.
Compared to any other medium, there’s a lot of competition on social media and a very small window to grab your audience’s attention. That’s why you need to keep your social media copies short, simple and easy to read.
Be Funny
Social media is a source of entertainment and people don’t usually go on social media to buy products or services. So don’t go on and write serious or sales-y social media copies. Try and include humour in your copy, one that seems relatable to your audience.
For instance, you can post memes relating to your niche, use more emojis & puns, basically, show your followers the funny side. Funny and relatable content accounts for a large portion of what people use social media for.
Use The Right Emojis & Hashtags
Emojis and Hashtags are something that may seem small and irrelevant but with the right context can work really well and make your social media copy even better.
Adding emojis in your copy can really make your text stand out and add a fun element to your social media posts. And it’s not necessary to only use emojis in a sentence, you can also use them in place of a bullet point.
As for the hashtags, they can be a great way to include your posts in larger conversations and drive followers. For insurance, if you’re writing a copy around a trending topic or an event, use their official hashtag to get more eyeballs on your profile and post. Plus, you can even create your own hashtags for campaigns and include it everywhere.
The only thing you need to take care of while using emojis and hashtags in your social copies is to not overload it with too many of them. Use emojis and hashtags wisely in your social media copies and make sure your main copy grabs the most attention.
Get Personal
One of the most tried and simplest ways to write engaging copy for social media is to tell your story, your business’ story or vision and mission or share behind-the-scenes at your office.
Let your audience get to know who your employees are, what’s it like working at your office, etc. For example, you can:
- Post pictures of your employees and a bit about their role/personality
- Praise hard working employees regularly on social media
- Highlight loyal customers and thank them
- Tell your followers how your business started and where you come from
Include Actionable CTA
The ultimate goal for any business is to increase their website traffic and ultimately drive sales. Without adding a CTA or writing what you want your audience to do after reading the post, they will simply scroll through.
Look at it this way, every person will probably only look at a single post from you in their feed and without knowing what action to take, they’ll never come across you again! That is a loss of a potential customer for your business.
That is why, adding an actionable CTA is a must in your social media copy. It can be as simple as “check out the link in bio” or “tag a friend” or “comment your X favourite thing”, etc.
This will not only help you increase website traffic but also fuel your social following and boost your online presence.
Add Value
The users today are smart and are always hungry for consuming good content that adds value to their lives. They follow social media accounts that give them original, engaging and valuable content.
However, social media is not the best place to write long pieces of content that gives value to the users. But, that’s the best part about social media! You don’t need to write long paragraphs or a 2000 word blog, you can provide value in something as simple as an infographic.
You simply need to figure out what is important to your target audience, what are their pain points and what will add value to their lives. Then, you can go on and create social media copies and posts around those pain points and how you can help solve those problems.
For instance, if you are a freelance designer, you can share the successful projects and designs you have done for your clients. It will give your potential clients a better idea of your design skill set. You can even share testimonials on social media to make people believe that your clients are satisfied with your services.
Write Better Social Media Copy
When it comes to building and growing your presence on social media, your social media copy will matter the most. And today, it has become extremely important for businesses to build a good reputation on social media since the competition around is just crazy.
That is why social media copy needs to be authentic, interactive that can engage users & increase brand awareness. To start with, you can take help of social media post templates which will give you a head start and help you come up with engaging social media copies.
Today, it has become indispensable for brands to build social media engagement because of the increasing nature of competition. Therefore, authenticity and interactivity in your social media copies are important to engage users and create brand awareness. Having a deeper understanding of copywriting will also help you write interesting copies for your social media platforms.
With this guide of tips and hacks for writing a captivating social media copy, you can get started with building a stellar online presence and grow your business.