20 Tips for Writing Social Media Copy

20 Tips for Writing Social Media Copy

As the subject matter experts over at runrex.com will tell you, no matter which social media platform your brand is active on, the key to engaging your followers more effectively is great copywriting. This is why this article will look to help by highlighting 20 tips for writing social media copy.

Write copy that encourages your audience to join the conversation

Social media platforms aren’t just about self-promotion and advertising, a point made clear in discussions over at guttulus.com. Therefore, you should look to write copy that encourages your audience to join the conversation and engage with your brand. Examples include copy asking them questions or gamifying their responses such as “Tell us your ideas” or “what are you excited about…”.

Use your copy to elevate your images and evoke emotions

If you are on a visual-driven platform such as Instagram, you don’t want to say too much with your copy. Here, as per the gurus over at runrex.com, you should use your social media copy to elevate your images and video by conveying messages that evoke emotions.

Leverage the desire to learn

Content that teaches your audience and allows them to learn something about your industry will always be engaging. This is why another tip for writing social media copy is to use to quench your followers’ thirst for knowledge. As is discussed over at guttulus.com, you can achieve this by sharing industry news, statistics and facts, quotes from industry thought leaders, and so forth.

Leverage FOMO

FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is a powerful motivator on social media, with studies showing that over 56% of social media users are afraid to be away as they might miss out on important events, news and updates. With this is in mind, you should write social media copy that leverages FOMO, using elements such as exclusivity, urgency, or scarcity to grab users’ attention.

Keep it short and sweet

You should also determine the one message you want to convey with the social media copy, and then make sure that this message is put across clearly. Avoid writing social media copies with lots of unnecessary information as this will just put off your followers.

Have a goal for your social media copy

Before you get started with the writing, the subject matter experts over at runrex.com recommend that you first come up with a goal for your social media copy. Determine what goals you want to achieve with your copy, be it to gain more followers, get conversions, inform your followers, and so forth. This will enable you to write a social media copy tailored to the given goal.

Know that each platform has different audiences

Each social media platform attracts different kinds of users, as explained over at guttulus.com, and this is something to keep in mind when writing your social media copy. Snapchat, for example, is more popular with younger audiences, while Facebook has an older audience. Knowing the different audiences on each social media platform will help you get your copywriting right.

Carry out a social media audit

A social media audit involves taking steps to analyze and evaluate your current profiles, and therefore maximize, your social media presence. An audit, as explained over at runrex.com, will help you understand better how you are performing on each platform, which content is doing well, and which isn’t, which will let you know how you should write your social media copy.

Have a strategy in place

Just as important as having a goal for your social media copy is having a strategy in place before you get going. If you have a good strategy in place, you will be able to execute and write high-quality and consistent copy. Apps like Hootsuite can help you come up with your social media copywriting strategy.

Tell a story with your copy

Another tip worth mentioning when it comes to writing social media copy is how important it is to tell a story with your copy. This will not only engage your audience, but it will also help in creating relationships between them and your brand, building loyalty, and trust. Just make sure that you are concise with your storytelling.

Find your voice and stick to it

Your voice on social media, as explained over at guttulus.com, helps define who you are and how you portray yourself. While some brands like to be portrayed as being luxurious or expensive, others like being portrayed as being friendly and warm. An important tip here is to write a copy that matches your company voice and then sticking to this voice.

Don’t forget about the headlines

As the gurus over at runrex.com will yell you, a powerful headline will help draw the attention of readers, and although not all social media platforms utilize headlines, you must incorporate powerful headlines to your social media copy in those that do. These include Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. You should make sure that you incorporate keywords into the headline and are creative with it to make it appealing to users.

Be thorough

Before you press post or publish, you must proofread your social media copy to get rid of grammatical errors, as these will make your brand look bad in the eyes of your followers and customers as explained over at guttulus.com.

Have someone else read over your work

While going through your social media copy yourself will help you catch typos, it may be more difficult to catch issues with sentences that don’t make sense. You may think that a sentence makes sense when it doesn’t. A tip here is to have someone else in your team go through your social media copy before you post or publish it, as a new set of eyes may catch issues that you may have slipped your net.

Get only one message across

As mentioned earlier on the point about keeping your social media copy concise, you should pick the one message you want to get across, and avoid overwhelming your audience with too many points and messages in your copy.

Keep your posts personal

As already mentioned earlier on, and discussed over at runrex.com, social media is all about interactions. This means that, when writing social media copy, you should check business rhetoric out of the door and focus on your audience by using first-person words such as “We” to make your posts feel more personal and to address our audience directly.

Create sharable content

As is explained over at guttulus.com, it is also important to create sharable content, that is content that people want to share. Strategies you can use to achieve this include writing social media copy that is funny or references and promotes popular causes. It is also important to use positive language in your copy if you are to get people to share your content.

Use emojis and hashtags wisely and appropriately

The subject matter experts over at runrex.com also point out that, while hashtags are important on social media, it is important to use them correctly. Avoid stuffing your copy with hashtags as this will just put off your audience. When it comes to emojis also, you should make sure that the emoji means what you think it does before adding it onto your copy.

Keep up with trends

If you are to write effective social media copy, you need to make sure that you are keeping up with social media trends. Opportunities to write funny and engaging social media copy come and go quickly, and you don’t want to miss out.

Practice

Last but not least, another tip for writing social media copy is to practice your copywriting regularly. Like any other skill, you can get better at copywriting only through practice, as practicing will ensure that you are well prepared when the time comes to write copy. One of the ways to practice is by writing out examples of practice posts.

Remember, if you are looking for more information on the above topic, or even help with your social media copy, then the highly-rated runrex.com and guttulus.com have got your covered.