Social media, there is no way to avoid it. Everybody uses it to some extent and any business with an online presence has utilized social media in some way or another. So it’s important for businesses to write effective social media copy. However, before we dive into the topic of writing social media copy, let’s step back and remember why social media is so important to marketing today. It all goes back to the fundamental differences between inbound and outbound marketing.
Inbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is all about pushing your message outward, and you have to push it far and wide in order to reach people who are ready and able to purchase your products and services. Traditional outbound marketing includes television and radio commercials, cold calling, trade shows, and email blasts to purchased lists. It’s expensive, and the ROI isn’t good.Why isn’t the ROI good? People today are inundated with marketing. They see it on their phones, on their computers, on TV, and even on the billboards as they’re driving. They’re getting better and better at filtering these messages out with spam filters, Tivo, satellite radio, and caller ID. It’s also extremely expensive because you’re trying to reach as many people as possible. Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is marketing turned upside down. Instead of sending messages out hoping for someone to respond, you let interested people find you instead. You help yourself to “get found” by people who are looking for exactly what you offer. Therefore, your ROI is much, much higher.
And how do you “get found” by potential customers? You publish valuable, keyword-rich content that boosts you in the search engine rankings and provides your social media accounts with sharable, comment-worthy posts.
How to Write Social Media Copy
Once you decide to focus on inbound marketing, you need to start producing social media copy on a regular basis. Based on our years of work with inbound marketing, we’ve put together the following list of tips for you.
Use Strong Headlines and hashtags
Weak headlines fail to produce clicks. What you want is for people to stop in their tracks and click on your links. In order to elicit this response, you’ve got to write strong, attention-grabbing headlines. Give your headlines plenty of thought, and think about the headlines that grab your attention. Numbered lists work well as do headlines that evoke curiosity. Other strategies include using statistics, asking questions, and using strong verbs. If you are working with Twitter and instagram, you need to look into how you should use hastags. Here are some statstics from our friends at Hubspot about Twitter hashtagsand Instagram hashtags.
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-copywriting
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-copywriting
Keep Your Voice Consistent
Even if you have multiple people writing copy for your website and social media, it’s important to keep your voice consistent. The voice of your social media helps to reinforce your branding and give your business a personality. If you have several different people writing copy, create a style guide to help everyone write with a consistent tone and flavor. Include important keywords in your style guide to strengthen your SEO. Not sure what your website’s SEO situation is? Get a Free SEO analysis today from a marketing agency. When you are writing tweets, be sure to keep it between 120-130 characters. Check out the data below from Hubspot.
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-copywriting
Be Authentic
Speak directly to your customers as if you already have a trusted relationship with them. Avoid fluff, and don’t talk down to your readers. Social media gives businesses an opportunity to build relationships with potential customers before those customers ever pick up the phone or walk in the door. It’s a great opportunity; make the most of it with sincerity and authenticity.
Post with Purpose
Don’t post on social media just for the sake of posting. Start with a purpose: creating brand recognition, providing valuable information, letting people know about a sale, or getting feedback about a particular product or service. Once you know what your purpose is, it’s much easier to create social media copy that will resonate with readers and help you to get the results you’re looking for.
Be Concise
On social media, your posts are competing with thousands of other posts for people’s attention. One of the quickest ways to lose people is to be long-winded in your writing. Learn to use as few words as possible to convey your ideas. For example, keep your headlines and subject lines to seven words or fewer, and try to avoid large blocks of text. Break up large blocks into smaller paragraphs. White space is easy on the eyes.
With practice and consistency, you’ll get better and better at writing social media copy. For more information, contact Park Slope Softworks, your inbound marketing company in Brooklyn.
