In a world where companies are fighting for each other’s attention on the internet, it can be hard to find a way for your message to break through. While strong visuals and appealing videos are key, another less flashy but equally important aspect in creating strong social media content is copywriting. Getting your brand’s entire message across, in short, concise posts can be tricky. And coming up with new, creative, and consistent content can be time-consuming and tough to think of month after month. But getting your message across to your audience is arguably one of the most important parts of marketing, which is why we’ve put together the top five tips for copywriting!
1. Establish your Brands Voice
The first tip to writing effective copy is to find your brand’s voice. Figure out what tone you want your brand to have and what the writing style will be. Will your copy be witty and funny? Or elegant and luxurious? It will depend on what your company is and how you want it to be perceived. The idea here is to find your brand’s voice, and the guidelines you can then shape every aspect of your future copy from. Some companies even go as far as to create a character to shape this brand persona.
For example, in their early years, Victoria’s Secret created the image of their brand by making up the character Victoria. This persona was a wealthy, elegant British woman who was well-established. At the time, that was the type of clientele that Victoria’s Secret wanted to attract. They treated Victoria as if she was a real person, basing all branding decisions on “What would Victoria want? What would Victoria do?”. It was said that as the company grew many staff members thought she was a real person![1]
While you don’t have to go as far as creating a character, it is very helpful to have branding guidelines in place that help you establish the style of writing you will implement in all future copywriting.
2. Create Consistent Content
In the social media realm, there is always new content to see, articles to read, and videos to watch. With so much content constantly being produced, it can be hard to keep up and stay relevant. The goal is to post consistently to keep a strong reach and be at the top of the customer’s mind. Our second tip focuses on ways to do this by creating consistent content. Content buckets are a great brainstorming tool to help think of topics for posts. For example, are there weekly specials to promote, upcoming events, or something creative for brand awareness that is relevant to our company like #winewednesday or #MotivationMonday.
Are there different employees or departments to highlight, are there holidays or national days you can tie into your brand? Once you get a good list of reoccurring topics, it becomes easier to create large amounts of content months in advance. It also allows highlighting so many specific things within your company that make it fun for new viewers and employees alike to read and engage with. It doesn’t always have to be in the same order either, you can switch it up or use different topics alternating weeks, but having the buckets creates a good reference source.
Another pro tip if you are writing copy for a brand to who you don’t have direct access to ask questions is to check the company website and get idea inspirations from there. There are even websites/ tools like Topic Mojo that allow you to research your industry and see topics and questions people are interested in for that specific business. Which you can use to create content relevant to exactly what users want. As an advertiser, you want to think about content that creates value for the user and tie it into your messaging. Take things that are happening around you or things that are currently trending and make them your own. Whether that is inspirational, educational, or pure entertainment, having a wide variety of on-brand content helps keep your company on the top of users’ minds in a positive way.
3. Engage Audiences with the Right Posts
Once you have your brand voice, and content ideas you can then move on to the actual writing of the posts.
While writing, it is important to keep in mind to write posts that your audience can engage with. More engagement = higher impressions and reach, meaning more people will see your content. Therefore, it is important to create posts people will comment on, like, and re-share.”
– Autumn Homer, Digital Media Specialist, Chacka Marketing
To create engage-worthy posts, hook the reader in with a strong headline, explaining what it is the post is about, then ending with a specific call to action. If you have trouble thinking of a compelling headline, google power words for inspiration. Power words are words that smart copywriters use to trigger a psychological or emotional response. Sometimes they help jog our creativity and the rest flows naturally!
Write posts that ask questions. Take a poll or ask people to vote or write their answers in the comments. Think of topics that give the audience incentive to re-share or like your content. Social media contests are great examples of this, where you give the audience a list of tasks like “tag two people in the comments below and re-share to be entered to win XYZ!”.
A great way to generate engagement is to highlight people within your own company, or audience members and share user-generated content (with permission). When you highlight individuals, they are more likely to share on their personal pages, which then leads their friends and family to reshare and so on. The goal is to make the content share-worthy, likable, and engage-worthy. It is important to note to have a relevant call to action at the end of every post. This includes links to the website, phone numbers to call, links to buy tickets, links to buy specific products, etc. You want your post to lead directly to the website page or phone number for the customer to act. This way with every engagement and re-share, more people can be led to directly what your post is asking them to do.
4. Find the Proper Balance in Copy
Now that the ideas are flowing naturally and you’re actively writing posts, the next step is to find the right balance of copy in your posts – not too much or too little information. Social media has made us want everything instantly and in quick tidbits. According to Forbes, people have an attention span of eight seconds, a decrease of 12 seconds back in 2000.[2] Because of this, your copy should not be written in long paragraphs as people will easily lose interest in it. Get your point across and lead them to a call to action to learn more if there is more to share.
Include information or graphics in the image, then your caption can still be short. If there is more information to include, break it up in a visually appealing way by using relevant emojis. You want your content to be visually appealing, easily digestible, and simple to complete the CTA.
5. Schedule Posts to Suitable Social Channels
The last tip for copywriting is to find the social media tool that works best for your organization for scheduling posts. From Hootsuite, to Sprout Social and within Facebook itself, Creator Studio, many helpful tools allow you to schedule content and post onto the proper social media channels automatically.
Choosing the platform will depend on how many social media channels you have, your budget, and how often you plan to post. For example, if your organization has every channel of social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn then a platform like Hootsuite or Sprout Social would be ideal since they allow you to schedule every single channel in one place. It eliminates a lot of back-and-forth and logging into multiple accounts. These programs do cost money, so your package would be dependent on your budget. However, if your company has decided to stick to only using Facebook and Instagram as your primary social channels, then a great tool would be to utilize Facebook’s Creator Studio, where you can schedule out all your Facebook and Instagram content for free.
Ultimately, the less time you spend each day posting individual posts, the less likely errors are to be made, and the more time you will have to focus on other aspects of your business. By effectively managing your time and automating tasks you can spend your time growing your business and generating even more creative content.
Tie the Pieces Together
Overall, copywriting is a just piece of the larger puzzle of your entire marketing strategy. Your content should integrate well with all other marketing funnels. However, when done correctly it serves as a strong tool for brand awareness and creating a well-known company. By following these five steps you will be on your way to generating consistent, creative, and engaging content time and time again!
About the Author: Autumn Homer is a Digital Media Specialist at Chacka Marketing.
Sources:
[1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/madisonmcgee/shocking-details-victorias-secret-documentary
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jiawertz/2019/08/31/the-number-one-thing-marketers-need-to-know-to-increase-online-sales/?sh=4d9e75497fed
