Copywriting for social media is an essential part of your digital marketing strategy.
Social media runs on content, after all, and copy is a critical component of that, along with visuals, audio, and the like.
If you’ve done some form of content marketing strategy before, then you probably already know what you can do with strong copy. You can entertain readers, resonate with them, and even compel them to take action.
This is certainly true even in social media marketing. So, to help you achieve that, we’ll go over all you need to know about social media copy and how to succeed with it.
What is engaging social media copy and why do you need it?
Social media copy simply refers to text content meant for social media.
Examples include the copy you use for Facebook posts, Instagram captions, product descriptions, ad slogans, tweets, and even your replies to comments.
Of course, not all of this copy is made equal. What you really want for your social media marketing is engaging copy.
In other words, you want copy that stimulates engagement of some sort from your audience.
Social media engagement comes in various forms. It can be via likes, comments, shares, etc. All of them are forms of interaction.
Your aim is thus to craft messages that encourage readers to interact with your posts. Your copy should also try to leave a strong impression on your audience.
How to Write Engaging Social Media Copy
To do copywriting properly, you have to understand the market and the customer. Without that, you won’t be able to convey ideas that ultimately persuade an audience to take action.
Here are some tips on how you can write engaging copy on social media platforms:
1. Ask questions
This is a great way to start conversation and increase engagement. Examples would be brands like Maybelline asking which of its products are staples for fans or Starbucks asking which of its drinks people would take to homecoming.
For best results, try to encourage your audience to join the conversation. You can invite them to tag their friends to join the conversation, for example.
Some people even work a contest into it, e.g. a brand might say the best answer will get a prize like a special discount coupon.
2. Discuss trending topics
Sometimes, you don’t even need to think of a topic to start a conversation. In many cases, conversations are already happening around you!
So, latch on to them. Look for topics that could be relevant to your brand or industry.
Then, post about that topic in order to piggy-back on the trend. This is conversational copywriting at its best, as you’re basically joining talks that are already happening here.
The easiest way to do this is perhaps to time it for holidays. When holidays like Christmas come up, for instance, you can post about them since people are likely discussing how to prepare for them already.
Note that you can combine this with some other tips in our list. For example, turn this into a query by asking people what they’re doing to prepare for the holidays!
3. Write with your audience in mind
We mentioned this before, but it bears
repeating in social media strategy optimisation: you need to know your audience and what you want to achieve relative to that audience.
This is because you can’t possibly get through to someone if you don’t know what they’re interested in or what they want/need.
So, when crafting your copy, put your readers first. Consider your consumers’ journey and intent and think about how they would likely react to your post.
This can help you come up with better, more relatable copy.
4. Be consistent
It’s important for your copy to stay true to your brand personality or voice to make your copy more personable and sincere.
When you flip-flop from one brand personality to another, it makes you unreliable, and that can lead to an impression of insincerity.
Let your followers know that your brand is dependable and credible by keeping your brand voice consistent across all platforms. It builds trust and your identity.
5. Appeal to emotion
Depending on your brand and audience, you’ll want to evoke certain emotions through copywriting in your social media platforms.
With good copywriting, you can entertain, inspire or resonate, or deeply affect your audience. To that end, you have to know what moves them and, as noted earlier, put yourself in their shoes.
A good tip here is to consider using emojis and hashtags to support your attempts. By themselves, emojis and hashtags don’t necessarily make copy more emotional, but they do help make it relatable, which can help you appeal to emotions better.
6. Use a strong opening
It’s a good idea to start off with punchy sentences on social media. These express meaning in a forceful and effective way and offer a good way to sound confident.
Your first line needs to be short, powerful and captivating. It can grab attention and keep people reading that way.
That said, keep your copy short as much as possible. Social media users generally don’t like novels in their posts!
7. Include a call-to-action or CTA
Once you have your audience’s attention, create a sense of urgency to motivate readers to act now with appropriate CTAs.
For example, you can direct your audience to a page on your website to learn more about what you’re posting.
You can also direct them to places like your YouTube channel, other social media accounts, your account page on the platform, etc.
Here are some other common CTAs in social media:
Shop for your products
Enter a contest
Share a post with friends
Click the link in your bio (usually on Instagram)
Tag a friend (a good CTA for growing reach)
Leave a comment or reply to your question
8. Write differently for different platforms
Remember that social media platforms can vary quite a bit. They often have slightly different user groups with different needs and engagement preferences.
That’s why you need to know why people use each platform in the first place.
For example, Twitter is a platform for sharing timely news and LinkedIn is a professional networking site. Instagram, meanwhile, is often used for sharing (often-positive or feel-good) visual content for aesthetic enjoyment.
There are also things to note like caption length limits, vocabulary preferences, and available CTAs for each platform.
You have to adjust your copy accordingly. If not, you could end up with errors like getting your copy cut off on a platform with tighter copy limits than the one where you first wrote the copy, tagging Instagram handles on LinkedIn, and so on.
Start social media marketing now
As you can see, social media marketing copywriting can be fairly complicated in some ways – but the sooner you start, the sooner you begin learning the do’s and dont’s of the process.
You also have a tonne of resources that can help you with that endeavour now. On our blog alone, for example, we have articles on topics like Instagram marketing strategies and social media changes that can help.
If you’re not sure you can keep up with social media trends or take on the task alone, however, don’t worry: you don’t have to.
We’ve run hundreds of social media marketing campaigns for our clients and continue to do so. If you want to learn what we might be able to do for your own brand, chat with us. Let’s talk about your digital marketing needs!
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