Are you planning to try your luck with social media copywriting? No worries, let us assist you with specific guidelines and strategies. The guide is curated from our decade’s worth of experience as a content marketing company.
A quick look at stats and guidelines on writing a text copy for four popular platforms:
Facebook remains the highest-utilized social networking site in most countries. The Zuckerberg-owned platform has more than 2.8 billion active users.
Facebook offers a character limit that’s sufficient enough to post stories, long-form content. However, studies suggest users do not consume such lengthy content. As per research, you can expect higher engagement with posts that include 80 characters or less.
Can posts with images offer better results? Yes, indeed, posts with images can result in 2.3* more engagement.
Facebook is a superb platform for sharing external content like videos, reports, and blog posts. Roughly, more than 70 percent of Facebook users appreciate posts with links to interesting external content.
Studies have pointed out that YouTube links happen to be the most shared ones. But, posting a link without a proper text description doesn’t work well. Tell the audience what the content is about, and using a brief, attention-grabbing text copy is the best option.
Auto-posting, the same content on multiple platforms, is a strict no!
LinkedIn has become the primary content distribution platform for professionals. Besides job postings, industry leaders have been using LinkedIn for sharing original content since 2014.
What’s so unique about the content-sharing platform? LinkedIn allows users to share the entire content and images, rather than just a description with a link, on the site. The character limit for the body is 3000 characters, and 220 for the headline.
Estimates suggest LinkedIn has 756 million members. So, the reach is undoubtedly better than ordinary blogs. You can reach a larger audience, attract more attention towards work.
Twitter allows the use of 280 characters along with polls, videos, or images. But studies suggest tweets with 120-130 characters show better click-through-rate.
You can effectively use hashtags to summarize the message in your text, video, or image. The hashtag also helps in improving engagement. Users searching with the concerned hashtags can find your tweets quickly.
As per the HubSpot study, a to-the-point copy can result in 18% more clicks. Tweet during the afternoon, post fewer statistics, and use awesome images for better results.
You can achieve greater engagement by limiting the hashtags to one or two per tweet. Using three or more in a single tweet is not recommended.
Twitter can also be an excellent platform to drive traffic to your Facebook. Brands promote their Facebook and YouTube live streams on Twitter.
Images and videos are the key components of your Instagram strategy. However, using a text copy to give context for the content is always better.
Insta allows you to use more than 2,200 caption characters. But, the cut-off seems to be after three lines.
Experts recommend brands to ensure the call-to-action remains within the first three lines. Extraneous details and even mentions as well as hashtags can stay at the end of the copy.
Videos often automatically play without sound on Instagram. Text description acts as a quick explainer for the video content and may motivate them to tap and listen. Using a lengthy caption with a video or image is a bad idea.
As far as hashtags are concerned, it’s OK to use more than two on a platform. Posts with seven hashtags can maximize engagement.
Five of the most appreciated copywriting strategies that work with the above four platforms
- Images can take the emotional copy to the next level
Yes, indeed, for selected types of posts, writing less is more. An average Instagram user spends around 21 minutes scrolling through videos and photos daily.
Brevity works well for such a visually driven platform. You can evoke emotions by elevating your videos and images with the help of emotional captions.
You want your audience, readers, to stop and think after reading the copy, right? Use a punchy copy for best results.
- Leveraging the audience’s desire to learn
Did you know? An estimated 45 percent of LinkedIn users occupy upper-level positions in various organizations. These are managers, directors, suite members, and they wish to use the platform to access industry news and updates.
B2B marketers know how to leverage this desire to learn. Thus, they use LinkedIn as content delivery and distribution platform.
Your LinkedIn post copy should be able to fulfill the audience’s desire to learn. Thus, consider adding the following elements.
- Industry statistics
- Industry-specific news
- Quotes from industry leaders
- Use the copy to grab people’s attention with exclusivity, scarcity, and urgency
Most social media users do not wish to miss out on essential status updates, news, and community events.
Their fear of missing out on something ensures they keep on coming back to the platform. The fear of missing out (FEMO) can work as a motivating factor in your text copy.
You can grab the audience’s attention by adding scarcity, urgency, and exclusivity elements in your copy.
Wonder how to do it? Ensure you reflect the limited availability, exclusivity of the product in the copy. And communicate that it’s available for a limited time.
- Monitor text copy length and performance
Copywriters can communicate the primary point to the audience in just three to five words. And this is the most recommended approach rather than using a long ad copy.
Do you think a longer copy works better and helps in conversion? Try split testing to judge if a shorter or longer copy suits your audience.
- Brand voice in the text copy
These days, roughly, more than 70 percent of businesses rely on social networking sites for consumer engagement.
Every organization should have a voice, tone that sounds similar on all the platforms. Audiences should be able to recognize the same when they visit your Facebook page, Twitter handle, or Insta profile.
Lastly, the wording in your copy needs to be in the language your demographic uses. It should be similar to your recently published posts.
How to write excellent social media posts?
- Understand your customer personas
- Ensure there’s clarity in the text copy headline
- Avoid hard-sell, don’t try to push your products
- Focus on the benefits of your products
- Ensure there’s a clear call to action
On the endnote:
An ideal social media post consists of super-interesting captions that can get the target audience talking. As a part of content marketing services, we can assist your business with unique, thought-provoking content for social networking sites. Contact the Peddleweb team today.
