Writing for social media can be a tricky business. As a brand or service provider, there could be a lot you want to tell your consumers, about your service/product, discounts, contests and latest offerings on a platform where they are most active. But if you end up writing everything on social media, then there remains no difference between a post and a blog. To help you improve your social media game, we’re going to break down writing for social media.
Identify the platform you’re writing for
Before you start writing for social media posts. It is necessary for you to identify and understand the platform that you be writing for. There are platforms like Instagram and Facebook, where it is casual and laid-back. You have the freedom to experiment with your posts’ size, language and its tone. While on Twitter, you have the strict limit of 140 characters, so the write up has to be on-point and catchy. Then there’s LinkedIn, dubbed as the professional social media. So it is understood that the language should be more sombre and subtle. Mixing these up could cause damage to the brand image.
AIDA (Attention + Interest + Desire + Action)
Just like journalists follow the cardinal rule of 5W1H, copywriters must follow the rule of AIDA while writing for social media. Each post you write must catch the Attention of the reader/viewer, it should generate Interest in your brand/product, create Desire about the product/service that how it is the best thing for them, and push them to take Action on how to avail it. Here’s an example:
Keep it short and simple
As we mentioned before, nobody has the time and interest to read an extensively written piece on social media. No matter how awesome your product or service is, long and tiring write ups drive customers away and scroll to next post. It is necessary that you keep it catchy, peppy and punchy. Such write ups make customers inquisitive and generate desire to know more about the product and service. It could drive walk ins or inquiries for your business. Here’s an example of it:
Maintain a Brand Voice
Every brand has its own, unique voice, which relates and resonates with its customers. It is the tone of the message that decided whether the brand gets a positive or negative engagement for its post. When you write for a brand, it is necessary to study the demography of its customers. Their age group, the kind of culture they follow, the type of service they prefer, the language they communicate it. A restaurant or cafe whose diners are usually young, college educated people, the language is a bit more casual and hip, compared to that of a luxurious five-star hotel, who would like to keep it classy and professional. Sometimes, one even has to write in the local language, if the masses engaging with the brand speaks the native tongue more.
Infuse pop-culture references
Nothing works best like nostalgia does. Trust us when we say this, that nostalgia can literally sell anything. People love it when they see that their favourite brand resonates the same kind of affinity and love towards their favourite TV show, movie or personality. It not only gets people talking about your brand on social media, but helps retain them and create a recall value about you. It is not necessary to write any long paragraphs, even a single dialogue or quote, lyrics from a song cleverly tweaked to relate to the product/brand can effectively send the message to your followers. Given below is the example of how Zomato relies profusely on puns and pop culture references, and is hitting it out of the park.
Always check your grammar!
When you write a beautiful piece of content for your brand on social media, you are giving value to your customer. Even a witty one liner won’t land and the reader will not relate to it if it is riddled with spelling errors and bad grammar. Grammatical errors also show that the brand is very unprofessional and doesn’t even bother about their online presence. Whatever you write, even if you’re confident enough about its correctness, it is advisable to run it through apps like Grammarly because certain words in English have multiple different meanings and wrong usage of it could give out a wrong message and even maybe offend people to an extent.
Use Hashtags
Using Hashtags, a metadata tag, is where specific words or topics are mentioned using the # symbol within content, that creates or relates to conversations that trend online and guides people to find them and join in. Studies have shown that engagement on social media posts see a jump of over 10% when appropriate hashtags are used with the write-up. Branded hashtags, that promote specific aspects about your product/service help start a conversation online and thus push the visibility of the brand. Just like how Tia & Berry uses the hashtags #TiaTime and #TiaBreak.
Social Media is a powerful tool for brands to expand their reach and gain potential customers with minimal or no cost. With millions of people using social media extensively on a daily basis, it is important for businesses to have their presence on social media as customers tend to connect with them more when their brand identifies more as their friend than a service. And the right content ensure that you hit the bulls eye with every post.
Vasim Samadji is a partner at Flora Fountain, where he leads the Business and Marketing Strategy divisions. In a world where everyone is used to sugarcoating, his directness is often considered rude. But that shouldn't be a problem if you like the no-nonsense approach. Because he is a seasoned professional...