Copywriting for Social Media
There’s no doubt that many social media platforms are first and foremost a visual experience. An interesting visual is what makes people stop and pay attention to what you have to say. However, skilful copywriting still has an important role to play in how your audience will perceive and interact with your brand.
Copywriting is the act of producing copy – any written content created for the purpose of advertising or marketing. Copy is important on social media for three main reasons: to educate your audience about your products or business, increase brand awareness and persuade them to take action.
ABOUT YOU
Great copywriting needs to start from the first scroll of your phone screen. At the top of the page, most social media platforms will have a bio section that allows you to briefly describe you/ your business. This section is crucial as not only is it the first section of text that people will see, but character limits are also often imposed so you what you write must be both effective but succinct! To write a great bio, think about the core message you want people to know about your brand and what it is that sets you apart from the rest. Don’t forget to add those practical details too, like your business’ phone number, address and website!
CAPTIONS
As copywriters and social media managers, we totally get it – sometimes the words for a memorable caption just won’t come! Our best advice is to try and engage your audience with great story telling. Come up with something witty, heart-warming or punny, or point out something unique about what is featured in the post that they might have missed. Generally, it’s best to keep captions short and snappy but there’s nothing wrong with lengthier captions, especially for more educational posts, as long as everything has a point. Also make sure that the tone of your captions is consistent throughout each post and is in line with your brand.
The most important thing in writing any copy is to ensure that all grammar, punctuation and spelling are correct! We know you heard this to no end from your teachers at school but: Proofreading is key!! Check it once, then check it again! If possible, try and get another set of eyes to go over your copy to pick up mistakes you may have missed.
#HASHTAGS & GEOTAGS
One aspect of copy on social media that you may not have thought of are hashtags and geotags. Hashtags are words or phrases that are preceded with a hash sign (#). They are used as a means to categorise and identify posts, so that anyone interested in a particular subject just as to search with a hashtag to find posts relevant to them.
Hashtags are a super important part of your copy as they help in increasing your reach. Having the most relevant hash tags to your business, audience and each specific post is imperative to improving and expanding your presence on social media. It is also important to have the right amount of hashtags as too few will be ineffective for growing your brand, but too many will be annoying for your followers. In any case, some social media platforms do place a limit on how many hashtags you can use anyway. Finding the best hashtags for your profile will require a brainstorm session of any keywords relevant to you and doing research on the social media platforms you intend to use, or consulting other websites and analytics programs. Geotags are location tags that mark your posts as being published from a specific place. Like hashtags, they can be used as an organisation and identification tool so that when a location is searched, every post related to that place can be seen.
Now that you’ve been walked through how to create relevant and engaging copy, you can now go ahead and start dreaming up a world of words! But if you’re not a natural-born wordsmith or just need a general hand with social media management, don’t worry, MBP can wrangle all your writing woes and solve all your social media stresses! Contact us today.