Sharing a beautiful photo just doesn’t cut it anymore. Strategic copywriting is the heart of every successful social post, and with the growing popularity of long form posts (aka ‘micro blogs’) on both Facebook and Instagram, it’s more important than ever to learn how to write copy that resonates, engages and speaks to your audience. Add in an engaging graphic or video, and you’ve got the ultimate winning combination!
But what exactly is the recipe for great social copy? Here are a few simple pro tips you can easily adapt (plus a few you’ll want to avoid!):
DO’S
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Speak to your followers. Make sure your posts are relatable to your audience by regularly checking out your account’s insights. This will show you where your audience is located and the breakdown of your demographics.
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Use emojis wisely! Emoji trends come and go, but at the moments, stats show that using 2-3 relevant emojis in each post tends to get people the most engagement. We like using a site like getemoji.com to easily add in emojis when we build out our content calendars.
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Think of your caption as a short-form blog post. Each caption should tell a bit of a story and engage viewers within the first few words.
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Use hooks to capture the attention of your audience right at the start of the post. According to expert Jasmine Star, following any of these three steps: “identify a specific audience, share “a juicy share” or “asking an engaging question” can help stop people from scrolling past your posts. Check out more of Jasmine’s tips here.
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Jump on social trends. Whether it’s National #IceCreamDay, #TacoTuesday or even a more industry-specific month like Diabetes Awareness Month, we recommend you stay aware of any and all trends/events in your industry so you can tailor your content to the things your audience cares about or will get excited about. But don’t be tone-deaf, people. Tokenism just isn’t cool. To help you keep track of dates, you can use Later’s free downloadable calendar or if you’re in a specific field like health, find the right calendar.
DON’Ts
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Include grammatical errors or typos in your captions! This is a major no-no, as it can make your account and business look unprofessional. Make sure to double and triple-check all posts before they’re published. Tip: Always have another set of eyes review each and every post before it gets scheduled.
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Use profanity or too much slang in your posts. Profanity can get your posts blocked by Instagram and using slang can increase the chance of your posts being misinterpreted.
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Share TOO many personal details. While connecting with your audience on a more personal level is key, and while people want to see the emotions behind a business, there’s a fine line between sharing posts to reach potential clients and sharing posts meant just for your close friends. So keep more private posts like those bachelorette party pics on your own personal feed.
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Try to speak to EVERY audience in your community. Tailor each post to the specific audience that you’re trying to reach to make sure it’s relevant to your followers. Tailwind App has a great free “Roadmap to 10K Followers” guide which can help you narrow down your audience.
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Use the exact same social copy from your other platforms. While it’s okay to share a similar post across both your FB and IG accounts, you need to adapt them to the platform. This means, don’t use hashtags on Facebook, and do change up the visuals to meet the needs of your audience on the specific platform. Videos are performing really well on all social platforms, but each requires specific formatting.
Let us know if you give any of these recommendations a try, and make sure to follow us on Instagram at @tsavancouver for more social media tips. Looking for ways to grow your Instagram followers? We can help with that, too.
