Writing Copy for Social Media

When writing copy for different platforms, it’s important to take into consideration the mood of the social media network as well as your audience. The standards for email copy, website copy, and social media copy are different and there are things you should think about before you write the copy. Not only that, you don’t want to put the same copy up everywhere. You want to be innovative and fresh on each platform that you place any copy. Here are some questions to consider.

1. What Platform Rules Exist? – Each platform has its own rules that you should keep in mind before you create the copy for that medium.

2. Should Your Content Be Short or Long? – Each social media platform requires different lengths of content. As you know, with Twitter, you only have 140 characters to get your point across. With Facebook you have a bit more space, as with others. On your blog you technically have unlimited space. So consider which social media you’re writing for before you write the copy.

3. Which Subset of Your Audience Is Here? – Every person who is a member of your target audience does not have access to you via every single social media network. Some will be on Twitter, some on Pinterest and some will only want to read your blog. It’s up to them, and something you should think about. You can study which subset of your audience is following you on each social media network so you can focus the copy more toward them.

4. Is the Platform Buttoned-Up (Liked LinkedIn) or More Free Like Twitter? – Some platforms are more serious and professional. That means that sharing that picture of the cat hung up in the blinds might not be a good idea on LinkedIn, whereas sharing it on Facebook might be fine if you can relate it somehow to your business.

5. Should You Use #Hashtags or Keywords? – Even Facebook has got with the practice of using hashtags, but is it appropriate to use them on every platform? Probably not. Using them too much may show that you’re not that creative after all.

6. Is the Platform Visually Based? – Yes, it’s true that Twitter is trying to be more visual, as is Facebook. But, Pinterest and Instagram still lead the charge on being visual. Those two platforms would not do well with just a text-based update. You should consider that prior to creating the content.

7. What Is Your Objective? – What is the point of your update or share? Do you know what you are hoping to achieve? Do you have a well thought out, specific, numbers-driven objective in which you can measure results?

8. Should You Include a CTA? – You should always include a CTA (Call To Action), but how you do it on each social media network is what’s important. What type of CTA would tick off your audience, or would get you kicked out of the social media network? Avoid those.

9. Is Your Copy Sharable? – A really important factor for social media copy is whether or not it’s shareable. Shorter, visually oriented, relatable content is better to post on social media when you want it to be shared.

Creating copy for social media is different from writing keyword-rich articles, just like writing blog posts is different from writing keyword-rich articles. As you create your content strategy, these differences must be apparent to you in order to achieve success.

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