How to Write Killer Social Media Posts That Get Results
Creating Content That “Sells” – Regardless of Industry
(Don’t try this at home. Or on the sea, I guess.)
Updated: November 13, 2022
Are your tweets falling flat?
Your Instagram Stories D.O.A.?
Your LinkedIn posts attracting flies rather than business?
With the average American adult spending over 13 hours on media per day (eMarketer, 2021), your content must be both stellar and relatable if you want to stand out from T.V., radio, blogs, news articles, podcasts, etc.
As for social, the average user in the U.S. spends a little over 2 hours on social media per day.
So, are you wasting bucketloads of dough on social ads only to hear crickets? Posting mountains of organic content without so much as a “Like?”
There could be a couple of culprits, but the most likely problem is your social media content creation skills. Your messages just aren’t converting.
This guide will focus on your copywriting – the words you string together to make your point on a social media platform. We’ll include how to write for social media, where you can find writing resources, and where you can go for additional help.
Social Media Marketing Research
Regardless of which platform you use – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, etc., ensure you understand your intended audience inside and out. (And no, the audience for your product or service is not “everyone.”) Social media is an ongoing conversation, and social platforms are the new town square. Your specific audience should notice and interact with your social media content; it needs to be relevant to their interests. The more relevant your content is to your target group, the more likely they are to engage with your posts. While this is obvious on paper, it’s much more complicated in practice.
Conduct the right research. The last thing you want to do is shell out time and money for content that sucks. When conducting your research, there are a few questions you should look to answer.
Here’re some to get started:
What obstacles or challenges are your current target audience facing?
How does your product or service meet these needs?
Where do your customers, stakeholders, and industry leaders engage online?
How do they speak to each? What tone and voice do they use?
Research can be as simple as checking out influencers and competitors in the space or as elaborate as hiring a research agency. If you’re a small shop like I am, social listening is your new best friend (learn more about listening here). Leverage Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, and industry blogs. For consumer-focused, YouGov has a bunch of information available on different audiences. I primarily serve B2B customers. Finally, Pew Research is in-between, offering consumer- and business-oriented data and analysis.
Once you figure out your audience’s pain points, cater your social media marketing to show how you both understand and can solve their problems.
Speak Their Language
How does your audience speak online? Are they professional and polished? Relaxed and casual? Irreverant?
Meet them where they come from with a tone and voice that speaks to their lived experience. Use contractions. Start sentences with “and.” Leave ample white space, and don’t be afraid of ellipses. Break the rules of grammar if you have to – whatever it takes to get your audience to take action (see how I’m using an en dash where an em dash with no spaces would be more correct).
Similarly important is being clear and concise with your posts. Avoid using any complex language that your readers will have a hard time understanding. If you’re trying to target new moms, for example, you wouldn't want to post business jargon meant for senior-level executives.
Every customer and decision-maker has a different point of view, business challenges, and tone of voice. Yet, you should be able to find commonalities. Structure your posts in a way that shows your ideal audience that you understand their needs and challenges, and that you’re one of them. (Remind business owners that they’re engaging their customers – not themselves. What they personally like matters little when it comes to influencing others.)
Develop Your Voice and Mind Your Tone
First, let’s start out with the difference between voice and tone. Your brand voice is the specific way that your company talks – its personality and quirks. Perhaps you’re cheerful and helpful, or solid and buttoned-up? Or you’re a good person, or you don’t use the Oxford comma. Your voice refers to the personality and emotions that you infuse into your interactions.
You create your voice with your tone when interacting with your people – your ideal audience. Tone is more about how your message is coming across. It’s the difference between “Let’s go.” and “Let’s go!” (Fellow geriatric millennials should understand excessive explanation point use.)
Your brand needs a unique voice as a through-line to your content with a tone that matches the situation.
As already discussed, it’s best to stay consistent with your voice. If you change your style to just to keep up with the trends, you can quickly lose your social media following. Not only do you risk losing followers, but you also can lose yourself. You want to stay original with your company's personality. The right audience will flock to you and stay when you create a voice they resonate with.
Your consistency will help build trust with your clients, and it also enables you to connect with them emotionally.
Your brand voice sets you apart from other people. You want your audience to be able to identify your social media posts as your own without seeing a logo.
Keep Your Posts Short and Simple
Not everyone likes to read lengthy posts with empty fillers that have nothing to do with what you’re trying to say. People like it when you get to the point and don't waste their time. Remember K.I.S.S.?
Keep It Stupid Simple.
If you can say it in 3 words, don’t use 5. Your social media writing should be easy to read (remember that your audience has a lot of competing priorities on their time). For most brands, your goal is to have your posts read at an eighth-grade reading level to ensure that your audience can easily digest your information.
Other ways to simplify your posts:
Focus on one idea with one call-to-action
Keep paragraphs to two to three sentences
Use headings, lists, and bullet points
When you create content that is easy to read and understand, you show your audience that you value their time. You hit your customer's pain points and quickly explain how you solve their problems. And you stand out in the ever-shifting social feed.
One note of caution: Be careful with abbreviations. If you have the space, write the whole word or phrase out somewhere in the post unless it’s an abbreviation commonly understood by your customers.
Avoid Overly Sales-Driven Messages
Social media content writing should inform your target audience and connect with them. You want to create a relationship, sharing content that educates and entertains.
This doesn’t mean that you can't promote your business or yourself. You just have to be creative without sounding like you're pitching a sale. Your goal is to invite your audience to want to take the action your business needs. Make it worth their while. (Not only do overly salesy messages not work, they sound desperate af.)
One simple tactic is to include a discount in your post. Say your business sells energy drinks. You are looking to gain more sales. Put up a simple post that ends with, "Grab our top-selling energy drink bundle for 20% today only." Including a nice clear image of your photo increases your engagement. You’re helping your audience with a discount, and the urgency of “today only” provides a reason to act now. Then, follow it up with posts about the benefits of caffeine, your elite skydiving team, and a backyard barbecue subtly featuring the product.
My general rule of thumb:
80% educational or entertaining posts
20% sales, lead capture, etc. posts
Use Videos and Images
While a slight digression from “writing” for social media, I should briefly mention images. “A picture is worth a thousand words" and too much text turns off your audience. Including a photo, GIF, or a relevant video with your post helps convey the story, helps your audience remember the information you’re sharing, and helps it stand out in the newsfeed.
And some folks prefer video to walls of text. If you decide to include videos in your posts, be mindful of the platform you’re using to ensure that your message reaches the right people – and that you’ve chosen the right specs for your vid. A TikTok-style video likely doesn’t belong on LinkedIn.
Remember: Most folks watch social video with the sound off. And no matter who your audience is, you should seek to be accessible to as many people as possible. Improve accessibility with captions.
How to Write for Each Social Media Platform
As mentioned earlier, it is crucial that you write your content based on your target audience and the type of social media network. Each social media platform has different purposes, audiences, and expectations.
For example, a post on Instagram typically contains high-quality videos or photos. Yes, some folks use Instagram posts as blogs, but that’s Advanced Social Media 201. Not many people want to read lengthy posts full of hashtags. If you plan to market on Instagram, you will want to focus on attractive videos and photos. Instagram's platform is best for brands with strong visuals.
Below, I’ll go over the primary social sites where writing is heavily featured: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Facebook Marketing
Facebook's platform contains both news and entertainment outlets. There are specialized groups for different points of interest, and there are many ways for you to sell your products or services on their suite of sites.
It is essential to be mindful of who your target audience is when using Facebook. Choose (or create!) Groups that are relevant to your audience’s interests.
Of note, Facebook is very much a pay-to-play network. Its superpower is mostly around advertising. Facebook's platform has excellent potential for website referral traffic because of the way that you can specifically target a specific location, gender, or age group.
With nearly 3 billion monthly active users, everyone and their mom (and their mom’s mom) is on Facebook.
LinkedIn Marketing
LinkedIn is a professional network.
This website varies greatly from Facebook and Instagram because people on LinkedIn are looking for jobs, colleagues, sales, and relatable professional content. LinkedIn is primarily used to share industry articles and other professional content for entrepreneurs, managers, and executives.
For B2B companies like my clients, it’s a stellar platform for thought leadership, hosting live video streams, and encouraging whitepaper and case study downloads.
Twitter Marketing
Twitter is a great marketplace for all types of brands and companies. Almost every major company has a Twitter page where they release news and promote their products.
If you are looking to post lengthy blog posts, Twitter is not for you. You can still use SEO keywords and hashtags to reach your target audience, but you will need to keep it within 280 characters (unless you’re writing a thread).
The primary use case for Twitter is to reach and engage with reporters, journalists, media, and influencers. (Incidentally, Twitter is my favorite platform.)
Improve Your Social Media Writing
Social media is an excellent way to market your company and to reach the right audience for your services. Yet, creating content that is easy to read, entertaining, and relatable is critical – social is not a place to dump content in the hope of someone seeing it.
You need to know how to write. And you need a strategy. This post covers writing, but the content of those posts, messaging tactics, and other details are just as (if not more) important as the copywriting. If your posts aren't getting the results you need, it may be time to partner with a social media specialist who can put your company in the correct position.