This blog was written by Andrea Fisher, Communication Assistant at Elevate Communication.

Social media has fast become one of the most important forms of digital marketing regardless of industry. Social media is both an affordable and effective tool for businesses to raise brand awareness and showcase their products and services. It has a theoretically unlimited reach, allowing businesses to connect with large audiences for a relatively low cost.

Yet, writing for social media can be one of the most difficult forms of content to master. Why? Because each word must pack a punch.

Short form copy means businesses are constantly challenging themselves to produce the same impact and relay key messages in just a handful of sentences, or sometimes even words.

So, how do you ensure your social content remains engaging, grows and retains followers and meaningfully conveys your brand?

Engaging social media content for longevity

The powerful thing about social media is the fact that audiences, and specifically, consumers have more power and control than ever because they have choice over what content they want to consume.

However, it can be hard to get your audience’s attention in an overly saturated social media environment.

Creating content your audience wants to see, ‘pull’ content, is one way of gaining and retaining engagement in the long-term. Pull content is something your customer wants to see or goes looking for. So, your content must be attractive to them and often informative or entertaining. This will not only get consumer attention, but keep it.

Push content, on the other hand, is content you want your audience to see. Of course, for most businesses, there will always be a balance of both.

When creating push content, copy should focus on a ‘soft-sell’ rather than a ‘hard-sell’. Instead of telling your audience, “Our product achieves results”, post a successful case study or share a product review with your audience.

Content ideas for social media: focus on your key messages

Do you know your brand’s key messages? If you do, you’re one step closer to creating excellent copy.

On social media, each post, each caption, is an opportunity to communicate your brand’s key messages. Having a deep understanding of the narrative you want to convey to your audiences will not only inform your social calendar and content themes, but it will allow you to make the most of your captions.

This could include your point of difference, unique value proposition (UVP), your mission, or your values. Reiterating key messages helps raise and maintain brand awareness.

Customise your content

According to Hubspot’s 2023 State of Marketing report, customising content for each platform is a must if you’re looking to elevate your social media content.

“35% of marketers tailor their content for each social platform—but those who are most effective create custom content for every channel.”
(HubSpot 2023 State of Marketing Report) 

So, what does successful copy look like on each platform?

LinkedIn is best for business-to-business (B2B) communication and therefore requires a corporate tone. On LinkedIn, emojis reduce the credibility of your copy. Businesses should restrict their use of emojis to retain credibility.

For businesses wanting to communicate with their consumers, Instagram is the channel to distribute those messages. Conversational, short copy lends itself best to the Instagram platform. This copy should be a maximum of two lines and use emojis and hashtags strategically to engage and retain audiences.

On the other hand, Facebook marries both B2B and business-to-consumer (B2C) communication. Keep copy professional but concentrate on your pull content.

While social media content writing is important to get right, it’s just as important for businesses to know where their owned media fits within their content marketing strategy as a whole. Part of this is understanding how to optimise content to ensure it’s not only accessible for different types of audiences but resonates with them as well.

If you’re looking for a content marketing agency to elevate your content marketing strategy, get in touch.