Content Writing For Social Media: A Comprehensive Guide
Social media marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing in the present times. Social media is the place where most of the potential customers virtually hang out on a daily basis. The importance of content writing for social media platforms in such a scenario, cannot be emphasized enough. Today, in this article, I will delineate the top features of content writing for social media.
In a world of 7 billion humans beings, more than 50% of them are online.
Every aspect of our lives has been digitized. All services are at our fingertip. You name it; education, governance, booking a cab, shopping for goods and services, ordering food, health advises, navigation, entertainment. One of the major changes that the advent of the internet has brought to our day to day lives is in the way we socialize. The emergence of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram has changed the ways how we go through our day to day lives.
Our family and friends are actually one text or one video call away. Social media is just no more a place where you interact with your people. It is much more than that. It has become a place where you share your ideas, views, post pictures and videos and stories of a small part of your life. Truth is, most people started to use the internet to join social media platforms. A small section of these social media users had no idea about other facets of this wonderful tool called the Internet.
However, big organizations knew it from the start that social media is an excellent platform to target relevant people who can become their potential customers. No platform is as an effective place like social media to advertise, promote, market products and services of a brand. Just not that, social media provides an excellent space for brands to develop an interpersonal relationship of trust, reliability with their potential customers. Here, in this article, we are going to discuss ways how you can make your content writing for social media really effective.
To make a piece of content writing for social media effective and productive, you need to keep the following points in mind;
- Keep it concrete, concise and catchy
The main aspect of effective content writing for social media includes crafting content in a concrete, concise and captivating manner that not only catches the attention of potential customers but also efficiently gives an insight into the value of the brand. The main component of such content is its headline.
Headlines should be creative and compact enough to attract the attention of social media users as they scroll through their news feed. The body of the rest of the write-up should also be informative, valuable and of course, consuming enough to spark an interest for a brand’s products and services. A workable piece of content writing for social media is a great way to attract traffic to the websites and blogs of a brand and increase consumer engagement.
- Do not compromise on the quality of the write-up
By the quality of content writing for social media, I mean to emphasize on discouraging the use of text abbreviations and other short forms of phrases that we use in an informal type of conversation. Using such abbreviations, decrease the readability of the content and pushes the potential customers away.
Using such short forms also proves to create an impression of laziness and unreliability in the mind of the readers and further impedes the consumer engagement. A piece of content writing for social media crafted using the complete phrase, punctuation increases the flow with which the readers consumes the content. However, it is as crucial to exclude unnecessary wordings from your write-up to avoid making the content repetitive and annoying.
- Be Grammatically correct
An effective piece of content writing for social media is always grammatically correct with appropriate usage of words and relevant sentence formation. Being grammatically incorrect is a great way to push away potential customers.
It is very important to make grammar your topmost priority while creating content for social media. Grammar is like a building block of effective writing and reflects the professionalism of the brand you are crafting a write-up for. It increases the ease with which the readers understand the material and eventually take desired actions like making a purchase.
- Don’t use exclamation mark a lot
One of the most common mistakes many writers do while content writing for social media platforms is using exclamation marks unnecessarily throughout the write-up. Exclamation marks are a great way to drift away from the potential customers because too much stuffing of this punctuation mark is quite unprofessional in such a serious business tactic of social media marketing.
It is highly advisable to instead use proper words and string them in appropriate sentences in a piece of content writing for social media to express the message in an exciting and captivating manner
- Different types of content for different platforms
The type of content that will work for Facebook, will not work for Twitter or Instagram. Every social media platform is different with different functionalities and work design. It is important that a piece of content writing for social media is done by keeping this variation in mind.
Content delivering the same message and value should be presented differently on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on other social media platforms.
- Adapt to the new social media trends
To catch the attention of potential customers, it is highly recommended to include elements of new social media trends in your piece of content writing for social media. A colourful and impressive display of information through infographics, memes, GIFs, videos and various other testimonials are a must to include in your write-up to increase consumer engagement.
Crafting content in such a manner will allow social media users to relate to your products and services and increase their trust in your brand. Also, it is very important to keep in the mind that presenting the unique selling point of your products and services in a graphical manner is extremely crucial on social media platforms to reach the desired objective.
- Keep your content plagiarism free
The key point which every content writer needs to essentially keep in his/her mind is to only craft original content. The originality of a content writer is what sells. It builds their credibility in the industry and further decides how valuable they are to their organization.
It is also very important to understand the difference between taking inspiration from other writers and completely copying them. It is, therefore, crucial to creating an original piece of content writing for social media to reach the required objective and also to avoid legal troubles.
- Cite sources
The reliability and reach of a piece of content writing for social media increases dramatically if you cite sources of the information that is included in the write-up. It gives an impression of the work that has been put in crafting the content and further builds the credibility of the brand being promoted.
Not only increases the interest, curiosity, and investment of the readers, it also paves a way for a dramatic increase in consumer engagement in all digital spaces of the brand.
- Don’t make a promise you can’t keep
To win the trust and develop an interpersonal relationship with social media users, you should only include reliable elements in your write-up. These elements can range from links to other websites, photos, videos, and infographics. If these users further decide to engage with the brand and click on these links or use other graphic content, you have to make sure that they end up at places they are expecting to reach. I
f this does not happen, the brand image you are trying to build suffers a great dent and all the efforts being put in constructing a strong online presence mostly goes in vain.
- Editing
A common end step of any type of writing that decides its quality is editing. After you have crafted a piece of content writing for social media, you need to sit down and actually read your write-up out loud. You need to read it by keeping yourself in the shoes of those social media users who are scrolling through their news feed and stumbling on your write-up. Is the content engaging enough? How would you rate the ease with which you are reading the content?
Is it grammatically correct and not repetitively annoying? Read it over and over again and keep asking yourself the important questions. Ask people to rate your write-up and further request their feedback. Further, make changes if any. You can now publish your well-crafted, high-quality piece of content writing.