Creating compelling social content is often one of the biggest hurdles in social media copywriting. More people are using social media than ever before to communicate, shop, educate themselves, perform research, and test the waters of public opinion on a variety of topics. This means that social media has become the barometer by which many people measure the decisions they make on a daily basis. As such, social media copywriting has been forced to evolve to a more creative and original level so it can surge ahead of the competitive pack and deliver content that gets noticed and gets results.
Devising ways to develop content that delivers does not require Herculean efforts or extraordinary measures. To the contrary, it can actually be rather easy to create compelling content if you refine your methods, narrow your focus, and define your audience. Here are five tips for creating compelling social content that will give you a great foundation for your social media copywriting strategies:
1. Tag Along on the Popularity Bandwagon
Part of successful social media copywriting includes keeping track of current and predicted trends and following what's happening in pop culture. While some content creators don't always use trends and culture references, they can make for compelling social content when used to capitalize on their existing popularity. A large portion of searches conducted online include references to trending information and current pop culture names and events. Tying those topics in to your content can boost your exposure by putting your content in the list of results generated for many search queries, and it can also result in content that is more likeable and shareable.
2. Encourage Audience Engagement & Participation
Many Internet surfers are passive, silently pouring through pages of content without interacting with what they are reading or looking at. Creative calls-to-action don't always work when you're trying to get your target audience to enter your sales funnel. You can foster an atmosphere of engagement and participation for your site visitors and readers through actionable social media copywriting.
3. Become Active in Social Listening
Being a better listener isn't just reserved for improving communication skills and establishing stronger B2B and B2C relationships in person, nor does it allow you to reap benefits that are likewise restricted to face-to-face interactions. Social listening is a marketing strategy that involves a focus on your customers in a way that makes you hyper-aware of their wants, needs, motivations, reservations, impressions, and opinions. When you truly pay attention to what people want and expect from your company, you are better able to meet those expectations through the creation of social media content that is personalized and streamlined.
4. "Tried and True" Still Works
Lists, freebies (samples, newsletters, and promotional products), downloads like eBooks and white papers, and infographics remain popular with online users and still work well when it comes to encouraging visitors to take action in some way. Whether your visitors are signing up for a newsletter, providing contact information to receive a free download, filling out an offer for a promotional sample, or sharing your content on other social media sites, they are invested in your content and doing something to acknowledge that "investment."
Related: 4 Tips for Crafting Sharable Social Content
5. Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?
Discord, strife, and controversy, on the other hand, do sell - and they sell quite well. Steve Jobs quoted Jack Kerouac when he said, "Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in square holes." The quote continues with, "About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things." Controversy gets attention and it is compelling because it is so very different from the run-of-the-mill content we've all seen already everywhere on the Internet. Controversial content makes people feel, which is the touchstone of making people take action.
Use these five tips to take your social media copywriting strategies to a higher level, rather than letting your content creation efforts get lost in the shuffle by becoming stale and repetitive. When you continue to think outside the box and generate social media content that stands out and shines, you'll notice a difference in many aspects of your marketing efforts, like page rank, lead generation, return on investment, and the social popularity of your online content. Stop letting your online presence exist in the shadows; create content that puts it in the spotlight!
