Is social media getting you down? Maybe you have a good presence there, but things just aren’t hot yet?
Don’t worry, this is something a lot of businesses go through.
One fantastic way to make a bigger impact and start to see awesome engagement is to make sure your social media content is on point. After all, your audience is human, and they’re reading (scanning) your content, right?
15 Tips to Write Killer Content for Social Media
Here are my top tips to help you put your best foot forward on social media with your written content.
I’ll break them down per social platform, starting with Twitter.
3 Must Have Twitter for Business Tips
You’re on Twitter, but what are some must have tips that can help you write better Twitter content? Here are a few to take with you as you tweet.
1. Add Images to Your Tweets for Maximum Interaction
Your content might be awesome, but if you don’t add images, you’re going to lose out major on engagement and interaction.
When Buffer started using more images within their tweets, they saw an 18% increase in clicks. As far as favorites, their tweets saw 89% more when they included images and they saw 150% more re-tweets.
Example of Buffer tweet + image:
The 5 Key Ingredients of Facebook Posts That Get Seen and Clicked: http://t.co/Gkz1yotbRh pic.twitter.com/bnnN8zXxPh
— Buffer (@buffer) September 25, 2015
2. Understand the Difference Between Your Voice and Tone
Writing the right content means you also need to know the difference between what voice and tone mean. You need to have a consistent voice throughout your social media usage, but when it comes to the different channels, different tones can work. On Linkedin posts, for example, your tone may need to be a bit more serious. With Twitter, your tone should be more conversational and fun. Don’t change your voice, but change up your tone. Take a look at these two radically different “tones” from the awesome Mailchimp:
Tweet 1: Serious
More than 140,000 of our customers use MailChimp automation. Here are 3 ways we just made it better: http://t.co/ZP8bgnJmum
— MailChimp (@MailChimp) September 24, 2015
Tweet 2: Fun
Q: What's better than cats + hats?
A: Cats + hats + gentle guitar.https://t.co/NyJa4QTvnI pic.twitter.com/8dX36ThDHy
— MailChimp (@MailChimp) September 25, 2015
Don’t change your voice. Listen to your mother and change your tone to see some awesome results.
3. Write Tweets that are Perfectly Conversational
Keep things chatty (meaning conversational, not long) when you’re writing for Twitter. It is more of a laid back channel, which means keeping things in a conversational tone will help you bring about more engagement.
Three Awesome Tips for Writing Excellent, Engaging Facebook Content
Now, what about Facebook content? How can you get something that is outstanding and engaging?
4. Find and Use the Perfect Recipe for a Facebook Post
The first step to creating great Facebook content is to learn the perfect recipe for a post. Kevan Lee from Buffer gives an excellent recipe that can really help your social content be the best possible. He says that a great Facebook post:
- Should be an actual link
- Is brief (fewer than 40 chars)
- Is published at times that aren’t peak
- Is part of a regular content creation schedule
- Is newsworthy and timely
And remember; don’t fear mixing it up a bit to find your own recipe that works for your brand.
5. Use Your Visuals on Facebook to Drive More Engagement
Visuals really are a huge part of social media content, no matter the channel. And Facebook visuals are a great way to have better content. Photos on Facebook get seven times the amount of likes, and 10 times the number of shares over content that only links to a page or is just written content. You can add text on photos, create collages, and use your images to break up all of the written content out there on Facebook. And remember, make sure your profile and cover photos are perfect to represent your brand while also helping you stand out.
6. Prepare to Write Some Excellent Long-Form Facebook Content
Get prepared to get a new angle on Facebook content. Instead of just making a simple little post, you will soon be able to write long form content. This is really going to help amp up your Facebook content game, and get you the engagement you are looking for on social media.
3 Excellent Ways to Use LinkedIn to Reach Out
LinkedIn is a great way to connect with other industry insiders and leaders, but how can you get great social media content on LinkedIn? Take a few of these tips with you.
7. Keep Your LinkedIn Audience in Mind, Crafting Perfect Content
LinkedIn has a specific audience and you need to know how to write for that audience. When you are writing LinkedIn content, make sure you are writing for that demographic, which is more professional. Write posts that you only post on LinkedIn and no other place.
8. LinkedIn Pieces Do Better When They are Shorter
The short versus long content debate is constantly raging on. And, while longer content does tend to prove to be the best bet for most blogs when it comes to LinkedIn, shorter is better. Since you are reaching a more business-oriented audience, you want to give them something easy and quick to read. Help make it easy for them to read your blogs by creating shorter pieces. Fellow SEJ contributor Amanda DilSilvestro suggests keeping your posts no longer than 800 words.
9. Post Throughout the Week, but Don’t Over Post
Keeping to a consistent posting schedule is also a great way to improve your LinkedIn content and the engagement you receive. When it comes to posting on LinkedIn, you should be doing so during the work week, Monday through Friday, to give your readers the chance to read your content. You can spend all the time you want to on your content, but if you don’t post it at the right time, it’ll be completely overlooked.
3 Stellar Tips that Can Help Improve Your Instagram Presence
Instagram is a great channel when it comes to using your visuals and adding personality to your brand. But how can you improve your content? Let’s take a look!
10. Make Sure Your Images are High Quality and Visually Appealing
The first step to great content on Instagram is to make sure your photographs are all high quality. This is the most important one. Your smartphone is an incredible camera already; you can easily take some time to practice your photography skills and get some excellent shots. Or, you can get some really awesome equipment, and take a killer shot—like @ocean did (theirs got a whopping 6,000+ likes):
Remember to make sure each and every image is visually appealing to generate likes and comments.
11. Interact With Others and You’ll Grow Your Following
Instagram is also about the interaction, and if you start browsing your favorite hashtags, you get the chance to interact and grow your following.
Margot da Cunha from Wordstream suggests following your followers and also seeking out people you’d like to give your brand a follow. Once you find them, then it is time to start interacting and building a relationship.
12. Use Those Hashtags
While other social channels need less or no hashtags to improve engagement, Instagram still benefits quite a bit from them. In fact, Instagram posts from users with fewer than 1,000 followers get more traction if they have 11 hashtags.
I’d limit your usage to 10-15 hashtags per post. Don’t worry about loading up on the right ones. Hashtagify.me is a great tool to see how popular a certain hashtag is, and what tags might be similar.
With an Instagram only a couple months old, we saw good traction on this post when we used a few top hashtags, like #instablogger:
3 Tips to Amp up Your Pinterest Game
Another great channel that is quickly on the rise for all sorts of businesses is Pinterest. Creating content for it is incredibly fun and here are a few things you should keep in mind to make the most of it.
13. Don’t Make Your Marketing Obvious, Make it Fun
When it comes to Pinterest, users don’t want to hear your sales speech.
Lauren Brousell from Cio says that you should leave the logos behind when it comes to your pins. And, if you do want to use your logos, make sure you put them on your own original photos and make them as subtle as possible.
You should link to things on your site, but you should also link to other websites and content to create a great variety of content for your users.
14. Share Fun, Relevant Gifs
Gifs are a huge part of the Internet right now, and you can easily incorporate gifs into your Pinterest strategy. Like this one.
You can create your very own gif board to share hilarious, fun, and relevant gifs or use relevant gifs that link back to your website. This is sure to help you stand out.
15. Create a Handful of Awesome Boards
Don’t go overboard when you create your boards. It is easy to create several boards, but you will want to stay away from creating too many.
Instead, brainstorm a handful of really great ideas and make your boards the best they can be.
As you pin to them, you can organize your pins, making it incredibly impactful. This will encourage people to follow you and keep an eye out for the things you pin.
These Tips Can Help You on the Way to Social Media Greatness
Following these tips is a great way to ensure you have some awesome social media content. Implement a few and see just how well your content starts doing. Thoughts or additional strategy tips to add? Let me know in the comments!
Image Credits
Featured Image: Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com
In-post Photo #1: Alex Gontar/Shutterstock.com
