04 May How to Write Copy That Drives Engagement
As writers, we love words that invoke emotion, set a scene, and tell a story. As marketers, we also rely on words that make our audience take action. When it comes to social media, it’s a race against the clock to stand out in the noise and capture our audience’s attention to get them to engage with our content. Read on for two dos and one don’t to keep in mind when writing copy that drives engagement.
Be direct. Social media users aren’t going to spend a lot of time figuring out what you want them to do with your content. Tell them. Luckily, if you format your post for the objective, some of the heavy lifting is done for you, but using words like “watch,” “click through,” “retweet,” and “double tap” create calls to action that are direct, to the point, and tell users exactly what you want them to do.
Be concise. To the point above, we, as marketers, have mere seconds to capture the attention of a user casually scrolling through their feed. Don’t bury your call to action in a wall of text, or worse yet, risk it being truncated by a “… see more” link to expand the text. Chances are, they’re not going to click it, so brevity in copy is key.
(the National Geographic post loses crucial space for the CTA by placing photo credit at the beginning of its post, but Benefit makes sure to tell fans what they want them to do by getting right to it)
Don’t complicate things. Pick a post objective and stick to it. Want people to click through to a website? Don’t ask them to leave a comment, too. Want them to watch a video? Don’t distract them with a link button to click through to a website. Make it easy for the audience to respond to your call to action and you’ll be rewarded with engagement.
(this Tasty post copy tells you exactly what’s in the video. Nothing more, nothing less.)
Want to see how to get even more engagement with your social content? Click here to get in touch! (See what I did there? Direct, concise, uncomplicated. 😉)
