9 Social Media Copywriting Strategies That Boost Engagement

Have you had any problems with your social media growth? When was the last time your social media post got a ton of likes, comments, and shares?

Don’t feel bad about the number of social media followers. It’s no biggie. Instead, use this very moment as an opportunity to rejuvenate your social media strategy.

Perhaps, most of you never looked into social media copywriting strategies before, but now you’re in good hands.

One of the core elements of building a successful social media strategy that boosts engagement is social media copywriting. If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, I surely won’t leave you high and dry.

Understanding Social Media Copywriting:

A social media copywriting strategy is a plan of action for writing engaging copies for social media posts that structure with suitable words, deliver the right messages across and get well-received by the audience.

Social media copywriting doesn’t only mean sticking with basic copywriting guidelines, for instance:

• Writing social media posts with zero grammatical errors
• Avoiding sentence structuring mistakes when writing text
• Making sure that there is no spelling mistake

All these copywriting basics are rather important to keep in mind. However, it doesn’t end here. You might want to look into the following copywriting techniques to make your social media copy look more professional:

• Using a vocabulary that is easy to understand for all
• Keeping the sentences and paragraphs short
• Communicating with the audience using simple analogies

The chances are, most of you haven’t had a chance to go deep into understanding and implement social media copywriting techniques.

Therefore, it’s important to look at the wider spectrum to fully comprehend why influential social media accounts pay close attention to copywriting.

I’ll keep plugging in copywriting examples throughout the article so that you can understand the social media copywriting inside-out.

Before I move on to the next section, I’d say that both social media marketing and copywriting skills go hand-in-hand in the digital marketing space.

If you’re wondering why copywriting is so darn crucial in marketing, then keep reading this piece because I’m all set to discuss that.

Why Is Copywriting Crucial?

Social media is a crowded space, and it is never easy to hop on a social media platform and get traction. Every brand and influencer tries to find an angle to use it as a pedestal to reach people, connect with them, and build a relationship.

The road to starting a conversation for establishing a relationship is social media content, and copywriting comes into play when we create any social media content.

It’s highly unlikely that you put out content on social media and it doesn’t require a well-written copy, for instance:

• An attractive copy of an article makes it easier for the readers to read
• A to-the-point video description for YouTube videos is a must
• A top-notch 280-character long tweet goes a long way
• A brief Instagram caption about the post makes all the difference
• An error-free status on Facebook could spice things up on the platform
• A one-liner in the TikTok video caption might come in handy

Perhaps, the reason why copywriting is crucial to social media marketing success is that it captivates the audience and helps brands and influencers send the message across.

If the copy is faulty, you don’t get a chance to use your content as leverage. Since social media marketing and copywriting are tightly knitted together, it’s essential to pay close attention to both of them.

The top influencers and brands usually dominate social media platforms because they embrace a handful of social media strategies that bring them attention. And, copywriting becomes an integral part of their social media marketing campaign.

You may notice influencers and brands do the following things:

• Write articles on their blog
• Take photos regularly for Instagram
• Publish posts on social media every day
• Do live stream now and then
• Collaborate with other influencers/experts

The copywriting skill is going to help you stand out from the crowd, especially when top social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube have become quite saturated. It’s a cut-throat competition when it comes to getting eyeballs around on social media.

Where to get inspiration for a customer-focused copy?

It’s never easy to pull this off without making mistakes, especially when you’re just starting out. We all make mistakes and evolve. However, learning from the experts or going through the examples often makes it easier. Here are some of the areas where you could find the customer-focused copy examples:

1: Product Hunt discussions

Product Hunt is a startup discovery platform that features startups, website tools, and SAAS companies. To understand the pulse of the consumer, such platforms come in handy, especially when you want to know what the consumers like and what they don’t. All you need is to dig deeper into the comments or discussion section of the platform to understand what’s going on there.

2: Social media reviews/feedback/mentions

Social media interaction via comments, reviews, or DMs is vital to figuring out the pain points of the audience. Once you know what your potential audience is struggling with, you can hop on and create content around the possible solutions to their problems. Use those social media interaction tools to get inspiration for creating the content strategy.

3: Customer interviews and testimonials

Customers’ interviews or testimonials are also a great source of picking the consumer’s mind. It could lead to developing a vibrant social media content plan that engages more prospects as well as retains the existing customers.

4: Online surveys and statistical research

A copy is worth nothing if it doesn’t attract the audience. A lot of companies use the power of copywriting to bridge the gap between them and their prospects. But how on earth do you know whether the audience likes or dislikes your copy?

One of the convenient ways of finding out what customers think of you is by surveying them. Assessing the statistical data would assist you in shaping your content plan for the future.

5: Reddit threads

Reddit is a social media discussion platform where people ask questions and reply to others’ questions. So it’s a discussion platform where people look out for the answers or leave their opinions in response to others’ questions.

You can use the Reddit platform to find the inspiration for customer-focused copywriting. Try to comprehend what people are going through and how you can provide them with the solutions.

9 Social Media Copywriting Strategies To Boost Engagement

Let’s head over to a bunch of social media copywriting strategies that could not just revamp your social media accounts but could also bring in a lot of attention to your brand along the way:

1. Start with a hook

It’s essential to understand what starting with a hook means in copywriting. When you start your copy with a hook, it means you’re using rather persuasive imagery or an example that is forcing readers to stick around and continue exploring the content.

In other words, creating a hook in copywriting is a way of using captivating words, incidents, or examples that grasp the reader’s attention right away.

There are no specific ways to create a hook. You might stumble upon articles on large publications in which authors don’t mention the topic or subject in the first few lines. Rather, they bluntly ask a question or tell something that looks completely off-topic.

But within a few seconds, they connect their beginning spiel with the subject matter of the article.

There are several ways to create a hook in copywriting, but here are three of the most common ones:

• Developmental scenarios

Most influencers and experts try to create mental scenarios to quickly grab the attention for sending the message across. They use the power of imagination and take the readers on a fictional journey for a moment and then try to convey their message.

• Cite researches

Quoting research in the content also helps writers and bloggers to attract the readers’ attention. Not only does it make your argument stronger, but it also makes your voice authoritative.

• Warn readers

A quick heads-up about the good or bad of the situation also brings in eyeballs around. It’s quite obvious that people would want to know what could go wrong with their tactics, and if they come across the content that answers their queries, they immediately go after it.

That’s all.

Anyway, don’t ignore the hooks in your social media content, as the attention span of social media users is already very short. So you may have a few seconds to attract the readers to continue reading your piece.

Here are some of the popular tools for creating a hook in copywriting:

• Pictures: Have you ever heard that a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, use pictures to convey your thoughts, ideas, and messages.
• Sub-headings: One of the best copywriting tactics is to use the sub-headings in your copy. It helps you break down the large message into digestible chunks for the audience.
• Examples: Examples are an easy win for delivering the gist of the copy. Add relevant examples to your social media copy to solidify your point of view.

So don’t overlook using the hooks in your social media content.

2. Tell stories to captivate the audience

Social media copywriting has a vast canvas, and one of its areas is storytelling. It’s a way of using the stories to attract and engage the audience.

Storytelling is crucial to winning the attention of the audience. When you’re creating social media content, you have an opportunity to engage the audience by telling stories that are related to the subject.

Perhaps, this is why influencers love to share their stories in every format of the content. Not only do they share pictures and videos, but they also write text-based posts on social media about traveling, food, and health.

Social media experts use the art of storytelling to win the attention of the audience. They try to share their life happenings through pictures, videos, and articles so that they remain relevant and active on social media.

One of the perks of telling stories in your copywriting is that it encapsulates real-life experiences, which are interesting for the readers because either the readers could learn a lesson or relate to others.

So the next time you spot a story-based post from your favorite YouTuber or TikToker on social media, you can sense that it’s a way of captivating the audience.

3. Target a segment of the audience

Social media copy could become irrelevant if it’s not intended for the target audience. Once you’ve identified the target audience, it becomes easier to reach out to them through content marketing channels.

Since copywriting plays a vital role in communicating with the prospective audience, it’s essential to comprehend what it means to target a segment of the audience.

The concept of choosing a segment of the audience for targeting is to ensure that you know the following aspects:

• Who your target audience is
• Where they exist
• What they want to learn
• What they like to buy
• What their age bracket is

Anyway, it’s better to narrow down on a segment of the audience rather than develop a generic targeting approach. When you zoom in on a specific segment of the audience, you’re confident about your words, thoughts, and ideas.

See, copywriting is all about simplifying the context and delivering the right message. When you picture your target audience properly, you can bring clarity to your copy, which goes a long way.

4. Add strong CTAs

Have you seen those fancy clickable buttons on the websites? They’re call-to-action buttons that drive visitors from one page to another. The purpose of call-to-action (CTA) buttons is to direct the website traffic towards your goal.

However, CTAs don’t need to be always colored clickable buttons that pop on a website page. Instead, it could be a text link that says, “click here” or “read more.” In some cases, there may not be a link but just text.

If you want to hone in on your social media copywriting skills, then pay close attention to adding strong call-to-actions in your social media posts.

Here are some of the occasions when you need to add a CTA in your social media posts:

• When asking for the readiness of the respondent
• Making a thread on Twitter
• Seeking an opinion from the followers
• Adding a compelling one-liner before the link
• Encouraging people to comment on the post

The call-to-actions remind us of the colored buttons on the landing pages or underneath the website forms. However, now I’m sure you have gotten some perspective on using the CTAs in your social media content.

The strategy of adding CTAs to your social media copy shouldn’t come as a surprise, as social media influencers have been using this tactic for as long as I remember.

Here’s an example of a CTA in the social media copy:

Dan Vas is an e-commerce expert and YouTuber. He has been using the YouTube description like most top-tier YouTubers on the platform. However, what struck me the most was how well he has been using the CTAs in his video description.

Look at the Shopify call-to-action in his description. He does know how to entice people to take action using social media copywriting.

5. Offer a unique selling proposition

Engaging and helpful content is fuel to the social media machine. However, it doesn’t mean you should solely focus on putting out content without any check and balance.

Some brands churn out articles or videos while implementing their content marketing strategies, but their content doesn’t create any buzz around.

The reason is that they keep on putting out average content that doesn’t hit the bullseye. Therefore, such brands don’t see any traction whatsoever.

To achieve a certain level of engagement, the content must meet high standards of quality that disrupt the status quo and brings attention to your brand.

You might as well try offering a unique selling proposition, which means adding something unique that no one offers in the market.

For instance, ShareASale is a popular affiliate network that companies use to set up their affiliate program, and affiliate marketers join in to sign up for affiliate programs relevant to their niche.

There are so many affiliate networks out there, but none of them offer commissions if you refer a new affiliate to the network.

One of the reasons I prefer ShareASale over other networks is that I get to invite others and earn commissions.

So ShareASale has a unique selling proposition that makes them stand out from the crowd.

6. Share personal experiences

Social media content quickly gets boring if you keep babbling about random stuff. You have to spice things up as the attention span of a social media user is quite short.

One of the easy wins to make social media content interesting is by sharing personal experiences. Not only does it add a flavor to the story, but it also makes your voice authoritative.

People find it fascinating when you add your personal experience to the mix. Make sure that you’re authentic with your point of view and transparent with your observation.

In the bid to boost engagement on social media, sharing personal experiences goes a long way because it’s not easy to pull off.

Some brands and influencers shy away from using this technique unless they try out a specific strategy or product. No wonder it’s a bit hard to come up with content that includes your personal experience.

Here’s an example:

I have had several great experiences with sharing my personal experiences on YouTube. Most of those videos turned out to be the most popular videos on my YouTube channel.

7. Write short paragraphs

One of the basic principles of copywriting is to make sure that your piece is digestible for the readers. So long paragraphs are surely a no-go. Nobody wants to read hefty, long paragraphs, whether it’s a blog post or social media post.

You might already know that social media users have a short attention span. If your social media post doesn’t look worth paying attention to in a couple of seconds, they will walk away.

Social media users often scroll through the social media timelines and look out for short yet interesting posts to read.

Arianna Huffington is a social media influencer and entrepreneur. She knows how to write social media post that gets attention. I came across her social media post and instantly noticed that she knows about the trick of using short paragraphs in social media copywriting.

Take a look at the social media post of Arianna Huffington:

So don’t neglect this hack if you want your social media posts to stand out from the crowd and boost your social media engagement.

8. Insert bullets for readers’ attention

There are a handful of strategies that make your social media post stand out, and you’ve read several of them in this article. One of the tactics you might not want to miss out on is using the list; it could be a list of tools, influencers, software, or tips.

Do you know what else comes in handy when writing a copy? It’s a bullet list that highlights the key points of the discussion. Not only does it cut down the message into small pieces, but it also grabs the readers’ attention.

The whole point of this article is to create social media posts that grasp the readers’ attention, and inserting bullets into the article is going to do that for sure.

Take a look at this example:

This author on Medium.com used the bullet points in his article, and they surely made an impact. The experts know that bullets in their social media copy are going to bring attention to their piece. Never hesitate to try bullets in other social media content.

9. Use images and videos

You may have heard the popular maxim that goes: a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s true, but it doesn’t mean you should skip the next part.

Pay close attention to writing to the point, simple, and meaningful text part in your social media copy. However, adding images and videos to your social media posts goes a long way.

Not only does adding media content to the articles help convey the message, but it also makes your content look good. Plus, using any of the media content such as images or videos helps optimize the content for search engines.

Since we’re discussing social media content, adding media content to your social media posts could significantly increase clickability on the content, which would result in a boost-up in engagement.

You’d always find influencers using images and videos across all social media platforms. The experts know the importance of using media content on social media, especially how it could drive organic reach on all major social media platforms.

Check out this tweet from a blogger:

He knows that media content is sometimes essential to grasp the attention of the audience. And that’s what you should also do to boost your social media engagement.

3 High-converting social media copy examples

You don’t need fancy copywriting training to come up with great social media posts. Instead, simply pay attention to what intrigues people and what people respond to on social media.

The answer is rather simple because sometimes, it’s the authenticity of the story that touches the hearts of millions. However, it doesn’t mean you should never focus on the copywriting part of the process.

Let me show you a few examples that have all the attributes I just mentioned above:

Example #1: LinkedIn post from Jordan Nelson

There are zero tricks, tips, or tools mentioned in the below-mentioned LinkedIn post, but it has gotten so much attention in just about 24 hours.

The post has a powerful message. It tells you that if you stay consistent and put in the work, you’ll eventually win in the end.

Now the reason why it has made it to this article is that it has a compelling copy. If you look at the LinkedIn post above, you will notice that it’s all text, but it’s crafted superbly.

The point I’m trying to instill in your mind is that it’s not always the media (picture or video) that makes an impact, but instead, it could be a well-written story or lesson in the text form that may touch a million hearts.

Just look at the number of likes or reactions on the post. More than 30,000 people liked or showed interest in that post.

Example #2: Tweet from Marques Brownlee

I came across a tweet from a popular tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee. He mostly covers Apple products and smartphones on his channel.

I found his tweet quite interesting because it was precise, to-the-point, and well-crafted. Take a look at it:

Not only did he tell everything about the iPhone SE, but he also kept it quite short and sweet. I was most impressed by how briefly he explained everything you need to know about this new iPhone device.

Example #3: Tweet from Dylan

The third example of high-converting social media copywriting is from an affiliate marketer and blogger named Dylan.

Take a sneak peek at one of his tweets:

He explained his narrative about modern-day SEO within a few lines. I was fascinated to read his tweet.

Plus, the reason I took the screenshot and used his tweet as an example is that his social media copywriting tactic was top-notch.

He started with an intriguing statement that interests content marketers, SEO experts, and bloggers. And then, he quickly gives a two-point solution that could help the bloggers, SEOs, and content marketers.

5 Quick Tips to follow while applying copywriting strategies

Let’s quickly go through some of the copywriting tips that you can’t afford to miss out on:

Sense of urgency

A sense of urgency refers to adding words and phrases that mesmerize the readers and help them go over the line. Have you ever seen phrases like “don’t miss out” or “limited-time offer” on websites or social media ads? That’s the strategy of infusing a sense of urgency in the offering so that the audience quickly starts thinking about taking action.

Use numbers

The numbers in the social media copywriting add a bit of a psychological factor to the content. No doubt, the numbers are vital to the headlines and sub-headings. When you make a social media post with a number, you showcase that you have a list of things to share with the audience.

And, that’s quite interesting for the audience. Most readers think that they might be able to get one or two ideas/solutions out of it, so they immediately check out the content.

Write short sentences

One of the easiest ways to attract and engage the audience through your social media copywriting is by writing short sentences. Nobody likes to read long sentences as it’s against the basic copywriting techniques. It’s easier to keep the audience engaged and send the message across when you use short sentences. So always try to keep your sentences short and precise.

Make relevant sub-headings

Adding sub-headings to the content goes along when you’re trying to create a compelling copy. You’d hardly find a good landing page or an excellent article without a bunch of relevant sub-headings. So use relevant sub-headings that help the readers comprehend the gist of the content as well as make it easier for you to convey the message.

Use active voice

One of the fundamental copywriting techniques that experts recommend is using the active voice in your copy. When you use the passive voice, it somehow doesn’t look natural and authentic. On the flip side, when you use the active voice, it seems you’re confident and sure about the stuff you’re talking about. So always try to use the active voice in your write-ups and copywriting.

Let’s Conclude this!

Let me tell you something out of the gate: if you want to sell yourself on social media, you must come up with a strong message, which means your content should do any of the following things:

• Entertain the viewers
• Help the audiences in need
• Solve a crucial problem
• Educate the masses on a subject

The irony is that most people create average content and try to push hard using social media scheduling tools or even social media ads but end up giving up on the whole idea of social media growth.

The key to winning on social media is being creative to stand out from the rest. Once you create a perfect social media marketing recipe for your brand, it eventually provides a pedestal to your social media engagement.

I dug deeper into the details of how we can boost your social media engagement, especially by capitalizing on the social media copywriting techniques.