Despite being around for almost 20 years (yep, 20!), we are still underestimating the place and power of social media in society.
Facebook advertising is hardly novel anymore. But, when used thoughtfully, it can still be wildly powerful. So, how can you make your social media posts just as powerful as your TV commercial?
Short is sweet, not easy.
I think Mark Twain said it best when he said “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Writing something short and clever, often feels infinitely harder than writing something long and clever
It’s common knowledge that short is sweet when it comes to social media. But try taking a 30-second radio spot and condensing the same message into 280 characters, with the same tone, details, intrigue and impact. Social media copywriters have to have razor-sharp writing skills to communicate a whole campaign concept in a few lines AND get people to act.
But while writing a short, snappy caption ten times over can make us bury our heads in our keyboards with frustration, it does give us a chance to be clear and decisive about our words. Thinking deeply about your social posts forces you to answer the important questions, and is generally good practice for concise, meaningful writing.
Give user experience a thought.
When creating campaign content for social media, it’s no use taking a digital ad or print ad and just making the same version for Facebook. It pays to be clever about how you approach social media ads, and that means thinking about how a user interacts with the platform, and then meet them there.
Ask yourself, when you log in to Facebook, or flick through your Twitter feed, what are you looking for? What mood are you in? What are you doing? What type of content are you seeking? Then, take your campaign messaging and tweak it to fit those insights. The result is profoundly more targeted messaging, that integrates comfortably in the medium, and gets your audiences to pay attention..
Have fun with it.
Social media cops a lot of flack. And for good reason too. But in the barrage of negativity thrown at it, I feel we have forgotten the doors it has opened for us, personally and professionally. It has given organisations the ability to speak directly to their audience, build loyalty, extend their brand, reach out to new people and even the playing field between the big players and the little guy.
But while we know it can do all of this incredible stuff, it’s also easy to forget that social media is meant to be fun! People use social media to be educated and inspired, but most often it’s to be entertained. And who says you can’t entertain them?
Social media gives you the flexibility to stretch your brand personality, open up and have experiment a little. It doesn’t mean compromising your integrity or undermining your authority. Having fun with social media means getting creative and playing around with your campaign messaging to express your brand in a different way.
Movement moves people (and algorithms).
We know video is the darling of social media. Favoured by the complex algorithms, resulting in high performance and engagement, video wins on all accounts. But producing high-quality video content takes time, expertise and budget that you might not have.
Finding simple ways to add motion combining a series of static states in GIF form can work equally well to grab attention and boost your posts to the top of the newsfeed.
