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How to Write Better Content for Social Media

Authors: Lesley Vos Lesley Vos
Posted Under: Digital Marketing
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What do you want from social media today?

I’ll answer this question for you: When you post something on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ you want tons of people to click and read it. Right?

Oh yes, you’ve spent hours on writing your masterpiece, finding a perfect image for it. And social media is a great way to promote your work and attract people to it.

But, (yes, there is always a “but”) as far as you understand, you can’t just throw the link to your content out there and wait for thousands of likes and shares at once. If you want your content succeed, you should remember the fact that all social media networks are different: They have different audiences with different interests and needs.

As a result, you must know whom you are going to share your content with. Here the trick comes: always optimize your writings for each social network.

Do you know the typical audience of each social network? The fact is, not all of them are equal. Let’s take a look at today’s most popular social media:

  • Twitter is like a loud party where everyone talks at once and where you manage impersonal relationships only.
  • Google+ is like a club where everyone comes to share their passion with like-minded people.
  • Facebook is like a big family where you take all your high school and college fellows, your old friends and family members who live outland.

Now, you can see that a perfect post should look different for each social network. Depending on people who interact there, you may need specific tricks to create awesome content for them.

Here are some ideas you can take to each popular network.

Twitter

Let’s start with the easiest but still very important social network to share your content through. Twitter will not need any particular writing tricks from you to reach your audience, but you still need to know what your audience there actually is.

His Majesty, the #Hashtag

Hashtags help you engage much more people to your content; but please, do not abuse their power:

  • Hashtag only those things that relate to your content directly.
  • Try to use no more than two hashtags per post; do not make it difficult for your audience to perceive what the story is about.

Images

Twitter lets you post your content as often as you want, and new changes are often made to make it easier for brands to use. The down side to Twitter is that 140 characters are still your limit here. How can you attract more people to your messages if they look like thousands of others on these people’s feeds? Use images with your tweets!

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What kinds of images should you use?

  • Use an image related to the content of your post for readers to understand what to expect from the post you’ve shared.
  • Use the image which will capture readers’ attention and make them want to click on it for further reading.

Google+

What makes Google+ special is its Circles, which let you embrace more people when you want to share some content with them. In all other respects, this social network has similarities to both Twitter and Facebook. Your posts have some particular longevity (like Facebook), and you can address your message to a particular person, using “+” before their username, similar to the “@”, like Twitter does it.

So, there are two ways to make your content visible and run successful campaigns on Google+: post it for Circles, and post it to Communities.

Posting to Circles

Embrace Google+ Circles if you want to take full advantage of this network. Create several Circles – each one for each particular audience – and it will be much easier for you to share content with them. You will be able to create perfect headlines and description, as well as share certain pictures with particular people only.

Yes, it will take some time to develop, but the feedback will be much better, and you will be sure that your content has reached a target audience.

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Posting to Communities

Google+ communities are the best place to share content on a particular niche, as they consist of people who might be really interested in what you write. However, it may be not so easy to post your content there, because each community has its own rules of engagement. They will not let you just come, drop your link there, and run away.

When you write for communities, share a longer copy with them. Don’t write anything like, “Here is my new post! Check it out!” It will not work, because community members should know what to expect from your content. Mention all key points and ask for feedback to involve readers into discussion.

Here are some tricks on how you can do that:

  • Reply to comments.
  • Engage yourself with posts of other users. Let them see you are active and really interested in this niche.
  • Do not post one and the same content. Once will be enough for your target audience to get it.
  • Make sure you’ve joined the right community which members will find your content interesting and useful for them. 

Facebook

And, finally, Facebook. It gives you three options to post your content: Posts with links, post with images, posts with videos. As far as we all know, a post with links is the most and common writing technique, so let’s take a look at it first.

Link Posts

 
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Once you enter the URL of your post in Facebook, it will detect your link and supply its image and short description automatically. Did you know that you can edit them? Both image and description might be decent and applicable for your post, but your social fans might respond better to something different. So, if you think you need more influential image or description for your Facebook post, choose them but make sure they play one of the following roles:

  • They stir some emotions
  • They catch attention
  • They entertain people
  • They send some powerful message

Don’t forget about a strong headline. In addition to images and descriptions, the title can be changed, and you do not need to use the headline from your article if you do not find it attractive enough for your social fans. Always remember about the audience you are trying to reach with your Facebook posts.

Post with Images

We all know that images catch readers’ attention better than simple texts or links. Use this to engage more audience to your content, but try to choose eye-catching and emotional pictures which would fit the mood of your users.

Do you know the ideal image size for your Facebook post? If you want everything look ideal, your image should not exceed 403×504 pixels. If you decide to highlight your post, an image size should be 843×403 pixels.

Posts with Videos

Try Facebook’s video upload feature instead of linking out to Youtube. Videos often work much better than images, as they do not make your audience to click the link. Visitors can watch the video inside Facebook without being sent to another website.

You will definitely want include a link to your content in the description of your post, but a video itself will improve your engagement and growth. You can also highlight this post on your timeline to make sure it receives enough attention of Facebook users.

I’m sure you write awesome content. All you need to do is to put a little more effort to make each piece of content shine on your social media channels.

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