Insights How to create engaging social media posts
How do you create engaging social media posts? I feel like that’s the question on every marketer's lips constantly. With the ever-changing algorithms and shifts we’re seeing on each platform, it’s as difficult as ever to understand how to get our carefully crafted content seen by our audiences. So we can at least ensure our posts are as well crafted as possible.
Let’s go back to the start…
Before we do much more, we need to think about who we are talking to and what purpose our post will be serving – rather than posting content for the sake of posting content. So, always have your target audience and personas in the back of your mind and remember to consider your reason for posting. If in doubt, think PEIE:
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Promote
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Entertain
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Inspire
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Educate
Generally speaking, these four are the base on which all social media posts sit from a commercial point of view. So think about whether your post will be promoting a product or service, if it’s to entertain or inspire action, or if it’s to educate your audience on an insight or industry news. Whatever it might be, always have this in the back of your mind as you draft your post. Equally, depending on the type of business that you are, you won’t want to post solely one or the other, so always have a good mixture of a few of them.
One thing to remember is that your audience wants to get something out of reading your post, so give them something!
Give us engaging copy, but not too much
Now, I know this probably feels a bit of a contradictory sentence, but copy is key, but make sure you don’t post too much.
We all know that the copy we post alongside our social assets is important but it’s just as important to not get carried away and post the next Jane Austen novel in the caption.
The exact optimum amount of copy for a post strongly depends on the platform you’re posting on. On Instagram, it’s all about short, snappy and to-the-point copy; whereas on LinkedIn, it’s much more common to post slightly longer form content. And then there’s Twitter (or X if you’re on the bandwagon – don’t get us started) where we all know how strict the word count is! So overall, just remember to adapt your social posts for each platform where needed and if in doubt, keep it short and sweet.
Don’t forget the CTA
Now I don’t want to teach you how to suck eggs but… your posts need a call to action (CTA)! This could be anything from asking your followers to click through to a web page to ask them to comment on the post with their thoughts. It’s all good stuff to help boost overall engagement with your brand, which is always a good thing.
Static v video
This is something we often mull over and it seems to be shifting on the daily, but again we’d say it depends on the platform and what you’re trying to do! Overall we are seeing a much larger shift towards video content on platforms like TikTok, Instagram etc. Even Facebook is showcasing more video content via their stories feature, keeping in step with Instagram. While this hasn’t taken off considerably yet, this is clearly showing the platforms what content creators to produce more video content. And while they’ve all said that they don’t treat static and video content differently, I think we’ve all experienced the opposite – so a mixture is likely your best port of call.
Hashtags and mentions
I don’t think this will come as a surprise to anyone, but hashtags and mentions can have quite a large impact on the performance of your post.
It’s recently come out that using too many hashtags can actually have adverse effects (long gone are the days where you could stick any random hashtag on there in reems and reems). Instagram has now confirmed that 2-4 hashtags max per post, so you need to make sure that the ones you do use are relevant! Instead of using tons of different hashtags, we’ve seen users, especially on Instagram, start to ‘tag’ their posts with keywords or phrases without the hashtags. The idea being that, much like SEO to a website, their posts will show up when another user or follower searches that phrase their post will show up. Now while we’re still learning if that has quite the impact we all hope it does, it’s very much up to you if you join the bandwagon on this.
One way we all know will increase the reach and engagement of a post is by mentioning, @-ing or tagging partners, collaborators etc. By doing this, especially on a platform like LinkedIn, it will show up on their followers' timelines, therefore increasing impressions and the reach of the post. Just make sure you’re tagging people who are relevant otherwise you run the risk of annoying people!
Show some personality
I will forever shout this one from the rooftops. Whether you’re writing posts for a business or your own personal brand, it’s so important to show off your personality. Research shows that we have roughly only 3 seconds to grab someone’s attention while they’re sitting there scrolling, so give them a reason to stop and look at your post.
A quick and easy way to do this is through good old emojis. With new ones coming out regularly, there’s bound to be one or two that are relevant. Emojis are also great at breaking up the copy and making it a little easier for people to digest. Don’t stick every emoji under the sun in your post – please, don’t be that person. Instead, a cleverly chosen one or two can be enough to grab attention long enough for the reader to check out your perfectly crafted copy, that is stuff to the barrel with your brand’s personality.
Timing is everything
As with most things in life, timing is everything if you want to maximise engagement on your social media posts. Now annoyingly I can’t tell you definitively what the best time for your brand to post on socials is, as this is very much individual to your brand and your target audience. But, I would highly suggest, if you don’t already do so, that you look into your post analytics to see what time your posts perform best. Often brands find either first thing in the morning, ie 7-9 am, or after work, ie 6 pm onwards, that posts generally work well as people are either having a flick through with their morning coffee or are sitting down after getting home from work. But don’t take this as gospel - do some research into your own individual posts and do what works for you. If in doubt, trail a few different times across a couple of months and see how you get on – it might surprise you!
While these are our top tips and tricks, we know there are hundreds of different ways to create engaging content for social media. Social media can be a very personal thing, with each brand having different targets and goals they want to achieve through the various platforms. But if you take nothing else from this, have fun creating content that your audience will love.
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