Best Practices for Writing Social Media Posts

Best Practices for Writing Social Media Posts

So, you’ve got all your social media profiles connected and you’re ready to start posting… but you have no idea what to post. In this guide, we will go over some simple guidelines to practice as you navigate writing your first week or month of social media posts across multiple platforms for your business.

 

Overall best practices 

  1. Find a brand voice that aligns with your business and appeals to your customers.
  2. No post is too short. But many posts are TOO LONG. Try to stay around 150-200 characters as a general rule of thumb.
  3. Vary your content types you post and don’t be too promotional - people go to social media to build relationships with brands they trust.

 

Know your audience and purpose

When writing your first round of content, you want to make sure you have intention behind each post. Each post should be useful in some way. The best way to ensure your content has a purpose is to ask yourself does the content you’re writing:

 

  • ENTERTAIN?
  • INFORM?
  • INVITE?
  • SELL?
  • CELEBRATE?

 

In order to ensure that your content has purpose, consider your audience. Are they predominantly younger millennials or older baby boomers? This will help you determine what type of content to post. You want to have a variety of content to appeal to all of your audiences. 

Some of the types of posts you can create include:

  • Promotional/New Product or Service Posts
  • Quote & Fun Fact Posts
  • Review Posts to Highlight Current Positive Testimonials
  • Company or Employee Highlights
  • Relevant & Timely Featured Articles or News
  • AND MORE

 

Use variety

The important thing to remember when choosing which types of content to post is VARIETY IS KEY. You want to write a variety of different content to appeal to all your current customers and clients, but also be appealing to new customers and clients who might run across your page. 

Rotating between posts that bring value, are informational and are intended for conversions should be considered the best practice for the different posts that you create. Creating a supportive social media community starts with knowing, helping, contributing, and sharing - not with impersonal and unsolicited messages. The best way to understand the power of variety when it comes to the types of content you create is the social media 60-30-20 rule:

 

60% Value 

Posts that bring value to your followers and should be valuable, educational, and helpful original content from you or others that you are sharing or re-posting. These should be written with the affinity interests and lifestyle of the specific brand kept in mind. 

Examples: Quote, Joke, Poll, Related Blog, Infographic

30% Information 

Posts that inform your followers more about your services and how you can help them. However, they are not often posts that have calls to action included.

Examples: client’s Story, tips and tricks for their product, why their product/service is valuable or different, blog posts on the client's website, video, review.

 

10% Conversion 

These posts are created to convert a follower.

Examples: sales-y posts/call to action, links to website contact form etc.

 

For more information about social media best practices and content ideas visit our blog here: Marketing 360 Blog: Social Media Management

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