When I was working as the in-house copywriter for an art museum, I received an unexpected promotion opportunity: Social Media Manager.
Ask me at the time of joining the company, and social media had nothing to do with my ambitions as a writer.
But, being curious and an opportunist – I said yes.
As copywriters, sometimes we don’t consider the superficial fads of Instagram and the rest as serious business platforms worthy of our writing.
But these days, social media presence is arguably more important than having a website. No less than 73.8% of internet users search for brand information on social platforms. Meaning, it’s often your first chance to create an impression and your most reliable portal for website traffic.
As a copywriter, here’s how working closely with social media helped me grow, plus some Instagram and LinkedIn writing tips.
#1 Pairing Words and Visuals
The words you write for social media will never stand on their own. I personally don’t agree that visuals are more important than words on social platforms, but writing for social does mean that your word choice always exists in relation to its visual counterpart. Whether you’re only the social media copywriter or you manage the channels yourself, writing on social means becoming a pro at knowing just what words to tease out the emotional quality of a visual – be it humour or relatable frustration. An aligned visual and verbal identity is key for strong branding, in social and beyond.
#2 Language Currency
Writing for character limits and short attention spans, you also grow adept at saying more with less words. Longer form content writing aside (which absolutely has value), we all know that headlines, newsletters and ad copy – to list a few examples – perform better when quality is prioritised over quantity.
Writing for social also teaches us how to strategically leverage tone of voice trends. Ways of speaking and buzzwords should be applied with caution, but the art of drawing on verbal trends to boost brand storytelling is a key transferable skill for us copywriters (more on this later).
#3 Data-driven Creativity
Whilst performance analysis is a key part of any good copywriting strategy, designing and implementing a social media strategy will keep you on your KPI-toes like nothing else. Measuring the performance of reach, engagement rate and follower growth is crucial for powering social media growth – how else to know what hits and what doesn’t?
So I took what I learnt from social and applied it to my copy strategy. By adopting a system to measure new copy output or experimental word choice against performance metrics, I can rest assured that the data is covered, and tap into what I do naturally – pure creativity.
#4 Tone Adaptability
Rather than channelling an established brand tone of voice through one main channel such as a website home page, writing for social requires the copywriter to be able to adapt that tone of voice per social channel. Brand language and tone must be carefully married to the nuances of each channel (which themselves are subject to change) – and this helps strengthen our versatility as copywriters. Speaking of tone adaptability…
#5 How to Write on IG
Let’s have a look at this Instagram case study – what does it do so well?
- Light humour (earnest tone, ‘superficial’ content)
- Aligned with the brand’s focus on wellbeing and looks
- Swapping punctuation with relevant emojis
- Economic with character count: weaves two products into a single clause
- Poises two perspectives to spark discussion in the comments (i.e. drive engagement)
#5 How to Write on LI
Now let’s have a look at this LinkedIn case study – what does it do so well?
- Whilst you can read a 150 character IG caption without giving up much time, to commit to a 1500 character LN caption you HAVE to be captivated by the first line. Grammatically, this opening hook uses a negative to state what people don’t do, so the reader is curious to find out what they actually do do.
- The post hops on a verbal trend – the controversial topic of ‘micromanagement’ – but doesn’t just do so for shock factor. The tone remains balanced and open (the result of word choices like ‘open’, ‘transparent’, ‘encourage’, ‘empathy’ and ‘forgive’), and closes with a humble CTA to contribute what the author might have missed. By strategically encouraging conversation, the post maximises its reach and maintains mostly positive sentiment.
- The post follows an effective problem → solutions → results structure. It touches on a pain point, but instead of reading like a rant, it provides actionable solutions and outlines their benefits.
- Short sentences, white space and swapping bullet points for emojis – a complex matter is presented in a readable, social friendly format.
- The author has considered two audience segments of LinkedIn users: micromanagers are invited to reflect, while the micromanaged are validated in their experience.
So, social channels like Instagram and LinkedIn helped me refine my data-driven approach to creative copywriting – and my improved copy helped boost the performance of my social posts. Win win. I hope this was insightful, and if you need a social-savvy copywriter to boost your brand, find me at www.wordsbyleo.co.uk 😉