Make it a Habit

Make sure you’re actively engaging. The dead end of a stale, neglected social media presence is a huge turn-off for prospective customers.  You don’t have to flood your followers’ feeds with constant content, but keep it consistent and fresh.

Build It Better

As we covered in our last blog, people will naturally just scan your work. Being faced with the dreaded “wall of text” will cause most folks to swipe away, so get smart with your structuring. Use numbered lists, bullet points and headers to easily highlight key information points and format your content intelligently.

Stay on Top of the Trends

Social media trends are increasingly short-lived; we’re no longer in a time where you can sit on an article or video idea for a month and expect it to resonate. You’ll need to regularly check in with what speaks to your audience and act quickly.

Show, Don’t Tell!

Create informative but easy-to-understand infographics. This will give you a leg up particularly when it comes to creating sharable social media content. It doesn’t have to be graphically intricate; most importantly, you should draw on your business expertise and data to create value for your audience.

Tug on Those Heartstrings

Invoke childhood memories with nostalgic throwbacks like references to old TV shows or incredible snacks that have gone the way of the dinosaur. The old “Anyone remember these?” is a great lead-in for creating shareable content.

Add Value to Your Readers’ Lives

Spell out clear, actionable items that solve a specific problem or improve a specific situation. How-to guides, handy tips and innovative tricks will always beat out straight sales content. Informative content has a time and a place, but improving your users’ lives or daily routines will more effectively build brand loyalty.

Consider Video Content

A well-crafted video can do a ton of heavy lifting when it comes to setting the tone for your brand. It’s the easiest way to invoke the emotions you want your audience to feel about your products and services and on top of that, videos have an enormous capacity to go viral.

Show a Sense of Humor

It’s important to share content that will bring your users a laugh, but it’s just as vital to show that your brand has a sense of humor when it comes to itself. Don’t come across as taking yourself too seriously; be open to gentle criticisms and user questions. Everyone has room to grow, and feedback from your audience can provide a wealth of valuable information.

At the end of the day, your goal is to create genuine and lasting connections with your customer base. Create an environment that cultivates two-way conversations, and you’re well on your way to effectively building your online presence. No brand is perfect, but the truly savvy remember to never stop learning.

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Mistake #1: Watering down copy to avoid scaring off potential customers.

If you’re trying to cast too a wide net, let’s face it—your copy’s going to be boring. The equivalent of advertising airline food. If a potential client is scared away, they were probably never your target audience anyway. Compelling copy will attract the kind of customers who will enjoy your products or services and create a loyal customer base. Repelling clients who aren’t a great fit for you isn’t always a net negative—if anything, it’s more effectively targeting the right person.  This leads us to the next point.

Mistake #2: Failing to hold your customers in mind.

Who reaps the greatest benefit from using your products or services? Get in their mindset. Write for your favorite customer—what exactly are their goals? Why should they be attracted to the product or service in the first place? You can’t please everyone. Make sure you’re pleasing the right people.

Mistake #3: Selling your services instead of the dream.

At the end of the day, you’re not selling clothes—you’re selling the image your customer wants for themselves. You’re not selling a home alarm system, you’re selling security and the peace of mind that allows your customer to sleep at night. You get the picture. Bottom line: sell your audience on the intangible benefits, not the specific features of your product or service. Carefully consider the goals your customers have for their purchase and the problems they want to fix in their lives.

Mistake #4: Forgetting the technical aspects of your copy.

You’ve carefully considered the message you want to send and have created some compelling, thoughtful copy. Awesome! Now, look critically at your work: Is it digestible to the audience? The reality is that no one’s going to read your work like they’d read a best-selling novel. If you’re writing online copy, remember this if nothing else: People scan. So, make your work scannable! Lay things out in easy-to-parse bulleted lists and brief paragraphs.

• Use your headlines, headers and bullet lists to guide the eye down the page.
• Don’t sacrifice information for wit; give your reader the most important tidbits in headers and bullets. It’s what your reader will see first, and frankly it’s the bulk of what they’ll remember later.
• Headers should accurately describe the information contained in that section—no more, no less.
• Keep sentences shorter than 3 lines long at maximum.
• Break it up! Cap paragraphs off at 4-5 lines. Brevity, the soul of wit and all that.

Whether you’re a novice or an old pro, can you identify any of these common mistakes in your own work? If so..great! We learn and grow all the time, and the first step to improving your work is recognizing your growth opportunities. Always keep your eyes peeled and your mind open so you can actively identify great copy when you see it. Figure out how and why it’s effective to you, and learn to apply your observations to your own work.

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