Just about anyone can toss up a post on social media, but is the goal to post content just to have content on your profile? Probably not. We are going to teach you the secret sauces (yes, more than one) to formulate an effective post and grab your audiences’ attention. There can be a calculated way to go about posting and that is what you will learn by following these 6 tips.
If social media isn’t your thing, creating an effective post has maybe never crossed your mind. Is that the case? If so, no worries, we break this down for the non-social media savvy person (because well, that’s our job). 😉 These are tips to create an organic social media post that is completely free to create and share.
Follow these top tips for crafting an effective social media post that will stop your audience from scrolling an entire football field and pay attention to you. Yes, it’s true, two years ago, research showed that people scroll an average of 300 feet per day (Netnewsledger) on social media- an entire football field 🏈 of scrolling. My thumbs fell off just thinking about it.
Let’s go!
⭐ TIP 1.) Attention-grabbing sentence
As if you were going to give a speech in person, you have to reel in your audience within the first few seconds and if you don’t they aren’t going to pay attention to the rest of what you have to say. This approach is the same with social media posts.
Here are 4 👇 strong examples of really great attention-grabbing introduction sentences: 1. “5 things you need to know about…” 2. “Do you want to know the secret to…” 3. “5 ways to master…” 4. “The ultimate guide to...”
Asking a short question is another great way to start your caption.
⭐ TIP 2.) Easy to read formatting
In 2018, Microsoft found that the average human being in 2018 had an attention span of eight seconds. We want to make our post as easy to read as possible.
Check out this before and after example:
The before is a paragraph that appears overwhelming and too long. You are not able to tell the tone of the message from the before caption either. The image is the only part that is carrying this post. The image is bold, so it might entice your audience to read the caption, especially since the image spells a word, but this post is not using all the tricks it can to make an effective post.
Take a look at the after image.
The long paragraph is now broken up by line breaks and emojis. This caption is much easier to follow and less overwhelming to look at. Formatting this way saves the reader time. You are also able to get a better understanding of the tone of the message from the emojis used. This provides the reader to quickly choose whether or not they want to read, rather than the before image, where the reader is more likely to dismiss the entire message.
⭐ TIP 3.) Know your audience and platform
Who are you speaking to on social media? Put yourself in their shoes. What would they want to hear that would add value to them from you? Maybe it is industry specific or breaking news about your company that will be helpful for your audience to know. What you share and the words you choose might be slightly tweaked per platform. For example, Twitter allows only 280 characters per tweet. Your audience on LinkedIn might be more professional and formal than your audience on Instagram.
To optimize your posts, I encourage using appropriate hashtags for others to find you and your content and hopefully follow your brand which could eventually lead to a sale or new relationship.💡
⭐ TIP 4.) Relevant, high-quality image or video
I use an image or video with 99% of my content. What about the 1%? That’s when I accidentally forgot to add it. Using an image on social media with your post increases engagement with your audience. Buzzsumo found that your content on Facebook increases 2.3 times when you use an image with your social media post.
The image or video should enhance what your message in the caption is saying and entice your audience to read more. Depending on the platform, there are pixel recommendations to showcase the highest quality and clarity for images and videos. I would recommend finding the most recent research or articles online to use for your images because there is constantly new data showing the best image pixels to use per platform.
⭐ TIP 5.) Know the timing
Based on social media algorithms, the best times to post on social media varies per platform and there is new research constantly released about best times to post. As a business owner, you can use those known best times to test different times around the area for posting on social media to find the best day/time that your unique audience uses social media.
⭐ TIP 6.) Tell them what to do
In your caption, provide your audience a clear call-to-action (CTA). If you want them to shop your products online, tell them to and provide the link that they can click on to go directly to purchase. Make the process to buy or learn more about your brand as easy as possible.
If you are able to create urgency with your offer, it is a great tactic to use on social media for e-commerce. Including a link will also help you measure your analytics to measure how impactful your ask and/or post was. You can read via free analytics on these platforms how many people clicked on the link you provided in the post.
Combine these 6 tips and add a little personal twist to them and there you have an effective, “stop-your-audience-from-scrolling-a-football-field” social media post!
Were these 6 tips helpful? Let us know!
Don’t have time for any of this? ✅ We offer full social media management and content creation services so we make your posts effective every. single. time.