When writing social content for your brand, it’s easy to trip into common writing pitfalls that take away from your reader’s overall experience. If you’ve ever had to write copy for any aspect of your brand, whether blogs, social media, or website content, you’ve likely struggled at some point when trying to find the right words to use. Well, fear not, my lovely reader – here are some common practices that can boost your copywriting prowess:

Have a plan:

“Make sure you have a plan…” is a very common piece of advice. But as I’m sure you know, cliché pieces of advice are cliché for a reason. Setting aside time to prep and formulate a plan will only set you up for success when copywriting, even for tasks as simple as a quick social media post. Review your background information and ask yourself these questions:

1. What am I writing about?
2. Which platform am I writing for (webpage, social media, blog)?
3. What is my overall goal for this copy? Do I want to increase engagement and brand awareness, advertise a product or service, address business news, or update my brand’s look?

Knowing the answer to each of these questions prior to writing can save you a lot of time. The planning stage is one of the most important stages in writing, so it’s crucial to make sure you give yourself ample time to prepare.

Draft, Draft, Draft:

Along with having a plan, drafting your content is the best way to perfect your overall message. The first draft of your copy is just that, the first draft. Writers will often stumble and feel defeated after reading a less-than-stellar first draft of copy. That’s okay. The first draft is the stage where you initially get your thoughts and ideas put into words; it isn’t supposed to be perfect the first time. After revisions, your subsequent drafts will improve upon the foundation that was set within the first.

Keep your copy relatable:

Being able to relate to your audience is key in copywriting. Writing in a way that engages and connects to your audience will improve the reader’s overall experience, garnering more engagement per piece of content. The main goal is to focus on content that will captivate and retain your audience. When reviewing what you’ve written, read it out loud to yourself. If it isn’t something you think a person would say, don’t include it in your copy.

Know when to be concise:

One of the last things anyone wants to read is an overly long, sprawling sentence in your daily social feed. Hefty word counts may appear to the writer as being descriptive and detailed, but to the reader, it can be overwhelming and dilute the overall message when that wasn’t the writer’s intention. For example, social media posts shouldn’t typically have more than one or two paragraphs, but blogs can have up to five or more. To combat this, evaluate the goal of the post, reduce the number of redundant words, and focus on using as few words as possible. Doing this makes your copy short, sweet, and captivating when done right.

Remember to SEE:

Social content can have many purposes. You may want to create a social media post to highlight a company event, or you may want to write a blog to talk about recent company achievements like awards. Regardless, social content of any type always comes back to the same three purposes. That purpose is to SEE:

Showcase – Display what your brand can do for your audience

Entertain – Keep your audience entertained by using creative copy

Educate – Educate your audience on the topic you are posting about