Social media writing: 4 valuable tips

After throwing ourselves into some of the how-to’s of catchy headlines, let’s now take a look at what usually follows: your content. To thank you for visiting BITS, I’d like to give you four tips on writing for social media. And to top it off, these tips contain little ‘sub-tips’ themselves.

Indeed, it's total madness.

Write from your reader’s perspective

During a quest for information I found this slightly old-fashioned page that kicks off brilliantly with the following header and first words:

How users read on the web


They don’t.

Good point. After all, this might be the era of the short attention span. That’s why people want content to be highly scannable. Keep that in mind when writing. Highlight words or parts of sentences that could function as keywords for the text. Provide your reader with informative sub-headings. And, certainly not the least important advice, be brief.

Selling something? Don’t talk like you’re selling something

Here they call it ‘marketese’, here they name it ‘salesy’: a promotional writing style. Most of the time, readers don’t appreciate it. The advice is to just not write like that. Instead, make your article fun to read by providing honest, useful content. For free!

Use Twitter

Why? Simple. Using Twitter is a matter of what I like to call defying brevity. And defying brevity is a way to improve your writing. You only get 140 characters per tweet, which basically means you have to avoid redundance.

Also, the limited space challenges your lexicon. There’s only so many characters, so if you can formulate what you want to say in a shorter way, that’s the way to go. Repeatedly dealing with this will make you a better writer (and editor).

Discover your tactics as you go

As they emphasize here, coming up with ‘hot content’ for social media marketing requires a long term commitment. Unless you’re blessed with some serious beginners luck, you’ll have to keep trying until you find techniques that suit both you and your readers. Guess they don’t always say 'practice makes perfect' for nothing.

Off you go now, good luck! And tell a friend to check out BITS. You will be rewarded.

Sources / Further reading

Copyblogger | How Twitter makes you a better writer
Copyblogger | Writing for the social media everyman
Digital Labz | 10 foolproof steps to writing hot social media content
Useit.com | How users read on the web