Are you tired of your content not getting the attention you desire? Do you try in vain to hit the front page of Digg or Reddit or even niche social media sites? While much of it has to do with knowing how to properly promote the content, the truth is you have to know how to write hot social media content if you want consistent success. You have to understand what social media users crave.
Follow these 10 tips to help you write social media content that consistently goes popular.
1. Do Your Research- No matter what you’re writing, the first step to crafting a piece is to do your research. For social media content, that means understanding the type of content social media users desire. Determine who your audience is—are you going for success on big social media sites like Digg and Reddit or on niche sites within your industry? Understand which type of content seems to consistently go popular, and write about a topic that hasn’t been exhausted.
2. Write a Killer Headline- Your headline plays, perhaps, the most important role in determining how popular your social media content gets. Social media users have thousands of submissions vying to capture their attention. How can you stand apart from the pack? By creating a compelling headline. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with your headline. You just have to make it enticing enough for people to click on it.
3. Follow with a Great Opening- If you’re lucky enough to write a headline that attracts readers, you better make sure you start off on the right foot. You only have a few seconds to convince the visitor to keep reading. That’s why it’s crucial that your opening paragraph sucks the reader in. A lot of times, your opening paragraph is what will be used as the article description on social media sites. Make sure it cuts straight to the core of what your post is about. Which brings us to the next point:
4. Eliminate Fluff- Web readers have no tolerance for fluff. Don’t try to pad your content with non-essential text that doesn’t further your points. Online readers already have a short attention span; so it’s crucial to make sure you keep it focused.
5. Be Conversational- The key word in social media is “social.” Get rid of the stiff, boring content that lacks personality. Bring your readers into the conversation. Talk to the readers just like you would if you were sitting next to them face to face. An interactive, personal tone will generate buzz for your content.
6. Don’t Be “Salesy”- Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by trying to promote yourself in your social media content. Social media users will bury any content that displays ulterior motives. Your blogs need to add to the online experience by being useful and educational.
7. Stand by Your Opinions- Aren’t you tired of all the “me too” blogs crowding the internet? Doesn’t anybody have a new opinion anymore? While it can be scary to go against popular belief, you’ll never gain any respect if you don’t stand by your opinion. “Me too” content has been done thousands of times before, and that style of writing severely limits your chances of penning a popular piece.
8. Use Pictures- Well-chosen pictures act as a great supplement for your social media content. Let’s face it—no matter how great your writing is, few online readers want to be greeted with a long block of text when they click on your post. Pictures are great because they make your content easier to scan and they add another aesthetic to your piece.
9. Be a Resource- In a way, this goes back to point #7. If you want your content to rise to the top of social media sites and to generate inbound links, you need to write pieces that act as a resource. How can you do this? By going deeper. Provide detailed analysis that can’t be found anywhere else. Imagine you’re writing a post about free online tools for web designers. While this has undoubtedly been done before, the way you can make your piece a leading resource is by including the most tools and links to some hidden gems that others have overlooked. In short, you want your content to be a piece that someone can learn all they need to about a particular subject from.
10. Keep Trying- Social media marketing requires a long-term commitment. You have to keep trying to write hot social media content. The best thing you can do is to learn from your mistakes and to keep tweaking your approach until you hit on a formula that works for you. It’s a learning experience, and you just have to be willing to stick with it.
Would you add any tips to this list? Share your favorite social media content writing tips in the replies!
Eric Brantner is a freelance copywriter serving small and medium-sized businesses from a wide range of industries. He is a regular writer at Digital Labz LLC a Internet Marketing Company offering Online marketing for small business.13 Responses to “10 Foolproof Steps to Writing Hot Social Media Content”
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Great tips, content is still so important, whether you’re using social media or whatever online marketing.
Awesome advice! The key to interacting in social media is to remember that it is a Community built on conversations. Much like a huge cocktail party. Work the room, be interesting, honest, engaging and don’t schmooze.
People recognize when someone is not authentic. Join the conversation, be a valuable part of the community.
Thanks for the tips. People spend too little time on headlines (titles). And that may hurt visitor’s engagement. I am also guilty for this myself.
Here are some more steps or tips:
List posts (bulleted or numbered) work extremely well, in my experience.
Organizing the content into scannable format helps social media users stay longer on the site to take action, such as subscribing to the RSS feed.
Dynamite tips. The good news is that with your post in hand we’ve got killer advice to follow to get better pickup.
The bad news is that we’re out of excuses for unpopular content…
p.s. Only thing I might add as a corollary to #5 is: …And, for god’s sake, don’t be BORING.
[Sherpa reported on the top reasons webinar attendees bail — I posted on this at http://tinyurl.com/why-we-bail — and I bet there’d be a similar finding were they to measure why social media content consumers bail?
- @b2bcommunicate
Your tips can be applied to all content generation efforts!
Whether you’re trying to get to the top of Digg, or actually have people read your website. Be interesting, use images, and involve the community . . . As the web gets more social overall, it’s important for marketers to speak with customers, not talk at them. Writing content that has a conversational feel helps achieve this.
Get your audience involved! People like to have their voice heard too.
Your other tips really just improve user engagement. My number one tip for successful social network content is picking the right topic. Picking something you understand and are passionate about is a start, but it also needs to be popular. Just as you do keyword research prior to entering a new market, make sure people are already talking. Then hit them with something that adds value to the conversation.
Ryan Adami
Internet Marketing Specialist
Excellent “meaty” tips here, well done. There is so much useless “salsey” stuff out there, it can be overwhelming and give the social arenas a bad rap.
I enjoy reading what others have to say and conveying their feelings on several different issues. Heck, I learn something new everyday, not only about how others may interact, but about myself.
Don’t be afraid to write what you truly feel! Get it out there and accept other perspectives and you just may learn something and grow from it.
Definitely best tips to write any type of content oner Internet. Controversial content always hit the deck.
I would also suggest writing a content which demand some suggestion or feedback from the reader point of view.
I am absolutely agree with all point. Killer head line play major rules in social media release.
Good point 6 and 10. we should keep long term relation in our social media site. we should give link our blogs.
Your step by step guide is an excellent presentation of how to get noticed. I am definately going to bookmark this. As a former journalist, there are many ideas that apply to print media as well: doing your research, writing a killer headline and having a great opening in particular (of course, in newspapers, there are often people whose main job is to write the headline!).
These steps remind me that the way to approach social media is not always that different than what we’ve done before in other arenas. Even being conversational is more popular in newspapers today. But everything has to be sharper because as you said, you generally have less time to capture someone’s attention. As we hear again and again, first impressions are key! Opening your post, the look is enticing because it is so readable. In addition to the photo, numbering the steps helped break up the text and provided white space.
Chris Lindberg
Thanks for this amazing tidbit! I will definitely have to use this in my blog!
Thanks!
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