Writing Social Media Ad Copy: Words That Sell
Social Media Marketing is a must for most businesses. It gives us a new way to communicate effectively with our customers and target audience. Instead of having to use a megaphone at the side of the street to shout at your target market, you can actually send them direct messages in a cost effective way. Today, more than ever, it’s important to have messages that speak to your audience. That message is made up of the creative that you design, as well as the copy you attache to it. What's that made up of? Well, your voice.
Whether we realize it or not, every business has a voice. It is what we use when communicating our brand – it can be formal or casual (we like the more casual). This voice is what will resonate with your audience. It's taking the concept of how you would communicate with your audience in person and transforming that into the digital. It has to be consistent, for your brand to be relevant.
Along with our voice, our social media messages must also answer the basic questions of who, what, when, where and why. Providing the answers to these questions and including a call to action is the basis for getting your audience to engage.
Certainly, we have all experienced those moments when we think we've landed the perfect idea for our next social media campaign - only to then find out it was like putting water through a strainer. It is important to test the water first. After all, you need to know if your perfect idea is going to work before investing too much time and money. How do we ensure that our perfectly crafted idea is going to give us a good return on our investment (ROI)?
We test the idea… The idea of taking the time to run a comprehensive test may seem like it will slow us down but the reality is, it will help us determine if the target audience is to going to accept or reject the campaign. Along with determining if the audience is going to accept or reject the campaign, a test will also tell us how much the audience liked or disliked the campaign. Even if the overall result is positive, there may still be ways to improve the message. Basically, you will learn what aspects of your ad worked and which didn't, so that you can make the necessary changes.
Consider the following points: #1: Depending on what social media platform you are using, you may have the ability to use longer ad copy. This doesn’t mean you should create long posts though. If you are able to communicate your primary point in a few short sentences, rather than long posts, please do that. Just imagine yourself reading it. Would you really want to read something long, rather than just the key points?
#2: If you’re still unsure of how long to make your ad, another way to test your message’s effectiveness is by utilizing split testing. This will give you a test comparison to determine if a shorter or longer post is more effective for your campaign. We love this. This is always a load of fun and really helps understand how to better your ads.
#3: Building a variety of social media ads that test the copy, along with any video and headline options will give you a better idea of what engages your target audience. Using a variety of ad tests will also allow you to determine if you have the ability to engage more than one target audience by using different social media platforms. This method of testing social media ads may seem time consuming. However, using these tools will actually increase your effectiveness. You will learn what worked, what didn’t and why. After all, effective social media campaigns provides stronger customer relationships and provides more engagement opportunities.
