Tailoring Your Social Media Voice to Different Platforms

Not all social media sites are created equal. Though we may lump them together in our marketing strategies, they serve fundamentally different purposes. So while your brand voice should be consistent, you're not always better off copy-and-pasting captions from one site to another. What works for Instagram does not always work for Twitter, and vice versa. Here are our tips.

Find Your Voice

Finding and focusing on your brand voice is essential. It helps engage your audience, find your purpose and mission, and, most significantly, impact readers. This is why it's important to maintain your brand voice no matter where you're marketing. You can dress it up or down, but stay true to yourself. A student-run style Zine shouldn't sound the same as the Wall Street Journal. That being said, here's how to change it up.

Where to Keep it Casual

Certain social media platforms allow you to keep your voice casual using expressions, abbreviations, asking questions, and any other conversational tone. Think of it as writing as you would a thoughtfully crafted text. We recommend a more casual tone writing isn't the primary focus. This means Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and certain Facebook posts. Keep it casual on these unless your brand prohibits colloquialisms or more casual copy.

Casual copy and content can also help drive audience engagement. Sometimes, not sounding formal and robotic helps bring things down to a more human level. And in the end, writing is all about human connection. To maintain consistency, create a social media content calendar. This will help you plan and organize your content in advance, ensuring that your brand voice remains authentic across all platforms.

Note that casual writing does not mean sloppy writing. Even when writing colloquially, proper spelling, punctuation, and syntax have to be respected. If not, you risk crossing the thin line from casual to unprofessional.

Where to Dress it Up a Bit

But you obviously can't be casual everywhere. After all, you are representing a business, and your copy must sometimes be dressed up. For example, copy on your website or more formal announcements on social media need to be dressed up.

Dressing up your copy is the writing equivalent of clearing your throat—it signals you have something to say that can't be ignored. By dressing up, we mean avoiding all colloquialisms, using a more sophisticated (but not pretentious) vocabulary, and keeping your copy well organized—short paragraphs, concise sentences, you know the drill. This is an essential part of your overall social media content strategy.

This could work exceptionally well on Facebook, WordPress, or wherever you're writing about your business. Your copy should reflect your capabilities as a writer and, in turn, as a publication.

Business in the Front, Business in the Back

Sometimes, you just have to bite the bullet and write in business speak. Avoid conjugations, use technical and sophisticated language, and make your sentences short and formal. Save this for press releases and LinkedIn, though. It gets exhausting to read formal writing, so make sure to use it only when it's necessary.

Copywriting Tips for Social Media

Copywriting for social media can be a challenge. With ever-changing algorithms and trends, it can be difficult for social media marketers to keep up. Nonetheless, social media marketing is a crucial part of today's digital media environment. Take these actionable copywriting tips for social media to apply to your own brand's marketing strategy.

Pay Attention to Trending Content

One of the number one rules of social media marketing is to pay attention to trends. That's what social media is all about–– trending content. So when you're copywriting for social media, it's important to keep an eye on what's hot right now. This can be for both positive and negative trends, to avoid any potentially controversial copy. One great trend example is sharing user-generated content to showcase authentic interactions and foster a stronger connection with your audience.

Tell a Story

When you're copywriting for social media, try to tell a story. Whether it's one line that makes scrollers stop and smile or an entire paragraph, it's important to write conscious copy. You want people to connect with your brand, and captions are a perfect way to do so. Your visual stops their scroll–– let your caption keep them there.

Don't Overshare

Tell a story… but not a life story. Keep the sharing simple and on-brand. Copywriting for social media can get tricky when you want to share with your audience, but don't want it to be too much. If you're an individual brand, try and make it personal without making it too personal. If you're a larger brand, keep it professional (but have a little fun).

Be Playful with Emojis

Emojis are perfect little visuals to break up text. When readers are scrolling through their social feeds, they don't always want to take the time to read a wall of text. Emojis can help break up the copy so your viewers don't get bored.

#Don’t #Hashtag #Everything

Hashtags are valuable but don't hashtag everything. Keep your hashtags to a minimum–– it looks better and will perform better. According to Instagram's creator's guide, 3-5 hashtags are ideal. You're allowed to have up to 30, but more and more research shows that it's better to keep it under 10 tags.

Be True to Your Brand

Don't sacrifice your brand's values when copywriting for social media just to keep up with a trend. Be true to your brand and stick to what your audience knows and likes best.

Staying true to your brand while adapting to different platforms is key to successful marketing. By honing your voice, planning strategically, and engaging with your audience through thoughtful and creative content, you can build a strong, authentic presence that resonates. Remember, consistency and adaptability are your greatest tools—use them wisely to craft content that connects and drives lasting engagement.