5 Tips for Writing Powerful Social Media Posts

Feeling like your social media posts are falling short? I get it. Social media is a beast. It can feel overwhelming to know what to post and where to post it.

Follow these 5 tips to start writing more powerful social media posts today:

1. Write with a purpose

Have a clear purpose for your posts. Do you want the reader to take an action after reading? Are you trying to get them to feel something specific? Are you just trying to be funny or relatable in order to grow your know, like, trust factor?

Getting clear on why you're writing the post in the first place, will allow you to write a more powerful and poignant post your audience will love.

2. Be direct

Avoid redundancy.

"I wrote this really informative blog post about yoga stretches to relieve stress! You all need to check it out! You'll learn so much! I teach you all about yoga and stress relief!"

Okay, that's a terrible example and I hope no one ever posts something so ridiculous. But, stay with me. The post starts by saying the blog post is "really informative." First, try to avoid using words like "really" to enhance your adjectives. It's unnecessary. It's also unnecessary to write about the blog being informative because blogs typically are, especially when they're about things like yoga stretches.

Next, it goes on to say "You'll learn so much," which is redundant because we were already told it's "informative." Last, we already knew the blog was about yoga stretches to relieve stress, so the final sentence is a total waste of space and only serving to create noise.

"Check out my latest blog about using yoga stretches to relieve stress!" Slap a relevant photo with it, tell them to check the comments for the link* and you're good to go.

Directness allows you to say exactly what needs to be said in the quickest way possible. Don't forget, you only have a limited amount of time to capture your audiences attention. You need to give them the most value possible in the quickest amount of time.

Pro tip:

Facebook lends itself well to longer-winded posts.

Instagram is better for captions that are no more than a few sentences long.

3. Be consistent

Your posts should flow linguistically. They should always sound like you. If you've got too many people writing your posts for you, or you're inconsistent with the way you write, your posts will start to feel disjointed from who people know you to be.

You and your business should have a personality that consistently shines through all your posts. This is imperative for your know, like, trust factor.

There should also be consistency in what you're posting. If you're not someone who typically reposts a bunch of news articles, it's going to feel weird to your audience if you suddenly start. If you don't typically share a bunch of kitten photos from your favorite chonky cat Facebook group, then don't start now unless you're planning on continuing.

This isn't to say you can't mix things up and expand to other types of posts. But whatever you decide your new thing is going to be, make sure it's on brand.

4. Draft/Review/Edit your posts

I draft most of my posts in a Google Doc before they ever make it to Facebook or Instagram. It gives me more space to let my creativity flow. It always makes it easier to go through and make edits without accidentally posting prematurely.

If you're a terrible writer or speller, don't hesitate to utilize programs like Grammarly to proof your posts before you release them to the wolves - I mean your followers.

You can also pay someone to review and edit your posts for you. Or hell, if you have a list of things you want to post about but no time or desire to write them, pay someone to do it for you. Sometimes it's easier to hand it over to someone else.

If you struggle for any number of reasons to write coherently, don't hesitate to call in reinforcements. If your posts are impossible to follow, no one is going to read them and your engagement will suffer.

5. Break up your posts for easier readability!

Have you ever been scrolling through Facebook and found yourself staring lamely at someone's novel-length post that is one enormous paragraph with little to no punctuation? Have you ever tried to read it? I typically quit 4 lines in, out of breath, wondering how anyone could possibly make it through the whole thing.

Break up your posts into easily digestible paragraphs. Social media writing is a relatively lawless land. You don't have to follow the same rules as a novelist or someone writing a research paper. You get to be fun and conversational and break a lot of rules. But, a total lack of paragraphs or punctuation is not acceptable.

3-4 sentence paragraphs is ideal. If you find yourself with more than 2 paragraphs, you may consider throwing in some strategically placed emojis. It's all about making your post look aesthetically digestible at first glance. If the persons brain registers your post as easily readable, they'll stop to read it. If they look and see a long barrage of words all strung together, they're going to keep right on scrolling.

Now, go forth and start writing better social media posts!!

* Posting outbound links in the comments will keep you from being dinged in the algorithm. Facebook likes people to stay on Facebook. When you post links that send people off the platform, they don't like it. Get around this by posting them in the comment section instead.