With so much competing for the attention of every single visitor, each word becomes that much more important. Economy of motion, getting effect out of small actions, is where the best in social succeed. Since social is made up of many small actions — a tweet, a post, a pin, etc. — it’s the cumulative effect that pushes the needle for a brand.
Getting attention on social platforms has become somewhat of an art. It is not so much about being a wordsmith as it is about being concise and considering your audience and what interests them.
Brevity Matters
Social is about brevity, whether that’s out of necessity due to the amount of message human beings in today’s world receive in a day, or by design (see Twitter and other platforms that limit content to a restrictive character count.) We officially are beyond the information age. For proof, ask a room of people if they need more email in a day. No, people are overwhelmed by information to the point that they’re just trying to keep their head above water.
Social has become popular, in part, because it can be digested bit by bit, in small pieces. It is because of and responsible for the attention deficit society that exists. Either way it fits, it works and it is what the general population prefers.
Rising Above the Noise
Now, more than ever, your messaging and marketing has to stand out. And standing out doesn’t mean “shout louder” because louder rarely means better. It rarely means more effective. In fact, it means poorer marketing that is easily exposed because it’s viewed with reservations to begin with.
The good news is that marketing fundamentals rarely change. The old adage of AIDA (which stands for attention, interest, desire and action,) still holds true. For effective messaging, the use of attention and interest are usually good enough to get a click to your landing page, article or video.
Social content is essentially a series of headlines. Get good at writing headlines and the world is your oyster. And to just get competitive, start paying attention to the messaging of these headlines.
Remember, this is about them — it’s always about them — not you. Appeal to emotion, get the viewer involved, and edit your content from their perspective. Be conscious of their perspective with your content.
Salacious Headlines to Keep Them Salivating
If you’re just cutting your teeth in the copywriting game, a handy source to pay attention to (as crazy as this might seem,) are tabloid magazines. Yes, National Enquirer, TMZ and the like. The most salacious headlines that can get almost anyone with a pulse’s attention is written on the pages of those magazines. Going over their headlines you’ll notice how hard they play to our emotions and curiosities. While the over-the-top nature isn’t something to model, understanding a bit of the psychology is.
While this isn’t intended to be a guide on headline writing, it’s a tip off that so many are simply not even trying to create interesting headline via social. There’s so much white noise and meaningless chatter that exists in social media that with some attention, thought and a few tweaks, your content can be pulling better on a consistent basis.