Have you ever gone to write a Facebook post only to have your mind go blank? You need to become a better copywriter!

Copy is the marketing text that you write to accompany your media in your Facebook ad. Unlike content writing, copywriting is all about convincing people to take the action that you want them to take.

While it seems like writing social media copy should be the easiest part of the job, it definitely is not. You need to consider things like the audience you’re speaking to, your brand voice, what you want to accomplish, and how to create engaging text in a conversational way. 

Sure, the images matter a great deal on social media, but they aren’t able to drive performance alone. It’s your copy that explains why users should be interested, why they should take action, and what the point is. 

As with the editing of visuals, writing great copy is an art-form that takes time to practice and master. If you nail it, you’ll see an increase in engagement rates, link clicks, and ultimately, in conversions. 

So limber up those typing fingers – let’s get started!

Write to your audience personas

Copywriting for Facebook posts is about being personal. You want to write to your audience as though you’re having a conversation.

“False-hype” posts and empty platitudes don’t do much; you want to act like a real person is writing the copy (because hopefully you are!). 

The only way to do this is to have strong, detailed, audience personas. These are semi-fictional representations of your ideal target audience. Ideally, this is mapped out in your social media marketing strategy.

It’s important to make sure your audience personas aren’t that cardboard-bland variety that only identifies your target market’s demographics.

Audience personas (also sometimes called “buyer personas”) should be well-developed. A jewelry store, for example, may have the following personas:

• Dave is a 25-year-old man who is excited to be looking for an engagement ring for his girlfriend. He’s saved for a long-time, while on a budget, and is looking for a high-quality piece that will last a lifetime. He’ll care a great deal about insurance policies and life-time repair offers. He’ll respond to messaging talking about quality, trustworthiness and after-purchase care.
• Jessica just got promoted and wants to reward herself with a pair of earrings. While more of an impulsive decision, she wants something to showcase her success, and may be open to credit offers that can help her afford something she doesn’t have cash for right now. Unlike Dave, she’ll be excited for copy that encourages people to treat themselves, modern jewelry designs and financing options.

To be effective, you’re going to need to drill down and understand what makes each persona tick. Compelling copy will be different for each persona, so you need to ensure that you’re writing to one persona only, not multiple.

Remember your purpose

Remember your purpose – the reason you’re crafting the copy. Visualise your ideal outcome. Do you want to generate leads with a contest? Get people to read your blog post? Drive sales or sign-ups? 

You need a purpose behind each individual blog post, and it needs to take the digital sales funnel into account. Buyer personas, after all, aren’t the only thing you need to remember. 

The digital sales funnel accounts for the buyer stages.

The different stages are:

• Awareness, where they first discover your brand
• Consideration, where they’re considering on whether or not to purchase
• Decision, where they’re deciding to take an action you want, ideally to make a purchase
• Retention, where they stay on as customers or buy again
• Advocacy, where they refer others to you and sing your praises 

A user who has just discovered your brand, for example, would love seeing a video about what makes you different and how you make your products. A customer who has followed you for two years, on the other hand, would likely be responsive to a call to action for user-generated content. 

Make sure that you write a variety of posts that talk people who are in the different buyer stages.

Choose images that add something to the copy

Don’t you hate it when people say the same thing twice? Isn’t it annoying when people reiterate the same message? … See what we did there :)?

Typically your audience will look at your media (i.e. your image, video, etc.) and then move to your copy as they’re scrolling through Facebook. 

When your audience’s eyeballs move from your imagery to your copy and vice versa, you want to make sure that your Facebook copy complements your imagery and doesn’t just say the same thing again. (That’s what alt text is for.)

This makes the content much more engaging, and increases the likelihood of action.

Emotional and power words for effect

Great copy is like great poetry. Avoid the vanilla, overused phrases.

“The new normal.”

 “Are you ready for this?”

 “We are excited.” 

Create a list of emotional words that are relevant to your brand, product, or service that will resonate with your audience. There are articles that list out power words to help you add to your own vocabulary.

When you write your copy for your post or ad, review it and look to see if you can change any words to other ones that are more emotive or emphatic. 

A post like “Our new security system is on sale” could be made much more effective by changing the copy to “Keep your family safer than ever for less than ever; see our entire range of home protection products for 10% off.” 

Prioritize brevity

You know those awful landing pages that seem to have 1,000 words of text and “wait but there’s more!” to convince you to purchase?

Yeah, we don’t want to be like that. 

Remember that with Facebook, you’re not just competing against similar organisations, you’re competing with an entire newsfeed filled with content and a user’s fleeting attention span. 

Get to the point in as few words as possible. When you review your copy, take out unnecessary or particularly complicated, obfuscating or polysyllabic words. See? They’re annoying. Take out the big words.

The only details kept in the post should be what the users need to see, or what will motivate them to take action. Write the copy, and then see if you can reduce it by 10% to 50%. The best copywriting delivers the same message in the least number of words, not the most!

The magic of emojis

While long-time copywriters would likely cringe at this, the reality is that emoji can carry their weight on a Facebook post. 

Pictures are worth a thousand words, after all, and an emoji definitely counts as a picture. 

Whether you’re fluent in emoji or it’s a language you’re currently learning, those vibrant little images can help brighten up and reinforce your copy. Emojis can convey what words can’t and may help strengthen your tone and message. They can also grab user attention. 

With five billion emojis sent in Facebook Messenger every single day, more and more people are communicating with a mix of words and imagery. If it matches your brand’s tone and voice, you may want to consider using these helpful little icons.

Use Facebook’s alt text feature 

Alt-text is “hidden” text that can be read by screenreaders, ensuring that users who are blind or low-sight can understand the context of an image you share. It allows for full accessibility on the platform, and we recommend this feature is used regularly.

While it’s not part of your traditional copy, it does go a long way in helping everyone access the platform.

To add alt text to your images, click on the “Edit” CTA that appears when you hover over the image before publishing the post.

This opens up a screen that allows for alt text creation. Just write a description of the image, and you’re set!

Create engagement-oriented posts

Have you ever seen posts asking for users’ opinions? That’s because they’re very effective at driving engagement, because people love sharing their own opinions.

Ask how people use their products, or ask where they’re going on vacation. You’ll be astonished how much engagement you receive, especially if you incorporate user-generated content (UGC).

Here’s a great formula to follow. “We can’t get over how (UGC creator tagged) used our pasta! What’s your go-to recipe for our spaghetti? Share pictures!”

Write a killer CTA 

Do you want to drive actions? 

Spoiler alert: Of course you do! Whether you want followers to click on your CTA, or convert on your web page, all your Facebook posts should encourage people to complete an action. (See section 2 if you’re unsure). 

A call-to-action (CTA) can be a vital part of Facebook copywriting, and no, they’re not just for ads. CTAs are short sentences that call users to take that desired action, and plenty of studies have shown that they can have a big impact on success rates.

Something as short as “Check it out here” or “sign up before space runs out” goes a long way. Use action words, keep it short, and provide links so that it’s easy for users to take the action when they’re ready.

Conclusion

So there you have it, our guide to copywriting for Facebook posts. We hope you have learnt something new today and that when it’s time to write the copy on your next Facebook post, you do your research and build a deep understanding of your audience, product, and purpose. This will ultimately help you to write copy that speaks to them, in a voice and tone that resonates and draws them in.