Social media gurus will have you believe you have to follow a long list of rules to be successful. But let’s say you’re not interested in a mass following for now, but rather in reaching your ideal client. What would that look like?
You’d have to capture their attention.
What would your ideal client see if they scrolled through your socials right now?
It blows my mind that there are still businesses that post images without captions. Or, even worse, posting generic captions that were AI generated. An AI-generated caption is as obvious as a dead fish. It stinks.
There is only one way to get around this – start writing.
Give your audience context when posting an image. Tell them the backstory. Don’t write to sell; write to tell. Cringe I can’t believe I just said that, but it’s true; potential clients can’t relate to you if you don’t give them a reason to.
What does a good story look like?
Interesting stories include the following:
- Some form of conflict,
- The journey to solving that conflict,
- And the resolution of that conflict.
Even if you keep the story short, try to incorporate these elements.
The steps to telling a good story:
- Set the scene: Create a visual or mental picture that sets the scene for the viewer. Tell them where you were, and why you were there. Include all the details that are necessary to the story, without rambling too much.
- Introduce conflict: The conflict is the reason you have a story. Conflict can be a fork in the road, a difficult situation, or a problem that needed resolution. This is the crux of your story, the ‘spine’ that supports the body of the story.
- Expand on the conflict, and how it plays out: Use emotion to grab your viewer or reader.
- End with the resolution: How did you resolve the issue? How do you feel now that it’s in the past? What did you learn from this? Share your insights without being preachy. This creates empathy in your audience.
7 types of stories that work well in a business context:
- Who the founder is as a person, and the company’s origin story.
- How your product or service makes a tangible difference in the lives of your customers. Purpose moves employees from doing their work because they have to, to doing it because they can see the impact it has on someone’s life. This can be in testimonial or case study form.
- Profiles on different leaders in the organisation, showing their human side.
- Communicating your company’s “Why” – Watch Simon Sinek’s powerful talk on Finding Your Why.
- Stories about employees going above and beyond the call of duty.
- Forward-thinking stories about what it will be like once you’ve achieved a certain goal. Using the power of visualisation to create an expected outcome in the mind of your employees.
- Relationship building. Employees generally only know each other on a surface level. The feeling of empathy and camaraderie grows when employees share their personal stories.
Creating a consistent brand message isn’t that difficult once you are attentive to it, and follow a few basic principles. Get the basics right and your foundation is set for clear, effective communication on social media.
Start with the basics:
Fix your grammar. There are plenty of tools available online. I use a Chrome plugin called Grammarly. It goes beyond spell check to correcting grammar. It’s such a convenient, hassle-free way to ensure your spelling and grammar is on point. Of course, it’s possible for errors to slip through but it goes a long way to helping you prevent that from happening. Basic features are free, and it’s all you’ll need for light editing.
The Hemingway Editor is a little more advanced.
The Editor is described as a style checker rather than a spell checker. Hemingway improves readability and lets you know where your text is too dense. It suggests removing unnecessary words or splitting sentences where needed. It’s next on my to-buy list. I’m looking forward to seeing my writing improve when I start using it.
Be Consistent:
I know it’s hard, especially if it doesn’t come naturally to you. But consistency is key to building trust with your audience. Posting regularly is a discipline. It’s an ongoing battle for many, including me, but it’s one worth fighting for.
A few ideas:
- Video is a powerful way to communicate. According to Hubspot, visual content is more than 40 times more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. Capitalise on this whenever possible. If you have the budget, consider having a professional video made. This article explains the video production process. If not, grab the phone and record a short message, telling a story that highlights what you want to bring across. Post it to Instagram stories or your Instagram timeline, or to your Facebook timeline. I’ve seen impactful videos created with cell phones. Not having professional equipment doesn’t have to be a stumbling block.
- Post a quote that speaks to you. Instead of posting it and moving on, share a short story about why you find it relevant or profound. This will help shift you from a copy-paste mindset to a creator’s mindset.
- Video trumps photos, but photos trump text only. Always support text with a photograph. John Medina from Brain Rules says that people remember only 10% of information three days later if they hear it alone. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of it three days later.
Some encouragement if this feels overwhelming:
You don’t have to get it right the first time. In fact, you won’t. Show a little bit of who you are. Be real. Use language a 5-year-old will understand. Drop all the adjectives, they’re completely, totally, ridiculously unnecessary. See what I did there?
Keep showing up. That’s half the battle won.