You want to be a great copywriter.
You want to have influence on your social platforms. Who doesn’t?
The good news is that you can learn how to be excellent at your job as a writer. You can learn how to create copy that would influence and engage your target audience.
How?
Well, by discovering how to create content that would grab your consumers’ attention.
What’s the secret to writing great marketing copy?
Very simple… Learn how to do it – how to use the best copywriting techniques. And… how to do lots and lots of market research. Because that’s kind of a must!
What do I mean by market research? You’ll get it down the line. Let’s take one step at a time, though.
What is copy creation?
Copy creation is all about creating words that have the power to convince people to take action.
The best copywriters do a lot of research to find the most important characteristics of their products. They also try to discover the pain points of their consumers, and the words people use to describe their problems, their interests. This is a great starting point.
Writing effective marketing copy of any length requires proper research.
And guess who is the one to organize all that research and build an attractive message?
You’ve guessed it: YOU, the talented copywriter.
When it comes to copy, whatever you write on social media, needs to be:
- Relevant
- Interesting
- Valuable
- Easy to read
- Worth sharing
You must be extra careful with your words. When you write shorter copy (like on the social media platforms), you really must think about every word you use very carefully.
How can you write excellent copy? Make sure it meets your readers’ needs and expectations.
If you don’t succeed in grabbing your visitors’ attention, you won’t get your customers. In fact, on socials, the customers will get annoyed and will move on without you. So, it’s important for you to know how these platforms work and how your copy should look like on each platform.
You need to know what your audience expects to find on a specific platform and how they intend on using what they find. How? RESEARCH.
How to Write Catchy Headlines & Titles
Now that you understand the difference between content writing and copywriting, it’s time to learn about how to write those catchy headlines that would entice your readers and get them to be interested in reading more about what you have to say.
“On the average, 5 times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar.”
The first thing you need to do is get your reader hooked by promising to deliver value. The titles and subtitles should clearly explain why your audience should spend time reading your content.
In short, the headlines you create should convince your audience to read and respond to your copy.
What makes a good headline?
- Adapt the headline to the type of page it’s on
- Write the headline with your audience in mind
- Get to the value quickly (your headline doesn’t only need to give relevance to your audience, it needs to promise value). So, it’s basically how quickly can you say: “This is for you, and it’s good”
- The headline and the copy have to work together
- Know where it is going to be shared (on what platform – so the headline would fit perfectly)
So going back to what can make or break your content, well, headlines have that ability, too. But, there are endless ways to create a catchy, successful headline. And there are also certain ‘formulas’ proven to have worked really well over time.
Let’s dive into those formulas and learn how to create those catchy headlines, so that you’ll never have to worry about coming up with an eye catching, powerful headline ever again.
You can also opt for a headline analyzer that can help you discover how engaging your headline really is. However, don’t simply rely on such a tool, but rather make sure to learn all there is to know about how to create catchy and engaging headlines.
How to Write Social Media Headlines
You are interested to write headlines that grab attention. Good. How’s that going so far?
The reason I’m asking is that writing catchy headlines seem to be a hard nut to crack for many copywriters and marketers out there.
Anyway, not to worry, we’ll get to the bottom of this, too.
But, before you even consider writing headlines or any content on your social platforms, first you need to understand your target audience.
Obviously, most likely everyone understands what the headline of a blog post or article is. But what is a headline when it comes to a Facebook post or a tweet? Never thought that the one or two sentences within your social media post copy or tweet can be a headline, did you?
Well, it can. So, let’s break this down.
If with a blog post, the purpose of your headline is to get people to read the rest of your article, on social media the goal of your headline is to get people to click your link.
Social Media Headlines Tips
What you want to achieve with your social media catchy headlines is to increase engagement with your audience.
Let’s go over some tips you can use on your different social media platforms.
On Facebook
Well… on Facebook, the best way to go is short and nice. You can even go for attractive winning opportunities.
Keep in mind, shorter social media posts generally outperform longer ones. Also, studies show that posts on Facebook between 100–250 characters receive 60% more engagement than posts that are longer than 250 characters.
So, what this means is that when you write your social media headline on Facebook (which is your post copy basically) you need to keep things short, interesting and attention grabbing.
Resist the temptation that drives you to write a long post with way too much information included. Simply write a short copy with the information you have from your landing page or blog post and keep things brief. The goal here is to grab attention and interest. No one wants to read long posts. A sentence or two is more than enough and does the trick.
Always add a photo or some sort of good quality image when posting on Facebook. Although images are not considered headlines, your posts will get more clicks and likes if you include an image as well.
On Twitter
When it comes to Twitter, using the best performing keywords is your best shot. According to research, there are certain keywords you can include in your tweets that may increase the chances of your content getting retweeted.
Here’s a list of words you could try that are known to be retweetable.
- You
- Please
- Retweet
- Post
- Blog
- Social
- Free
- Media
- Help
- Please retweet
- Great
- Social media
- Follow
- How to
- Top
- Blog Post
- Check out
- New blog post
So, try including these words into your tweets when you think it’s relevant and check how they perform.
Also, when creating your headlines on Twitter, ask for the download (if you have something to offer for download, obviously). Although it may sound weird, and you could probably consider it more of a call to action and less of a headline, it has a great impact on click-throughs.
According to the specialists at Twitter, the most efficient call to action was asking people to download something. Additionally, tweets that clearly asked followers to download something via a link received 13% more clicks than the regular tweets.
This means that you may seriously want to consider offering a free download for a product with signup. What you could do is promote the product on social and write a clear call to action such as ‘Click here to download’. It should work like a charm.
Action words (verbs) are better than nouns and adjectives.
Studies show that social posts containing links, as well as posts and tweets with adverbs and verbs, generally have higher click-through rates than posts that are heavy on nouns and adjectives. The use of too many nouns and adjectives don’t bring value to your headline.
What brings value is the use of action words. Such action words can include save, achieve, earn, boost, act now, now. Also, when relevant, use verbs in present tense and active voice.
Quick Example:
Instead of: Top marketing secrets revealed ⇾ Use: Marketers reveal top marketing secrets
- The 4 U’s formula in a headline is key
The 4 U’s in a headline make for a great, catchy headline:
Urgency + Usefulness + Uniqueness + Ultra-specificity
Urgent
Adding urgency into your copy will most likely help you get the clicks you want.
Saying something like: ‘This common household product kills people every day without you even knowing’, will surely do the trick. I mean, most people seeing this headline would want to click on it and find out what product is that. Therefore, clicking on your post suddenly becomes an urgent matter.
You can add urgency into your headline by using the following words:
- Quickly
- Finally
- Just in time
- Avoid
- Don’t
- Restart
- Only
- Stop
Example: Avoid these 3 ingredients next time you cook your dinner.
Useful
Make sure to understanding what your audience wants and would be useful for them to get. Identify a problem they are experiencing and then find a solution they are looking for.
Example: How to get a hair dye without damaging your hair.
Unique
Because there are tons of interesting content out there, people are over-saturated with different types of content. Standing out from the crowd when it comes to creating headlines isn’t an easy task.
So, the uniqueness of your copy needs to include everything from your writing style to the benefits your target audience gets from reading your content. Also, don’t be afraid to be funny, or weird with your copy – let your writing style be unique.
Example: Raising butterfly students in school is the new trend that helps develop a healthy and balanced workforce in the future.
Ultra-Specific
How do you achieve this? It’s simpler than you thought. One way to go is the use of numbers.
Example: Top 3 islands you need to visit before you die.
Readers love the specificity of knowing exactly what they are going to read if they click on your article. If you want the headline above to be even more specific, you could add: exotic.
Like this:
Top 3 exotic islands you need to visit before you die. ⇾ very specific
To understand what appeals to your audience, it’s essential to understand your target audience first.
Place these four components together when creating your headline and you’ll discover that you’ll come up with great headlines that actually get clicked on. However, the only condition to get the clicks is to make sure to know what your audience needs. And then, promise them a useful, urgent, unique, and ultra-specific solution to their problems.
What makes a well-inspired, catchy headline & title?
They go straight to the point of your content.
How? By being simple, short and to the point.
Always get to the point! Trying to play smart and interesting when creating your headlines, might be exactly the reason your audience won’t get the point. Point taken?
Not everything that already makes sense to you, will make sense to your readers. So, they will never click on your headline because it doesn’t seem clear, they don’t get it, or it isn’t intriguing enough for their needs.
Example: Reasons why I never made it (“never made it” with what?? – what do you mean by that??)
The headline is supposed to answer your reader’s question: “what’s in it for me?”.
Example: 5 Tips to write catchy headlines to get more followers (What’s in it for me? – You’ll get more followers)
Let’s see some smart ways you can create catchy headlines:
Add the most important benefit in your headline.
Figure out what are the benefits you are going to enlist. Then simply include the most important benefit into the headline.
Being very clear about the main benefit is a must – which means you need to be aware about what the main benefit is for your target audience. Which again leads us to the importance of knowing your target audience.
Your headline on social media is an ad for your post, which has the role to convince your readers that your link should be clicked on because it has in fact the answers they are looking for.
Example:
- 5 Tips to create amazing infographics in minutes
- Top marketing trends from the past 3 months you need to know about
- How to stop drinking right now and never start again
- Complete guide to preparing delicious vegan meals [Videos]
- Sharing news? Then publish the kind of news your audience cares about.
Look for the kind of news you know for sure that your audience would be interested in, and then share it. When doing so, make sure to somehow bring your news in the headline. If you manage to do that, it is most likely that your readers will click on your news content.
Again, this will only work if your news presents importance to your audience and has the ability to bring something new into your readers’ lives.
For instance, when you are talking about your products or your services you could announce discounts, or some products related new features they can try out.
Example:
Try our customer engagement tool with a 30% discount starting March 1st. Don’t miss out!
Ask a question, your audience wants to know the answer to!
If you want your headline to be in the form of a question, you’ll need to create a question that would interest your audience. And would want to read the answer to that question.
In case the question in your headline doesn’t attract curiosity, your audience will lose interest.
Try asking a benefit related question. Tying your headline question to your brand’s primary benefit will surely raise curiosity. This way, you can win your audience over to your side, by simply replying to questions they need answers for.
“How To’s” always work
Give your audience the chance to learn something in some easy steps to follow, and you’ve won them over again. Adding ‘How To’ in your headline is a smart move. Most people want to learn how to do this and that – especially if you target the result as well as the motivation behind the ‘how to’.
Bring the great benefit of learning something new into your headline and make it sound super simple. People love that.
Here’s how you can entice your audience with smart ‘how to’ headline:
- How to turn vegan in 10 days without any negative side effects
- How to teach your child emotional intelligence by using only 5 simple methods
- 7 Steps to a better marriage
- How to lose weight without giving up your favorite foods
- How to make money by doing something you love
And the list could go on, and on…
Tell your reader ‘what’ to do and ‘why’
Yes, you can create ‘commanding headlines’ and tell your audience what to do, as long as you also add what their gain will be if they do what you ask them to do.
You need to show your audience the benefits that follow if they respond to your request.
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- I’ll give you 2 tips why numbers and [brackets] in headlines are a GO, too
Apparently, using numbers and brackets in headlines are eye-catching.
Example:
- Top 3 islands you need to visit [images]
- 7 best marketing tips in 2023 [infographics]
- Copywriting for Social Media: The Ultimate Guide [+ PDF download]
Tip 1: using numbers as digits (3 not three) works better when compared to using numbers as words.
Tip 2: by using (parentheses) or [square brackets], or some sort of special characters, your headline will stand out, and people will become more interested, therefore click it more.
In conclusion, copywriting is a powerful tool that can make or break a marketing campaign. By utilizing proven techniques and formulas, copywriters can craft compelling copy that resonates with their target audience, captures their attention, and ultimately drives conversions.
It’s equally important to understand the psychology of the consumer, the unique selling points of the product or service being marketed, and to tailor the language and tone to the specific platform or medium being used. By implementing these techniques and formulas, copywriters can create copy that stands out from the competition and achieves its intended goal.
And most of all, always keep in mind that copywriting is an ongoing process of testing and refining, and to continuously evaluate and adjust your approach based on feedback and results. With a solid understanding of copywriting techniques and formulas, and a commitment to continuous improvement, copywriters can become powerful communicators and drive success for their businesses or clients.
