Our social media marketing course equips you with the skills you need to help you use popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and many more, as powerful marketing tools.

Content writing is one of the lessons, and you will learn how to:

  • Describe your target reader.
  • How to write attractive and effective social media content.
  • How to structure your content to get results.
  • Explain the importance of accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar.

A lot of social media content is badly written, with writers often using poor spelling, punctuation and grammar, and sometimes unnecessary or even offensive words or jargon that few people understand.

Some people say that this is OK, “because it’s social media”.

This may be acceptable if you are messaging a friend to arrange a drink. But, if you are publishing social media content on behalf of a business or an organisation, errors will affect your reputation.

Using poor grammar and punctuation can also make it difficult for readers to understand the meaning, and they may move on. So, keep your standards high. This also means avoiding “Tweetshrink” language and other shortcuts used in text and instant messaging.

What also often happens is that the wrong sort of language is used: for example, using sophisticated academic English when writing for teenagers interested in hip-hop, or trying to reach over 60s using “text speak”, or language that teenagers may understand better.

It’s essential to keep the reader reading. Therefore, in the first instance, you need to know who your target audience is so that you can use the right sort of language.

Then, no matter who you are writing for, you need to make sure they understand you completely.

Writing for your target reader

If you don’t write with your reader in mind, your social media content will never do its job properly. You must identify your intended reader(s) before you start since this will influence the content and the writing style.

Writing content without knowing who it’s for is a bit like Ford building a new car and then trying to work out who to sell it to. The market research always comes first, no matter what you are writing.

You also need to consider the culture of those involved with certain types of writing. For instance, solicitors write in a particular way, using a certain “language”. And, a music blog for teenagers uses a different writing style altogether!

Writing social media content without the reader in mind is a bit like going on a trip to London for the day without knowing where you are going and what you want to do. You will probably wander around and do nothing in particular.

A lot of social media content wanders around and does nothing in particular in terms of achieving its purpose, whether it’s to inform the readers or to get them to respond in some way.

Identifying your content’s target reader is not something you make up as you go along. That is a bit like building a new house without having an architect design it first. Or, constructing a building and then deciding whether it’s a glasshouse, a farmhouse or a shop.

See our Social media marketing course