Traditional advertising has completely shifted – as a society, we no longer respond to conventional forms of advertising such as billboards or radio.

With the internet at our fingertips, we aren’t persuaded as easily by heavy sales-like pitches.

Instead, we favor our friends, even over the best campaign ever. For this reason, branded content on social media has become prevalent on all platforms.

Content has always been a crucial aspect of advertising. How we use it has changed slightly. If you’re looking for new customers, branded content on social media could be the way forward.

Here are our top tips to branded content.

1. Know your audience

Social media marketing is very similar to word of mouth marketing. For this reason, you have to speak the same language as your potential customers.

There’s no way that you’ll appeal to your customer if you down learn them. This means their interests, style of language, and social media platforms that they use.

Market research is still a crucial factor in the industry – putting together an example client is a great way to make sure your branded content is reaching the right person, and engaging them.

Focusing your branded content on a specific problem, and how you can solve it is a great way to gain new customers.

Creating content for social media arguably requires you to be more personal. Communicate with your audience like they are your friends.

2. Visuals are important

It’s always difficult for a content creator or copywriter to hear that visuals are super important.

However, visuals shouldn’t be seen as a replacement for exceptional written content. Instead, they’re a great complementary piece to help gain attention and increase engagement.

Over time, the text has become smaller – but that doesn’t mean that it requires any less creative direction.

The takeaway: Always include an attractive and relevant photo or video with your content. It’s this that will grip the customer, and encourage engagement.

3. You can

   never experiment enough

As with all things creative – experimenting with different ideas and mediums.

As the internet and social media changes, almost daily, it’s essential that your creative strategy changes from time to time.

Running tests and practicing new ideas should become a regular occurrence. Sure, some of the risks you take may not pay off – but one might. That’s all that should matter.

Remember what they say; you’re only one post away from going viral.

Remember, in the bigger picture, there’s no such thing as a failed post – if something doesn’t do as well as you hoped, take it as a lesson and use it as insights into your future brand content strategies.

As a writer, you should experiment with your words and style of writing as much as possible. Does industry lingo work for your target audience? Is the slang that you’re using genuinely making a positive impact?

Another way to experiment is to take new classes and courses. It’s never too late to learn something new about marketing or social media.

4. Incorporate your brand’s voice

Every company has a brand voice (or at least, they should). You shouldn’t neglect this in your social media.

With branded content, every post doesn’t have to be highly opiniated. However, if you see a relevant hashtag – make sure to make a post about it. Likewise, if you see an excellent opportunity for engagement, take it.

“As a brand, you should always stay true to yourself and your messages, and that should shine through with your written content.” — Neightan White, senior writer at Supreme Dissertations.

A great example of this is Nike – though their social media campaigns have been a significant risk, they’ve paid off, and many have gained a level of respect for the company.

Here are a few tools you might find useful to successfully incorporate brand voice:

• Trust My Paper — a renown writing service commonly used by content marketers and business owners.
• Grab My Essay — an reputable writing service you can delegate your brand writing to.
• Other brands’ style guides — there are many brands that have incredibly precise and overt style guides — research them to better understand your business’s personality and voice needs.
• Studicus — an excellent service that hires top-tier writing professional, who can guide you through stylistic issues and consult you on your style needs.
• Grammarly — among the best editing services out there. It allows you to spot grammatical errors, but also remain stylistically consistent.

5. Be positive

In a world that has so much to be gloomy about – your brand should provide a refreshing spin.

It’s important to note that there’s a difference between happy and positive. We know, not every company can provide complete happiness with their post. However, they should induce excitement and inspiration.

Even if your branded post is taking a stand on an issue. There’s a vast difference between voicing your opinion and starting an attack.

It’s also easy to forget that the internet and social media can be a nasty place. You shouldn’t engage with that side, or promote it.

Our top tip to remaining positive is to avoid any kind of internet drama, and never to criticize somebody publicly.

With social media, there is such a thing as negative publicity. Be careful with what and how you write.

6. Keep it short and sweet

Again, it’s not what every content writer wants to hear – but for social media, you shouldn’t produce large mediums of text.

For your audience, this shows that you respect their time – the same way that they respect yours as a company.

Using headlines and bullet points makes your content much easier to scan read – something that many social media users do.

Remember to keep your paragraphs short and straightforward, and be as concise as possible when writing your branded content.

It’s the best way to retain and gain followers with written content.

7. Don’t forget your calls to action

Just like with blog posts, always add a call to action at the end of your social media posts.

A call to action should prompt (not tell) your audience to do something. Whether it’s following your page, checking out your blog, or shopping your new collection.

Great call to action ideas are:

• Directing them to your website or store
• Subscribing to your newsletter
• Ask a question
• Send them to your blog

This is a great way to gain new customers to subscribers. It’s an important step when writing content.

The most common call to action is telling your audience to click the link in your bio.

There are websites that many clothing stores, like Pretty Little Thing, use – they’re called Like2buy which allows followers to quite literally, like what they buy. This is an excellent call to action to have.

CTA’s demand copywriting mastery and you’ll often need the help of various tools or professionals to make them work for you. A few services you can use to better calibrate your calls-to-action are BestEssayEducation, WoWGrade, and Hemingway, especially if you’re looking for brief CTA’s.

8. Always use analytics

You’re now a content-making machine – you generate the writing, and upload it onto social media.

Depending on the platform, you’ll more than likely be posting at the very least 3 times a week. For this reason, it can be hard to decipher which writing technique is working.

You should always be tracking your insights, and noting down everything that worked, and everything that didn’t.

You may find that your heavy text posts don’t do that well – why?

The posts that include hashtags and slang words do amazing, why do you think this is?

Also, use insights to find the best time of day to post.

Conclusion

Branded content and social media can be a tumultuous and challenging thing to master. However, when executed correctly, you’ll find great leads.

Though writing for brands has changed dramatically with the rise of social media, that should only inspire and excite you more.

Using your social media profiles, and your writing skill, you have all the tools you need to gain new customers and exceed in the world of branded content.