Skip to main content

Everyone’s a social media copywriter these days.

Even if you’ve binned off social media altogether, the likelihood is you’ve dabbled in some social media copywriting in your lifetime. The difference is, you’re much less likely to have written on behalf of a brand and much less likely to have written on behalf of multiple brands. Which is what us social media copywriters do.

When you’re writing on behalf of brands every single day it’s easy to find a groove and stick within it. And though that may tick the box of keeping a consistent tone for brands, you can find your content becoming stagnant fairly quickly.

Here are my top tips for keeping your copywriting fresh for your brand’s social media.

Listen to your audience.

The beauty of social media is that you get feedback on your creative constantly.

Do the fans engage with your posts? Does throwing a question into the copy seem contrived or do they respond? Which posts perform the best? Does anyone read your content?

You should be asking all of these questions on a regular basis to review and assess how effective your content is being. If you’re not getting the results you want you may have to change up the style of your content and that’s not to say your tone – but the way in which you deliver your written content.

Learn from the pros.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with keeping an eye on really interesting accounts and gaining inspiration from them. In fact, you might say it’s fundamentally standard practice.

As with any agency, we at Brilliant are all sharing pieces of content, examples of graphic design, influencers, hilarious copy examples etc. that we’ve seen and enjoyed with everyone else no matter their role.

Here are a few picks for my favourite accounts, big and small that I look out for as well as a few places to keep tabs on for fresh inspo:

1. Innocent.

Not very original, I know. Innocent has been hailed the king of irreverent copy for a long time now. But that doesn’t mean the team has lost its edge.

I’m a huge fan of the way Innocent consistently produce funny, seasonal content the tone of which is always on point.

View this post on Instagram

Whoever invented January has a lot to answer for.

A post shared by innocent (@innocent) on

I’m also a big fan of the way they publish posts that are entirely copy based. No image required. It’s just funny storytelling within the confines of a medium that is usually an image and caption combo. There’s always time to jump onto the Innocent pages for a lesson in great content copy.

2. Palace Skateboards.

Palace is a down-to-earth skate brand that sticks to an unapologetic, ironic tone that mainly mocks all other brands and how they take themselves too seriously.

In short – the content’s f*nking funny. And it doesn’t give a flying f*nk. 100% on-brand for their no-nonsense skatewear.

Jump onto the website for the most original product descriptions out there.

Here’s an e.g. 👇

Product:

FLOCKA P3 HOOD GREY MARL

Description:

WHY’S YOUR MUM ON TWITTER
SAYING SHE GOES HARD IN THE PAINT

There are no rules. Keep your audience engaged, even if that means be hilariously cryptic. I’m a fan.

3. Nike.

I love sports brands content. Spoiler alert – like most people, I’m into playing sports and fitness and all that. But it’s not just because I relate to the feelings of playing team sports, pushing yourself in the gym or fighting up a ridiculous hill on the bike – I love how in the sports industry there is so much that is story-driven.

Every great athlete has an incredible story. Every match is a story. Every season is a story. Every brand has a story. Every product has a story.

Fundamentally it’s these stories that we buy into as customers and Nike are about the best in the biz for telling captivating, inspirational, and culturally significant stories.

View this post on Instagram

Fear is optional. #justdoit

A post shared by nike (@nike) on

4. AD&D Awards.

No matter what discipline you write for, social, print, digital, integrated, advertising, packaging, browsing through the best creative work in the world is the holy grail of inspiration. There’s so much to get through you can dip in and out of the incredible campaigns for months and get inspiration to push the boundaries of your own work.

Check it out:

https://www.dandad.org/profiles/jury/270978/writing-for-design-2019/
https://www.dandad.org/profiles/jury/270978/writing-for-design-2019/

Go too far.

This is always my mission when sitting down to write any piece of content. 1st draft is an opportunity to push the realms of how and what you’re trying to convey.

If there’s room for a little humour – go big. If there’s room for some silliness – go ridiculous. If there’s room for some informality – write like you’re texting your oldest mate when they’re sat in the same room as you. I’ve always been more successful in writing content that’s a little bit insane which is then pared back rather than trying to nail the perfect balance between engaging and on-brand first off.

I’ve written social media posts that are just conversations between made up customers, short stories and lists of puns that if the client saw after draft one would question my credentials as a copywriter. It’s usually here you discover the angle for the post that’s most-engaging, tweak it to be 100% on-brand and as accessible as it needs to be for the audience.