A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO SOCIAL MEDIA COPYWRITING FOR BRANDS AS A FREELANCER

If you start collaborating with a new client and they are new to social media marketing and copywriting or don’t have a set guideline, then use this guide to help you and your clients to get the best start possible! Apply the guide’s steps to evaluate and define what your client really wants and needs and bring everybody on the same page. Only with a strong base is it possible to work effectively, keep feedback loops low and ensure a smooth workflow. If you make the work at the beginning, the actual writing will be so much more fun. Happy customer, happy life – trust me.

Hey, I’m Jasmin Elliott – a bilingual copywriter for social media and content marketing for seven years; freelancing for four years. Shifting my main income to freelancing has enabled me to reach an income of 100k in my second year in business. With this success, I have made it my mission to support other female and non-binary people to take the risk and start their careers as freelance copywriters! Through my knowledge, my experience, and my mistakes, I want to give you a head start to thrive as an independent and creative businesswoman*. All without knowing it all from the start and the “golf course” network behind you. I didn’t have these either and look at where I am now. Together, we’ll get you to that point, too.

I want to include every female, non-binary, trans, and female-defining person to feel included and heard here. Therefore, gender-neutral speech or the gender * is used. Should this not be the case in any terminology, please reach out to me to learn and better myself. This is a safe place for all Social Sisters* to learn and grow together!

STEP #1: BUILD YOUR COPYWRITING GUIDELINES

I know you want to grab your (digital) pen and paper and finally get going. You scored your first client, and you want to jump right into content creation. I get it! Totally. Still, I need to ask you to hold your horses for just a bit longer and focus on an essential part of copywriting first: the foundation of all your gorgeous lines to come.

PREPARE YOUR CONTENT

Especially if you write for clients from different industries, but also if you specialize in a certain topic: every client and every project is different. It’s never a one-size-fits-all kind of deal. So, set some time aside for you and your client to go through the following steps. You’ll feel much more aligned with your client’s needs and deliver a better result in the end. And that’s exactly what we aim for, right?

IDENTIFY THE AUDIENCE

First, you want to define an audience. Create a persona (if your client can’t already deliver that to you) that will be the fictional person you write to. If you can picture this person vividly, your writing will be much more accurate. You also wouldn’t write the same way to your lawyer as you would to your best friend, would you?

Answer these questions:

-       How old is the person?

-       Does the person have a specific gender?

-       Where does the person come from/live?

-       What are their interests?

-       *most important question incoming* What are the needs you want to meet through your communication?

-       Which platforms does the person use and why are they on each platform?

IDENTIFY THE ROLE OF THE SENDER

Now you know whom you’re talking to – the receiver. You also want to define your role as the sender of the message. All this will shape the tone of voice that you want to adapt consistently.

Answer these questions:

-       Do I write in the name of the entire brand or as a alter ego? (e.g. Netflix’s Instagram channel is maintained by the “intern”. They gave their sender a face, their own persona, for their audience to relate to.)

-       In which relation do the sender and the receiver stand? Does the brand you’re writing for want to be the trusted advisor, the funny friend, the inspiring role model?

-       Should your copy educate, entertain, or inspire?

IDENTIFY THE PLATFORM & THEIR ROLE

Each platform you target has its own rules and each one plays a different role in terms of communication. TikTok might be for entertaining behind-the-scenes content from the office of your client while LinkedIn is dedicated to positioning your client's CEO as a thought leader in their industry and their YouTube channel is for educational purposes only. See the differences that will occur in the style of communication on each of these platforms?  Start assigning specific roles to each platform.

Simultaneously, you can rank the platforms by priority (e.g. YouTube and Instagram as main channels, Twitter and TikTok as secondary channels) to assess their importance in the content mix. 

Here is a summary of some of the social media platforms’ traits to help you find the role they should play in your strategy:

-       INSTAGRAM: visually driven, short text to micro-blogging, inspirational, educational

-       FACEBOOK: visually driven, short to longer texts possible, community-oriented, local

-       TWITTER: text-driven, fun, reactive, fast-paced, opinionated

-       PINTEREST: visually driven, none-to-short text needed, inspirational

-       TIKTOK: visually driven, trend-driven, none-to-short text needed, educational, inspirational, fun

-       YOUTUBE: visually driven, long text possible, educational, inspirational

-       LINKEDIN: more text-driven (though shifting to more visual), longer texts to in-platform-articles, educational, opinionated

IDENTIFY THE GOALS

After you defined the roles of each platform, you can go ahead and dedicate certain goals to each platform. This way, TikTok can be your channel for awareness amongst a younger audience. Twitter can be your traffic source for articles on your blog and Facebook should drive registrations to your (Facebook) events.

But not only channels should have a primary goal. Every post will need to pay into a certain target your client wants to reach.

There are three main goals:

-       AWARENESS (Reach)

-       ENGAGEMENT

-       TRAFFIC/LEADS

Sub-goals can be for example:

-       Video views

-       Number of saves or shares

The goal will determine the call to action. The clearer you define your goal, the better you can tell your audience what to do!

SET GUIDELINES

Wow, I’m proud of you! You did all the hard work to lay the perfect foundation for your writing. Now, gather all that info and:

SET THE TONE OF VOICE:

Write down which adjectives describe the tone of voice (simple, straightforward, funny, relatable, emotional, educational, formal, informal…). Which questions do you answer and how?  

DECIDE ON ANY GUIDELINES IN SPEECH AND BEYOND

Then go ahead and add any specifics that are important to keep in mind:

-       Are you in any way political/religious?

-       Do you use gender-confirmative speech?

-       Are there any buzzwords that are part of the brand identity that should be used frequently?

-       How do you use emojis and symbols? Is there a certain set that should be used in certain situations/for certain topics?

-       Are there brand-specific hashtags or keywords? How many do you use per post?

 

STEP #2: PLAN & WRITE CONTENT

Okay, you made it this far! We just need to do a little more planning until you can go ahead and write! (Isn’t it amazing how much goes into copywriting aside from the actual writing part?)

EDITORIAL PLANNING

When you work for a client, an editorial calendar that is the base for your collaboration is key. How you want to display that is up to you. What you can include are: month, date, days, phase/campaign, milestones/events, the title of content, content pillar/key topic, platform, goal, visual, copy

Furthermore, you can structure your calendar in a timely order. Here are some suggestions on what to focus on when:

-       YEARLY: YEARLY HIGHLIGHTS, MAIN EVENTS/LAUNCHES/CAMPAIGNS

-       MONTHLY: CALENDAR DATES, TOPIC OF THE MONTH

-       WEEKLY: ADJUSTMENTS TO UNFORESEEABLE EVENTS HAPPENING AND STAY FLEXIBLE

-       DAILY: ADJUSTMENTS TO UNFORESEEABLE EVENTS AND CONSIDERATION OF TRENDS AND USER-GENERATED CONTENT

You want a template that includes all the things?

 Download my editorial calendar here: CONTENT PLAN TEMPLATE FOR 2023

WORKFLOW WITH CLIENTS: THEIR INPUT IS ESSENTIAL

Copywriting for somebody else is a hugely collaborative task. Determine the content-creating workflow with your client. Set up an initial kick-off to set the yearly highlights, monthly content-ahead calls to get their input on what’s happening next month, and optional weekly calls to check if there is everything that needs to be published for the week. Plus of course, daily communication in case a trend or something pops up and needs a reaction.

TOOLS YOU CAN USE FOR EDITORIAL COLLABORATIVE PLANNING

Okay, but where can I display the editorial calendar and work with my client on it? Well, there are many options to choose from.

Some recommendations depending on what type of planer you are and what’s most convenient for you and your client:

-       SIMPLE AND PRACTICAL: EXCEL/WORD, MIRO

-       COLLABORATIVE AND ORGANIZED: ASANA,

-       FROM A PUBLISHING PERSPECTIVE: SPRINKLR, LATER, COSCHEDULE

CONTENT DELIVERY (CURATE, CREATE, RECYCLE)

After you set up the structure of your plan, you need to fill in the blanks with content. There are three options to choose from:

1.     Curated content: share content from employees/customers/partners/industry experts/news outlets/users and add your opinion/expertise/info or celebrate something/someone by giving them a shoutout

2.     Created content: create original content from scratch – ideas for single posts/series/different formats

3.     Recycled content: update an old article and spread it amongst social media again, break down a gallery post with lots of info into numerous content pieces and do a deep dive into each aspect of the initial post, or maybe just add a better visual to an old copy that performed well and added value to your audience.

All three options are equally important when it comes to content creation. If you add all your ideas that result from these three options plus your client’s input about certain events or special dates, you will see: Your content plan will fill up faster than you think.

STRUCTURE POSTS FOR SUCCESS

I promised you; you’d get here eventually! Let’s start writing.

How can you structure a post that’s built for success?

-       start with a hook of 190 letters max. (before users need to click to read the full text)

-       answer “W-questions” in your teaser text with relevant info

-       include a strong Call to Action (CTA)

-       use max. 3 relevant & existing hashtags

CONTENT CREATION CHECKLIST

-       choose an engaging posting format

-       use the correct posting size and high-quality content (picture, video)

-       add a clear objective & Call To Action (CTA)

-       authentic value and own opinion added

-       stay simple & lead with one key message

-       use emojis to guide readers

-       keep a professional tone but show your enthusiasm

-       be consistent and take time for it regularly

-       ensure grammatical excellence (tools like Grammarly can help you with that)

STEP #3: OPTIMIZE & CONSIDER FEEDBACK

After you created and published content, the last step is to constantly analyze what worked well where and when, and how you can optimize your content to add the most value to your audience.

You can do this by checking the analytics section of the social media platforms you use (can be accessed for every business account) or you can get help from analytics tools. Which of both options you choose, use the insight you gain from that to find specific potential like the best times to post or best-performing formats and topics for your unique audience.

Every audience and account is different!

Try out different postings, times, etc. to get a feeling for your individual audience. It’s all trial and error. Enjoy the ride!