MARKETING
10 Tips To Write Engaging Content Previews for Social Media
Social media users scan their feeds, so marketers fiddle with images to compel their target audience to stop scrolling. But bright pictures shouldn’t be the only hook for them to stop, click, and read.
Scrollers who catch sight of an image often go to the text to see what it’s all about. And if this content preview doesn’t motivate them to click to read more, the promotion endeavors are in vain.
These 10 tips can help ensure your social media content previews turns scrollers into readers of your full-length content.
1. Emphasize content’s popularity
This trick serves as social proof, an indicator that other readers found your content worthy of a click to read more. It also includes a component of FOMO – fear of missing out. Scrollers don’t want to miss content that others found truly informative and valuable.
By promoting a content piece as the best or most likable, shareable, or debatable resource offered, you’ll evoke curiosity and motivate them to see what all the fuss is about.
Use superlatives to promote #content on @SocialMedia. You’ll evoke curiosity and motivate them to click, says @LesleyVos via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
In this tweet, I promote an article, How To Deal With Cognitive Biases in Social Content, by introducing it as “one of my best writings of 2021.”
One of my best writings in 2021: 😍
How to Deal With Cognitive Biases in Social Media Content: https://t.co/johDya1T63
via @socialbakers
😊#socialmedia #content #SMM #strategies#marketing #psychology pic.twitter.com/Gckyn74v0i— Lesley J. Vos (@LesleyVos) December 31, 2021
Honesty is critical here. Don’t use this tip to trick readers. After all, brand reputation matters far more than a few extra clicks on social media.
2. Mention a bonus inside the content
Tell your readers that a nice bonus awaits them in the article. These can be free templates, a list of the best blog posts of the year, or practical checklists on a topic.
Long story short, make them understand there’s an added value in your content. In this Instagram post, CoSchedule promotes an article about how to do a content audit. But it doesn’t stop there. It also mentions the inclusion of a template and checklist.
3. Add a humorous yet relevant picture
Technical or detailed content can be difficult to preview on social media. It’s challenging to convey terms and concepts in a brief format because of a few cognitive biases experienced when the brain sees too much information to explore or too much content to remember.
Appealing to humor and using picture-superiority effect can help. Complement the content’s meaning with a fun and attractive visual. You’ll smooth out its complexity and thwart those cognitive biases.
The example I shared in the first tip contains the funny giraffe visual to attract attention to the seemingly complex topic of cognitive biases.
If you don’t find the humorous route possible, an alternative to promote technical or detailed content is to use a bright illustration that will stand out in user feeds like this colorful rainbow and brightly dressed model to preview an article on social listening research.
4. Reveal the table of contents
Describe the main point of your article in a sentence followed by a table of contents. This writing trick works when simplified main point sounds too general or vague. It lets users see the details behind the topic to determine if it’s valuable and relevant to their needs.
Share a table of contents to promote your full-length asset on #SocialMedia, says @LesleyVos via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
In this social preview post, WordStream identifies the topic (types of emails to send in 2022), followed by a bulleted table of contents listing each type addressed in the full-length article.
5. Write as you would talk to a friend
Concerned about looking unprofessional and overly friendly, some writers make their previews too formal and impersonal. That type of content can make it difficult to attract social media users who scroll to find something interesting.
I’m not talking about being too personal, but you can take steps to be more conversational in your previews:
- Don’t use professional jargon, complex words, massive grammar constructions, and long sentences. Further proofreading and slight editing also will help polish the preview.
- Write as you talk. Imagine you are telling an interested friend about the content.
6. Use a citation from the content
You see this trick often because it works well. Write a preview for a piece by including a quote or citing a statistic from the full-length article. This social preview from the environmental company Jacobs includes a quote from the employee profiled in the article.
7. Answer the why-should-I-care question
This tip relates to the earlier ones, but I separated it for emphasis. In a preview, explain briefly why a person should invest their time reading your content. Maybe the author is a well-known expert whose opinion matters for the niche. Perhaps the information is structured in a convenient format. Perhaps it brings some extra freebies or other benefits. The point is to let the scroller know what’s in it for them.
In this example, Ahrefs promotes the reader-friendly structure (short and sweet) and mentions a new feature.
8. Tag well-known sources
If the author or sources are well known in your niche or globally, mention them in the preview. Make sure to tag them, too. The preview will grab your audience’s attention and may be shared by the author or source so their followers can see it, too. (It also indicates the content is authoritative.)
This preview from Digital Olympus identifies the participation of experts Winnie Sun and Jason Barnard for its weekly webinar.
TODAY 😍
Don’t miss a fresh episode of #KalicubeTuesdays!
Join @winniesun and @jasonmbarnard to learn how to navigate the tricky waters of branding and business.
🗓️ Today, 28th of Dec
⏰ 4PM (UK time)Register:
👉 https://t.co/cLgIOKjTXg#withJasonBarnard #brandingtips pic.twitter.com/cPmid1UPhl— Digital Olympus (@DigitalOlympus) December 28, 2021
9. Mention a mind-blowing fact
You have a moment to hook social media users. Create a wow effect in the first sentence of your preview by using:
- Weird words or expressions
- Extraordinary insights
- Shocking information
- Exclusive facts
In this example, Semrush highlights that 7,000-plus word articles drive almost four times more traffic than articles of 900 to 1,200 words. (Now, that’s a wow!)
10. Speak directly
You know your buyer persona inside out. With their character traits, motivations, fears, and frustrations in mind, craft content previews so the reader would exclaim, “Oh, that’s about me!” and click to continue reading.
In this example from Elna Cain, she writes in second person: “Stop saying sorry in your freelance business! Are you always apologizing for not having the right niche, the right rate or the right type of writing? Stop saying sorry and say these instead …”
Stop saying sorry in your freelance business! Are you always apologizing for not having the right niche, the right rate or the right type of writing? Stop saying sorry and say these instead: pic.twitter.com/JVQO6WBHc8
— Elna Cain (@ecainwrites) January 11, 2022
Be ready for rewrites
Crafting effective social media previews for your content isn’t accomplished in a single draft. Use two or three of these tips to write several previews to publish on social media. Analyze the audience’s reaction to each to understand the most attractive preview structure and tone for this particular type of content promotion.
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
MARKETING
A Recap of Everything Marketers & Advertisers Need to Know
When rumors started swirling about Twitter changing its name to X, I couldn’t believe it at first. But then, in July 2023, as I searched for my favorite blue icon on the phone, I found a black icon instead. It had actually happened!
MARKETING
The key to correcting the C-suite trust deficit
Take a moment to search “CMO tenure” and you’ll find a wide variety of content discussing the short tenure of CMOs and how it’s among the shortest of roles in the C-suite. If you dive deeper, you’ll find that CEOs don’t seem to trust CMOs.
Boathouse’s CMO Insights study (registration required) noted several sobering conclusions:
- 34% of CEOs have great confidence in their CMOs.
- 32% of CEOs trust their CMOs.
- 56% of CEOs believe their CMO supports their long-term vision.
- And only 10% of CEOs believe their CMO puts the CEO’s needs before their own.
If these statistics also apply to the CMO’s entire organization, then it’s clear we have a trust problem with marketing leadership.
If you haven’t read Patrick Lencioni’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” I consider it required reading for anyone in any leadership role. In his book, Lencioni builds a pyramid of dysfunctions that need to be addressed for a team to succeed. The foundational dysfunction — with which one cannot build a successful team — is “absence of trust.” We see it at scale with marketing organizations today.
Introducing objectivity through data
In “Hamlet,” Shakespeare writes, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Each organization that makes up a company looks at the company from a different perspective. What marketing sees as positive, finance may see as negative. But who’s right? No one.
Usually, there is no objectivity because leadership comes up with an idea and we execute it. It’s like the fashion proverb “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Unfortunately, we’re going to struggle to run a profitable organization if it’s run like a fashion show.
Therefore, we need to introduce objectivity to how we work. Leadership needs to come together to agree on goals that align with the goals of the broader organization. One element of this conversation should be an acknowledgment that this is turning a ship.
Often leaders — especially those without marketing backgrounds — are likely to expect instant gratification. It’s going to take time to turn the ship and you and your team would do well to set reasonable expectations right away.
Dig deeper: KPIs that connect: 5 metrics for marketing, sales and product alignment
Aligning goals and metrics across the organization
With goals in hand, we need to assign metrics to their progress and agree on the source(s) of truth. Once these objective measures are in place, perspective doesn’t matter. 2 + 2 = 4 regardless of whether you’re in HR or accounting.
Every public road has a speed limit and whether you’re in compliance with it has nothing to do with your perspective. If you’re above it, you’re wrong and subject to penalties. Referring to the fashion example, it’s not a fashion show where some people like a dress and others don’t.
By using data to objectively measure marketing’s progress within the organization and having the rest of the leadership buy into the strategy, we build trust through objectivity. Maybe the CEO would not have chosen the campaign the marketing team chose.
But if it was agreed that a >1 ROAS is how we measure a successful campaign, it can’t be argued that the campaign was unsuccessful if the ROAS was >1. In this example, the campaign was an objective success even if the CEO’s subjective opinion was negative.
Data-driven campaign planning
Within the marketing organization, campaigns should always be developed with measurement top of mind. Through analysis, we can determine what channels, creative, audiences and tactics will be most successful for a given campaign.
Being able to tell the leadership team that campaigns are chosen based on their ability to deliver measured results across metrics aligned to cross-departmental goals is a powerful message. It further builds trust and confidence that marketing isn’t run based on the CMO’s subjective opinions or gut decisions. Rather, it’s a collaborative, data-driven process.
For this to be successful, though, it can’t just be for show, where we make a gut decision and direct an analyst to go find data to back up our approach. This would be analytics theater, which is a perversion of the data. Instead, tell the analyst what you think you want to do and ask them to assess it.
For the rest of the organization’s leadership, ask questions when the marketing team presents a campaign. Find out how they came up with the strategy and expect to hear a lot about data — especially the metrics you all agreed would support the company’s overarching goals.
Dig deeper: 5 failure points of a marketing measurement plan — and how to fix them
Data literacy: Building credibility through transparency
Building trust doesn’t happen overnight, but a sustained practice of using data to drive marketing leadership’s decisions will build trust if the metrics ladder up to the organizational goals and all of leadership is bought into the measurement plan.
Over time, this trust will translate into longer tenure and more successful teams through building the infrastructure needed to tackle Lencioni’s five dysfunctions.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.
MARKETING
How Tagging Strategies Transform Marketing Campaigns
As a marketer, I understand how today’s marketing campaigns face fierce competition. With so much content and ads competing for eyeballs, creating campaigns that stand out is no easy task.
That’s where strategies like tagging come in.
It helps you categorize and optimize your marketing efforts. It also helps your campaigns cut through the noise and reach the right audience.
To help you out, I’ve compiled nine ways brands use a tagging strategy to create an impactful marketing campaign.
Let’s get to it.
How Brands Use a Tagging Strategy
Tagging involves using keywords or labels to categorize and organize content, products, or customer data. You attach tags to specific items or information to make searching, sorting, and analyzing data easier.
There are various types of tags, including meta tags, analytics tags, image tags, hashtags, blog tags, and more.
So, how do brands use a tagging strategy to make their marketing campaigns stand out?
Improve Social Media Engagement
With over 5 billion users, social media provides an easy way to connect with your audience, build relationships, and promote your offerings.
Use a tagging strategy to boost social media interactions. Consistently use hashtags that align with current trends and topics. This encourages people to interact with your content and boosts content visibility.
You can also use tags to monitor brand mentions of your products or your industry. This allows you to engage with your audience promptly.
Consider virtual social media assistants to streamline your tagging strategy. These AI-driven tools can suggest relevant hashtags, track mentions, and automate responses. Implementing them can save time and resources while ensuring consistent engagement across your socials.
Build a Personal Brand on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform, with over 1 billion members across 200 nations. It offers excellent opportunities for individuals and businesses to build and nurture their brands.
However, simply creating a professional profile isn’t enough to build a personal brand on LinkedIn.
Use various tags to increase your visibility, establish thought leadership, showcase expertise, and attract the right connections. For instance, use skill tags to showcase your expertise and industry tags to attract connections and opportunities within your industry. Use certification tags to help showcase your expertise and credibility to potential employers or clients.
Facilitate Customer Segmentation and Personalization
Personalization matters—more so in today’s data-driven world. In fact, 65% of consumers expect your brand to adapt to their changing preferences and needs.
To meet this expectation, consider using a tagging strategy.
Segment your customers based on shared characteristics, such as demographics, interests, purchase history, cart abandonment, and behavior.
Here’s a summary of the steps to customer segmentation.
With your customer segments ready, use tags to tailor your marketing messages and offerings to specific segments. Imagine sending targeted email campaigns based on what your customers need. That’s the power of segmentation and tagging in action!
Enhance SEO and Content Discoverability
Tagging content can have a profound impact on search engine optimization (SEO) and content discoverability. When users search for specific topics or products, well-tagged content is more likely to appear in search results, driving organic traffic to your website.
Additionally, tags can help you analyze the most popular topics with your readers. Then, the results of this analysis can help you adjust your content strategies accordingly.
And get this— certain AI tools can help analyze your content and suggest relevant tags and keywords. Using these tools in addition to a tagging strategy can help optimize your SEO strategies and boost content discoverability.
Partner with the Right Influencers
Influencer marketing has become a go-to marketing approach for modern brands. Recent stats show that 85% of marketers and business owners believe influencer marketing is an effective marketing strategy.
But how do you find the perfect influencer for your campaign?
Utilize tags to identify influencers who are relevant to your niche. Beyond this, find influencers who align with your brand values and target audience.
Additionally, look for influencers who use hashtags that are relevant to your campaigns. For instance, fashion influencer Chiara Ferragni uses #adv (advertising) and #ghd (good hair day) hashtags in this campaign.
Monitor industry-specific hashtags and mentions to discover influential voices and build profitable relationships with them.
Track Hashtag Performance
Tracking your hashtag performance helps you understand your campaigns’ engagement, reach, and effectiveness.
To achieve this goal, assign special hashtags to each marketing project. This helps you see which hashtags generate the most engagement and reach, enabling you to refine your tagging strategy.
Here’s an example of a hashtag performance report for the #SuperBowl2024.
This curated list of hashtag generators by Attrock discusses the top tools for your consideration. You can analyze each and choose the one that best fits your needs.
Categorize Content Accordingly
The human attention span is shrinking. The last thing you want is for your audience to have difficulty in finding or navigating your content, get frustrated, and bounce.
Untagged content can be difficult to navigate and manage. As any marketer knows, content is important in digital marketing campaigns.
To categorize your content, identify the main categories by topics, themes, campaigns, target audiences, or product lines. Then, assign relevant tags based on the categories you’ve identified. After that, implement a consistent tagging strategy for existing and new content.
Organizing your content using tags can also help streamline your content management workflow. Most importantly, readers can easily find the content they’re looking for, thereby boosting overall user experience, engagement, and conversions.
Boost Your Email Marketing Strategy
Email marketing remains a powerful marketing tool in today’s digital world. It’s also another area where brands use a tagging strategy to directly reach their target audience.
Use tags to segment your email list and personalize your marketing messages. Then, you can send targeted emails based on factors like purchase history, interests, and demographics.
Personalization can significantly improve open rates, CTRs, and overall engagement and conversion rates. It’s a simple yet impactful strategy to make your email marketing strategy more effective.
Plus, you can use tags to track how well your emails perform with each group. This helps you understand what content resonates best with your audience and provides insight on how to improve your emails going forward.
Enhance Analytics and Reporting
Every marketer appreciates the immense value of data. For brands using tagging strategies, tags are powerful tools for gathering valuable data.
Analyze how users interact with your tagged content. See which tags generate the most clicks, shares, conversions, and other forms of engagement. Gain insight into audience preferences and campaign effectiveness.
This granular data about your marketing efforts allow you to make data-driven decisions, allocate resources effectively, and refine your marketing strategies.
Final Thoughts
There isn’t a single correct way for brands to use a tagging strategy in marketing. You can use a tagging strategy however you see fit. However, the bottom line is that this strategy offers you a simple yet powerful way to create attention-grabbing and unique marketing campaigns.
Fortunately, tagging strategies are useful across various marketing initiatives, from social media and email marketing to SEO and more.
So, if you’re ready to elevate your marketing campaign, build a strong brand presence, and stand out among the competition, consider employing effective tagging strategies today.
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