Happy Fav Five Friday!
The Experience
Have you ever found yourself in a check-out line reading those paper and magazine covers?
I try to fight the magnetic attraction of these short phrases, but how can I resist headlines like these:
- 10 days to a BETTER YOU
- A Diet Plan That Works
- Woman gives birth to Alien Baby
- 6 Secrets to improve Your Sex Life
- These Tax Tips put Cash In Your Pocket
I was happy about the person in front of me demanding a “price check” while forcing expired coupons on the frustrated cashier. The magnetic attraction over powered me and I found myself reading all about the “Alien Baby”. I also purchased a magazine that included tips on 30 minute meals, Rachael Ray is awesome! This experience got me thinking.
Why Should I Care About Headlines In My Social Media Posts?
- Connecting to your audience is important
- Headlines are important
- People are busy
- Attention spans are getting shorter
Competition for attention is increasing every day. People and technology are getting better at filtering data. Do you want to be filtered? Connecting with your target audience will help prevent you from being filtered. I know my inbox, RSS reader, Twitter stream, and search results contain lots of important information, but some things get filtered out.
Do any of these social media posts from Twitter stand out?
Which post stood out to you? I liked “Things To Think About To Create A Successful Social Media Campaign“. I continued the conversation by reaching out and now I am connected and will continue building a deeper relationship with @mrktgeek. I found a lot of very interesting information about social media in her Twitter Stream and her tweets are very well written, which makes it easy for me to understand what her content is about. I like easy!
Building Relationships With Effective Communications
Twitter Fans To Twitter Followers
Take a look at this Twitter Stream from a writer that knows how to communicate with his target audience. Do you see a difference in the writing style? Do any of these posts stand out?
Which post stood out to you? All of them stood out to me. These tweets are from Pete Cashmore (Mashable), he has over 600,000 followers. These tweets are some of the most retweeted tweets on Twitter. A “retweet” is the action of other people sharing your tweets on twitter. I recommend following these tweets at @mashable Do you think you could benefit from having a million or so people helping you with your ideas?
How are these Social Media Posts Different?
- Well formed and to the point
- Magnetic Attraction
- Uses question style well
- Uses announcement style well
- Great use of trigger words
Crafting A Headline For A Social Media Post
I am not a great writer, but I wanted to share some information from a very intelligent person that I believe my target audience would find very interesting. I carefully chose the right words to create a headline for my target audience and submitted a quick post to Twitter. The target article received over 90 extra views in the matter of a few minutes. You can review the article for yourself at http://bit.ly/ukZLt
5 + 2 Tips On How To Improve Your Social Media Post
- Think about your target audience
- Create a strong headline
- Include reader trigger words in headline
- Read your headline out-loud
- Update your headline
- Communicate directly to your reader in your headline
- Create a relationship early in your copy
What is your advice for improving social media posts?
What is your best tip for creating an effective headline?
Please share your tips in the comment section here.
Tags: Blogging, Social Media, strategy, Twitter, WordPress
