Look at your ad goals and your current financial situation, which can help you to determine your ad spend. Don’t spend too much – starting out small helps you to control your finances, and when you’ve got all the elements right, you may find that a small budget can bring you great results and a big return on your investment. 

Don’t underestimate the power of targeting – knowing who your target audience are is crucial for ensuring your ads are delivered to the right people. If you target your ads wrong you could end up wasting money and time on an Ad that doesn’t perform, so get a good idea of who it is you want interacting with your business and clicking on the links you have included within your ads.  

 

You want to consider such things as: 

 

• Where your audience are located – if you have a physical location, you may only be looking for people who live around the area your business is in. If you offer an online course, or sell online, you may choose to target multiple cities, the entire country or a global audience. 

 

• Their age – knowing how old your audience are will allow you to tailor other elements of your campaign such as your copy and graphics. Facebook typically lets you target users from the ages of 18 – 65+. 

 

• Their gender – Whether your business is created for everyone or you create products or courses specifically for women or men, you can use this to design your ad creative and target the correct people. 

 

• Their interests – What does you audience like? What personality traits do they possess? For example, if you run a sports company, you can target people who are interested in fitness or a specific sport. This can help to narrow your audience to those most likely to show interest in your ad. 

Next, you want to consider creating your visual elements. These must convey the message of your ad, stand out from the crowd and help to capture the attention of those scrolling through their feed. Your ad must be branded so it can be easily recognisable alongside your business – helping with building brand recognition too – using your logo, colours, fonts and tone of voice in your visual elements to create a cohesive campaign. You can use an image in a single or carousel format, or if you’d rather, use a video to help convey the message of your campaign – however, keeping these videos short, sweet and to-the-point can be much more powerful at retaining interest from your audience than a longer video. A/B testing can be helpful too – creating different variations of you visuals or using a video, single image and carousel and testing them to see which works better can help to shape your future campaigns. 

Now, you need to think about writing your copy. Your copy must be compelling, answers the pain points and wants of your audience by providing value to them, and encourage them to take the next steps via your call to action. Be direct with your messaging, get to the point and don’t make it too long – like your visuals, your copy must grab the audience’s attention straight away.  

 

Ensure it’s written in your brand voice, and works with the visual elements you’ve created. You can also decide to A/B test your copy, using different styles, lengths and messaging to see what your audience best responds to. 

Once you get these basic things set into place, you can begin to consider such things ad formats, placements, and reviewing each element of your campaign. If you’re creating ads, then these four things are key to know and get right before you begin running your campaigns. 

 

Each platform needs different approaches to copywriting – as mentioned, on LinkedIn you need to more professional, Facebook and Instagram are platforms you can explore storytelling and emotion, whereas X and TikTok are platforms that are to the point and less formal. Before you start writing copy, consider what platform it’s for and who it’s for – this’ll help you figure out a structure and tone of voice that can then be replicated in your future campaigns. 

Make sure your copywriting sounds like it’s coming from a human, not a brand. Corporate language isn’t enticing to your average audience member – authenticity is. If they feel like there’s a belief and passion behind the business, then making a connection with that business will be easier. Be relatable and ensure your brand voice remains consistent – reflecting your brand identity. Even if you’re aiming more for B2B marketing, you can still add a little personality into your posts whilst maintaining a professional image. 

 

Your message has to be clear and obvious – each point has to mean something to an audience member, and being passive or using too much padding can lose their interest. Active words and phrases are best, especially if you’re writing copy for ads. 

Your call to action is important – but what does it ask the audience to do? You have to think of this before your put a post out. Make it clear to the audience what you want them to do next – is it to click a link, engage with the post in some way, watch a video? You don’t have to sell constantly with your posts – mixing things up and simply having posts that drive engagement in between sales posts can be helpful for building awareness and trust in your brand. 

Writing copy that makes your audience want to engage means that you’re speaking to your audience and not at them. When this brings in comments, reply and join in with conversations that your audience are already having. Building a relationship with members of your audience helps to turn them into returning and loyal followers and customers, so when someone leaves a comment, acknowledge it and get involved. 

Emotion can be the key to powerful copy – whether it’s making people curious, happy, tugging at the heartstrings or making them nostalgic, evoking a feeling that aligns with your brands message but doesn’t over-load your audience member is important. Pairing information with an emotional aspect can help to drive conversions – you’re offering a solution to a problem that your audience member has, so show AND tell them how your product or service will solve this problem. Remember, it’s about adding value to the life of your audience member from the moment they read your post to the moment they receive and use the product or service that you have to sell them. 

Social media is filled with distractions, but it also provides opportunities when you fully understand how to use it to your advantage. Demanding attention in a crowded space isn’t always easy, but great copy is one step towards drawing people in and getting them to engage and buy from your business. 

 

Facebook is still the third most visited website behind Google and YouTube, and has over 3 billion active users. Sprout Social research found that 60% of people use Facebook for product discovery – meaning it’s incredibly important you get your copy right if you’re using Facebook for your marketing efforts. Facebook has a character limit of just over 63,000, so there’s a lot of room for you to get your message across. Despite this, people aren’t coming onto Facebook to read long blogs or sales pitches – you have to grab their attention quickly – keeping in mind the KISS model (Keep It Short and Simple) when it comes to writing your copy. In fact, Buffer’s research recommends that using 80 or less characters give’s posts a 66% higher engagement rate. Anytime you post a link or a picture, use a short, persuasive and catchy piece of copy alongside it. 

X (or Twitter) is a little more complicated – whilst premium accounts have 10,000 characters to work with, non-premium accounts have 280 characters to work with – which isn’t a lot of room if you have a lot to say. With around 240 characters being the recommended amount, you should make sure your points are concise enough to fit, but also detailed enough to get your point across. Tweets with hashtags get 2x more engagement, but using more than 3 hashtags a post can see a drop in engagement. You can also create your own hashtag relevant to your business which helps people find your products and services. 

When creating copy on LinkedIn, you need to approach it a little differently to how you approach your other social media platforms. On Facebook, Instagram and X, you’re talking to consumers – on LinkedIn, you’re talking to other businesses, so you’ll have to change up your language and marketing plans too. Whilst you can use LinkedIn to push simple posts or job offers onto your connections’ timelines, it’s also a great place to repurpose your blogs and get them out in front of other industry leaders – showing your expertise and building trust in you and your business. You can upload these as articles – picking a catchy title, writing or pasting in your content and using an attention-grabbing picture. 

Copywriting forms a big part of your social media marketing efforts, and understanding the different methods and styles to use on different platforms can help you form your plans for each site more effectively. By tailoring your approach, you and your team will have a clearer idea of how to approach your social media sites, and improve your engagement.