Want to write amazing social copy for your video but not sure what to say? We’ve got you. Strong copy on social media can get your video in front of more eyeballs, drive more traffic, and boost your account’s overall engagement. Formulating the perfect caption can take a bit of time, but the payoff is totally worth it. Here are the four key best practices for social copy success:

1. Hook the viewer with a scroll-stopping first line

Your first job when writing social media copy is to actually get people to stop and look. Halt their scroll with a fun fact or catchy phrase to get maximum eyes on your video. If you’re uploading a video about a new product, let people know you’ve got an exciting announcement. Sharing an office tour or an unboxing? Tell them right away that you’re about to hit them with something exciting, and watch that increased engagement stack up.

2. Use emojis ✨ (when appropriate!)

Emojis are useful for two reasons. One, they’re eye-catching — since social media copy is written in black type, a colorful emoji will make viewers pause and read your caption. Two, since everyone reads text differently, including an emoji in your copy can help viewers universally understand your tone. If your copy feels unnecessarily formal or technical at first glance, an emoji can be a helpful quick fix to boost your readability and align your post’s mood. (Just be careful not to overuse them!)

3. Keep it short and sweet.

Keeping your social copy short assures that it doesn’t get hidden by the social platform — there’s nothing more annoying than having to click ‘see more’ to read an extra-long caption. Besides, short, succinct captions are more likely to be read than long, intimidating ones. No one wants to read a novel on social media, there are too many cute animals to look at!

Want some hard social media copy length guidelines? 

  • Keep your Facebook posts under 80 characters, if you can — keeping social media copy short and sweet has been shown to boost engagement over 80% as compared to longer posts. 
  • For Instagram, keep it at 125 or below. This’ll prevent the dreaded ellipsis and will guarantee all your messaging stays front and center. Similarly, LinkedIn posts read best at just shy of 210 characters. 
  • Twitter allows you a whopping 280 characters, but don’t forget to keep an editing eye out for superfluous language — just because you have all that space doesn’t mean you have to use it! 

4. Tag your collaborators

Tagging your collaborators is not only the gracious thing to do, but it also boosts the visibility of your video. If the folks tagged share the video on their own profiles, your video has a better chance of getting way more views and a much higher reach than it otherwise would. Don’t forget: the more people who share your video, the more likely it is to go viral (or just get a lot of views).

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