A Social Media Strategy That Woos Readers

Every great writer understands the critical importance of a great “hook”; it’s one of the first things we learn in cultivating our craft. However, that principle translates differently when developing our social media platforms. It’s not just the opening sentence that woos our readers to engage with our content, but it’s also our image. 

According to research, people only remember 10% of what they hear, 20% of what they read, and 80% of what they see. That’s because 90% of the information sent to the brain is visual, and images are processed 600,000 times faster than text. Now take into consideration the eight-second attention span of the average consumer, and you’ll understand why we writers need to be strategic with our social media efforts.

There are three main parts to content creation for a social media post. We have our sticky statement, Bible verse, or quote that goes on the image; the caption that goes below the image; and the image itself, which should be relevant to our content.

When creating our social posts, it is advantageous to organize our workflow by grouping similar tasks together, maximizing our time and creativity. My rule of thumb in prioritizing the batching process is to let God’s Word be my anchor for the social media post. So if my goal is to create seven social media posts in one day, my process would look something like this: 

1. Write down seven verses or sticky statements that I will overlay on my images.
   
   
2. Write content for the caption below the image. 
   
   
3. Select photos for all seven posts. You can create images from scratch using a drawing app like Procreate or Photoshop or download free images from an online stock photography site like Unsplash or Pixabay. I would also recommend cultivating an image library with every image you use before overlaying text, so you can save time by recycling images for future posts.
   
   
4. Once you’ve chosen the image you want to use, upload it to an app like Canva or Adobe Express (formerly Adobe Spark) and overlay the text.
   
   
5. Lastly, schedule your posts to your desired platform. If you’re just getting started, I recommend using Facebook Creator Studio because it will allow you to schedule posts to your Facebook page and Instagram simultaneously.

Our brains love visual content and can process visual clues in one-fourth of a second, which explains why social media posts with relevant images get 94% more views. Taking time to find images that are pleasing to the eye and adding a powerful statement or verse inspires readers to read and engage with the words we share in the caption while making our posts more relatable and memorable.

Incorporating the suggestions above into your social media strategy will woo your audience and convert followers into fans — a game changer in growing your social media platform.

Blessings,
Kelly Kirby Worley

Consider how much time you spend creating content for your social media accounts, and answer this question: What can I implement from the strategy above to work smarter, not harder?