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Social Media Marketing for Business

Janice Kersh

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August 29, 2016

How To Use Psychological Triggers When Writing For Social Media

August 29, 2016 | By | 4 Comments">4 Comments

You can post on social media all day long using images, calls to action, and the right hashtags without ever getting the engagement you had hoped for. The missing ingredient in your social media strategy is leveraging psychological triggers. This is how you can get followers to start engaging right away.

EMOTIONS TRIGGER SOCIAL SHARES

One of the largest social media studies ever took a deep look into the psychology behind social sharing. What they found, in a nutshell, is that emotional posts are the most likely to generate shares – especially happy posts. So, if shares are part of your goal, post about emotional topics – the happier, the better.Untitled [free stock photo from Pexels]

SPELL OUT WHY A READER SHOULD ENGAGE

Using the word “because” is one of the most powerful words in sales. It works beautifully in social media as well. You can trigger a reader to engage with a social media post by illustrating the value to them with your words. Don’t just come out and say, “share this post because your friends will want to see it.” Instead, be subtler, sending the same message with clever wordcraft.

There are many giveaways on Facebook everyday. But, this one has over 17K shares. Notice how the value of the giveaway is cleverly illustrated in the description – this viral post was created was no stroke of luck. The original poster understood the importance of including a value statement, “5 members of our team would install it in your house if you win.”

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MAKE EVERYTHING EASY

The easier it is to accomplish your call to action, the more likely social media followers are to abide. So, when you want someone to subscribe to your newsletter, don’t just tell them, “go over to our website to subscribe.” Instead, include a link to your signup form. When you want readers to comment, ask a question instead of expecting them to guess.

Social media followers – and everyone else on the web, really – want everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. So, it’s your job to do so. You want to make everything as easy as possible for anyone who stumbles upon your post by including the necessary information.

INCLUDE IMAGES OR VIDEO WITH ALL OF YOUR POSTS

Color increases a reader’s attention span and absorption by 82%. Additionally, visual content will increase the amount of people who see your message by 94%. This makes social media traffic more likely to engage. When sharing on social media, always include an image or video that the reader can associate with the information you’re presenting. Imagery is one psychological trigger you never want to go without.

CONCLUSION

Creating social media posts can be a waste of time… but, only if you don’t know what you’re doing. Now that you know these psychological triggers, you can start to integrate them into your upcoming social media campaigns. So, go write your next SMM plan today, and come back to tell us how it goes.

Janice Kersh is a content marketing and social media enthusiast at EssayWriter.Pro. In her free time, she loves traveling, reading and eating sunflower seeds.