Successful social media is a big call to action. It’s finding the cleverest way to say, “Click here” and to get as many people as possible to echo that. This means writers have a real chance to make a mark on social media campaigns.
Obviously, what your content says and how it says it have a significant influence on whether people pass it on or not. And in one particular case in my experience, it made the difference between rousing success and ho-hum response for two very similar applications.
Two years ago I helped create a holiday letter generator on Facebook for a client. It was one of few occasions on which I was told my writing wasn’t “out there” enough and I really got to let loose.
The app was also branded up and down. Not only did it include a “Brought to you by” message, users also got the chance to add more content if they included a reference to the featured product. And most noteworthy: the app’s description focused more on the product than the app itself.
To a user, the spirit of the campaign seemed to be “this product/brand is so cool that it’s going to let you write a letter, so tell your friends how cool this product is.” The app went live a few weeks before the holidays and spread more like molasses than wildfire.
This holiday season, I came across Plaid’s Merry Newsinator, an app enjoying seemingly impressive success in the social sphere. (It can still be found on my Facebook wall, along with the newsletters created by many of my friends using the same site.) The funny thing is that the means and the end are very similar to those of the campaign I worked on 24 months earlier. So what was different?
The advantage for the Merry Newsinator is that it’s presented as a fun app that was created by Plaid just for fun. The fact that Plaid exists is acknowledged, but secondary.
Lesson for writers? Focus on the benefit to the user as you call them to action. As a friend, I’d rather share fun than a product…and as a writer, I’d rather whisper the name of a product in your ear while you’re having fun.
-Nate Rogers