Make Your Social Posts More Emotional

Even if you’re creating high-value content that you know your audience will love…

If you can’t get eyeballs on your posts, all of that hard work and effort will be wasted. 

Content marketing director Wade Harman puts it best here,

”Throw out the idea that all you should be doing is saying ‘Check This Out’ in your social media updates, throwing your link up, and hoping for the best.

That’s not a social strategy.

You must learn to provide ignition for your content. If content is fire, and social media is the gasoline, as Jay says, make sure you’re throwing the gas in the right direction.”

So how exactly do you invoke more emotion in your audience?

Follow these five quick tips to add an emotional punch to your next social media post:

1) Find Your Audiences Pain Points

Once you narrow down your ideal audience, it’s fairly easy to determine what these people care deeply about. 

That’s why avatar creation is such an important step in online marketing. 

Think of it this way – no one cares about your products and services.

What they care about is finding a solution to their problem.

If you can shine a light on that problem with your content, and then offer a solution, your prospects will buy from you.

You can discover your audience’s pain points in a variety of ways. 

Surveys, forums, reviews, and keyword research are all great ways of “listening” in on your audience’s problems. 

Maybe your audience is lacking resources, support, skills, or money. 

They may be frustrated, sad, scared, desperate, angry, or hopeless.

Once you identify these painful emotions, think of your content in terms of how it can solve these specific problems.

2) Start With Positive Content  

Statistically, funny, positive, and inspirational performs better than most other types of content. 

Even if you want to address your audience’s negative emotions, it’s usually best to do this by offering a hopeful, positive solution. 

Here’s a great example of an inspiring social media post from Tom Bilyeu to the left (source Instagram):

Tom knows his audience has moments of great discouragement where they question their worth, and he gains their loyalty by acknowledging that pain and offering hope. 

3) Fear Is The Least Likely To Be Ignored

While hope and positivity are valuable emotions to invoke in your audience, we would be doing you an injustice if we ignored one of the most driving forces behind marketing…

Fear.

The good news is, you don’t have to manipulate, exaggerate, or be unethical to use fear in your social media content. 

To ethically use the emotion of fear in your posts, simply ask yourself, “What will my audience miss out on if they don’t read this article?”

People are truly afraid of losing out, and if you acknowledge these fears and then offer a real solution you can get eyes on your content and still sleep soundly at night. 

4) Share Things That Are Surprising

People love to be shocked and surprised by the content they come across. 

For example, check out this headline from life coach, Tim Brownson: 

How I’m Going To Lose All My Customers And Wreck My Business 

The emotion invoked here is shock, and intense curiosity, which leads to…

Clicks, shares, and high engagement.

Take a look at these other crazy headlines, and give the surprise factor a try in your social content.

5) Controversy Can Work – But Use It Carefully

When you pick a controversial topic, it’s likely to generate a lot of buzz, views, and engagement.

But it’s important for you to understand that some of this dialogue will be negative. 

Because of this, make sure you pick topics where you believe the benefits will outweigh the backlash.

Controversial topics like politics, body image, or immigration will mean something different depending on who your audience is. 

Try to pick a topic you feel your audience is passionate about, but that they often feel they have to debate heavily with others. 

And at the end of the day, even if the topic is controversial, try to use the engagement to provoke a respectful dialogue. 

Neil Patel says, “A select few (posts) quickly go viral across the social media networks.  The underlying reason is because they instigate the reader to feel a particular emotion strongly. Maybe it’s making your target audience jubilant. Maybe it makes them sad or even angry. Whatever it is, it’s what you want for your media marketing.

The bottom line is that people share your content on their social media accounts only if it strikes a chord with them and their decisions are emotional(not rational).”

In closing, if you want people to love your content, you have to make them feel something powerful. Master this, and you will be well on your way to a fruitful business. 

If you need help creating an emotionally charged social media campaign, contact Littlejohn’s Web Shop today.