Step 1
Find the supply
What your business already produces that is worth cutting from. Usually more than anyone thinks, and almost never being used.
Articles and written content · Social and short-form copy · Sydney
Social and short-form copy
The hardest part of social copy is not writing it. It is having something to say every week for a year, which is a supply problem rather than a writing one, and it is solved upstream.
Grab the snowball. Give it a spin, and watch it grow as you scroll. Just like your feed.
1long piece behind the month
12posts cut from it
First linewhere the whole post is decided
Linked hometo a page that proves the claim
The short answer
What is social copywriting, and why does it run dry?
Social copywriting is writing the captions, hooks and short posts that carry a brand on LinkedIn, Instagram and the rest. The writing is quick. Sustaining it is not, and almost every social programme that stops does so because it ran out of things to say rather than out of budget.
The programmes that last do not invent posts weekly. They cut them from something substantial that already exists: an article, a webinar, an interview, a piece of data. One good source produces a month, and the source was going to be made anyway.
So we write social copy downstream of your other work rather than beside it, and every post links home to a page that proves the claim. It sits inside our wider content writing service, and because our Snowball SEO platform automates the search heavy lifting other agencies bill by the hour, more of your budget goes into the work worth cutting from.
The difference
How much of a post is decided by the first line?
Nearly all of it. Every platform truncates, and the visible portion before somebody taps to expand is the entire audition.
What makes an opening work
- A specific claim rather than a topic announcement
- A number, a name or a result in the first six words
- Something the reader disagrees with, or did not know
- No throat-clearing: no today I want to talk about
What kills a post before it starts
- Announcing what the post is about instead of saying it
- Beginning with the company rather than the reader
- A hook that the post then fails to pay off, which costs trust
- Writing for the algorithm in a way an actual person can hear
On what to publish and in what order rather than how to word it, our guide to short form strategy and LinkedIn strategy cover it properly.
The cost
What drives the price of social copy?
Volume, and whether there is source material to cut from. Writing twelve posts from an article is a different job from inventing twelve posts about nothing in particular.
Cut from your content
Per source
A month of posts derived from one substantial thing you already published. The cheapest per post by a distance and the most sustainable.
An ongoing programme
Monthly
A steady cadence across your channels, written from a rolling supply of sources rather than from a weekly scramble.
Launch or campaign
Fixed run
A concentrated set for a launch, where the posts have to work together and build rather than each stand alone.
We quote per source or per month after a free consult and a look at what you already publish. See building a following for the wider argument.
What moves the number, in order
- Whether source material exists, or the substance has to be created first
- How many platforms, since a post is not portable between them without work
- Volume per month, which is the obvious lever and not the biggest one
- Whether a named person's voice has to be matched
- Approval layers, which slow social copy more than any other kind
- Whether we are also writing the pages the posts link to
The supply problem is the only real problem
Any competent writer can produce twelve posts. The question is what those posts are about in month seven, when the obvious things have all been said and the person with the interesting opinions has stopped replying.
Programmes survive that by being downstream of work that happens anyway: the articles, the client work, the talks, the data. A social programme with no upstream supply is a treadmill that always stops.
So the first thing we look at is what your business already produces, and if the honest answer is nothing publishable, we will say the problem is upstream of social copy and not solvable by buying more of it.
The scope
What you receive
Written per platform rather than written once and pasted three times.
Posts, per platform
Written to the length, tone and truncation point each platform actually has, rather than one caption reused everywhere.
Hook alternatives
Two or three openings for the posts worth testing, because the first line is where almost all the performance lives.
A source map
Which post came from which piece of your work, so nothing is repeated by accident and the archive is visible.
Links and tracking
Every post pointing at a page that proves the claim, tagged so you can see what the feed actually sent.
A voice note
The rules for how this brand or person sounds, written down, so a change of writer does not change the voice.
A first-comment plan
Where links and hashtags go per platform, which affects reach more than most of what gets debated.
The return
Where should social copy send people?
Home, to a page that proves the claim. A feed with no destination builds an audience on land you do not own, and the platform can change the rent whenever it likes.
Build on land you own
Followers are rented. The audience you own is the one that has been to your site, joined your list or spoken to you. Every post should be trying to move somebody one step in that direction.
That does not mean every post is a link. It means the programme has a destination and a way of knowing whether anyone arrived, rather than optimising for a number the platform chose to show you.
It is the same argument as our short form strategy work: cut from the site, link home.
The process
How social copy gets written
A fortnight to the first batch, then a monthly rhythm tied to your other work.
Step 2
The voice note
How this brand or person sounds, written down once, so the fifth month sounds like the first.
Step 3
Cut the batch
A month of posts from the sources, each one claim, each pointing at a page that proves it.
Step 4
Hooks and alternatives
Two or three openings on the posts worth testing, since the first line carries the performance.
Step 5
One approval pass
Consolidated, because social copy dies in sequential approval more reliably than any other kind.
Step 6
Publish and read back
What performed feeds the next batch, and the sources that worked tell you what to make more of upstream.
The brief
What to ask before you buy social copy
Social is the easiest content to buy by volume and the easiest to waste, because output is visible and effect is not.
Where will the posts come from in month seven?
If the answer is a monthly brainstorm, the programme has a shelf life. Ask what upstream work the posts are cut from.
Are these written per platform?
One caption pasted across three platforms is obvious on at least two of them. Ask to see the same idea written three ways.
What does each post link to?
A page that proves the claim. A feed with no destination is building an audience you do not own and cannot contact.
Who approves, and how fast?
Social copy dies in approval queues. One consolidated pass with a named owner is the difference between a programme and an archive of drafts.
We are happy to answer all four and to look at what you already publish. See building a following for the strategy side.
Start here
Ready to stop inventing posts?
Tell us what your business already produces and where you post. The free consult is a working session, not a sales call, and you leave with three things whether or not you book us.
- A source map: what you already have that is worth a month of posts
- Three openings written from it, so you can judge the voice
- A fixed price per source or per month, with the platforms named
Good questions
Social copywriting FAQs
What is social copywriting?
It is writing the captions, hooks and short posts that carry a brand on LinkedIn, Instagram and the rest. The writing is the quick part. Sustaining it is the hard part, and the programmes that last are cut from substantial work that already exists rather than invented weekly.
How much does social copywriting cost?
We quote per source or per month rather than per post. What moves it is whether source material exists to cut from, how many platforms, whether a named person's voice has to be matched, and how many approval layers the copy has to pass through.
How many posts should we publish?
A cadence you can hold through a busy quarter beats a heavier one that stops in March. Consistency compounds and gaps reset it, so the right number is the one that survives your worst month.
Do you write the same post for every platform?
No. Length, tone, truncation point and where links belong all differ, and a caption pasted across three platforms is obvious on at least two of them. The idea is shared; the writing is not.
Why does the first line matter so much?
Because on most feeds it is all that is visible before a reader decides whether to expand. The opening is not an introduction to the post, it is effectively the whole post for most of the audience.
What should posts link to?
A page on your own site that proves the claim. Followers are rented from the platform; the audience you own is the one that has visited, subscribed or spoken to you, and every post should move somebody a step in that direction.
Can you match our founder's voice?
Yes, and we write a voice note describing how they sound so it survives a change of writer. It works best when the founder is genuinely involved, because a manufactured voice is detectable and costs more trust than it earns.
What if we have nothing to post about?
Then the problem is upstream and buying more social copy will not fix it. We will say so. Usually the material exists in client work, talks or data nobody thought to publish, and finding it is the first job.