Social copywriting

What social copywriting is

Social copywriting is writing the posts and captions that go out from your business accounts: the words, the first line, the note on what the image should show, and the call to action at the end where there is one. Each post is written for one platform, in the length and the register that platform reads in, and delivered in a batch you approve in a single sitting.

It is not a strategy. Deciding which platforms deserve the effort is social content strategy, and it should happen first, because writing posts for an account that ought to be closed is an expensive way to be busy. It is not scheduling either; I write and hand over, and I can load the batch into your scheduler if you would rather.

It is also not LinkedIn posts, which has its own page because it is a different job: a personal account, a recorded interview every month, and one person's opinions rather than a company's announcements.

Who this is for

A business with one or two accounts that matter and nobody with the hours to feed them. The posting is currently done by whoever is least busy on a Thursday, which means it stops whenever the business gets busy, which is exactly when the account most needs to look alive.

The second case is a business whose posts are all the same post: a photograph, a sentence, a row of hashtags. Nothing wrong with any of them and nothing anyone remembers.

You do not need this if your buying conversations happen on LinkedIn from your own account; that is a different service and it is on its own page. You also do not need it if the raw material is thin. An account needs photographs, jobs finished, questions asked, things happening. Where there is none of that, no writing will fill the gap, and the honest first step is getting some pictures taken.

Why it is written per platform

This is the part worth being blunt about. The same post carried across Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn performs badly on all four. The lengths are different, the first line does different work, and the reader arrives in a different frame of mind on each: one is looking at friends, one at pictures, one at work. A caption written for one and pasted into the others reads as leftovers in three places and native in none.

So the batch is written per platform. Where the same event is worth posting in two places, it is written twice, and the two versions are genuinely different, not the same sentence with a hashtag moved. This costs more per month than one caption posted four times, and it is the difference between an account and a feed.

What you get

The batch. Between twelve and twenty posts a month, depending on the platforms and the frequency, delivered as one document. Each post has the full text, the suggested date, a note on the image or video it needs, and the link if there is one. You read the lot in twenty minutes and strike anything you do not like.

The image notes. Written first where the post depends on a picture, so whoever has the phone knows what to photograph before the day arrives. Usually the picture exists already and the note says which one.

A short monthly note. One page: which posts drew comments, saves or messages, which did nothing, and what that suggests for next month. Plain language, using the figures in your own accounts.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A Halifax bakery keeps two accounts that matter: Instagram, where the photographs are, and Facebook, where the regulars and the catering enquiries are. Everything currently goes to both, identically, about twice a week.

The batch becomes sixteen posts a month, ten for Instagram and six for Facebook, written separately. Instagram gets short captions on what is being baked that week, one recurring post naming the farm a single ingredient comes from, and a monthly one on a technique that takes two days. Facebook gets longer posts: the catering menu, the holiday hours, the market stall dates, and the story of a wedding order. Four events in the month are worth posting in both places, so they are written twice in two lengths. The image notes go to the owner on the first of the month, so the photographs are taken during the week rather than staged on a Sunday night. Sixteen posts, one page of notes, one number tracked: catering enquiries that mention a post.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. Which accounts matter, who posts now, what you have in the way of photographs, and what you would never post. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. Posts per platform per month, the revision rounds, and whether I schedule them or hand them over, agreed before the first batch.
3. Inputs. Viewer access to the accounts, your photograph library or a phone folder, and a short monthly note from you on what is happening in the business. Half an hour of your time a month.
4. The first batch. Delivered within seven working days. You approve, strike or change in one sitting.
5. The rhythm. One batch and one note on the same date each month, with the image notes a week ahead of it.

What it costs

Social copywriting is priced in batches, as a fixed monthly figure in CAD agreed after the half-hour call. The price follows the number of platforms and the number of posts, because those are the two things that change the work: adding a second platform costs more than adding four posts to the first one. A one-off batch, for a season or an event, is quoted the same way. The pricing page shows the four ways of working and how quoting runs where there is no published band.

What happens next

After two or three batches it becomes clear which posts bring people to the accounts, and the profiles they land on are usually years out of date, which is bio and profile copy. Businesses that also publish articles tend to want one article turned into a fortnight of posts, which is cheaper per post than writing from nothing. And where the posts that work best turn out to be the owner's own, the next step is writing from the personal account. This is complete work on its own, and nothing further is assumed.