Why copywriters can succeed in social media

Admittedly, I’m biased. I am a copywriter, and I’m also a social media strategist. Meaning, I still copywrite, and I now come up with strategies for social media.

I realize that I’m the guy who argued that Social Media is a tool, and not really a branch of marketing. Now I’m about to argue that I can succeed in a branch of marketing.

Right now, social media is a tool, but a widely misunderstood tool. Until people understand it better (both the kinds of tools and the metrics), this tool or branch will be in the hands of anyone in the agency world with a Twitter account and a Facebook page.

Fact is, when I stand up in front of people in my agency and tell them all about sharing, they often whisper that they are far behind. (As another copywriter turned social media manager says, you’re not.). But agency’s will catch up. And client will turn to the agency to help them. And the agency can turn to the copywriter.

Why the copywriter? Why not someone from PR? Or the media department? After all, it’s called social media, so why shouldn’t the media department head it up?

The answer is, they all can play in the sandbox. The media people can help with results that inevitably have to be placed on an Excel File of some sort. The PR people can help plan the campaign. And the copywriter can create the content.

Because it it’s core, a social media campaign is about content. Call it a story, call it an idea, it doesn’t matter. The thing is, it has to be written. And it has to be written in a way that most people write online. In less than complete sentences. With grammar that wouldn’t pass the muster in other places. In a lot of ways, people are using social media to talk in the manner they talk offline. Using incomplete sentences. Without upper/lower case. The occasional typo thrown in because the conversation is more important than the details of the typos.

If a social media campaign is all about content, then your friendly neighborhood copywriter could be the person to provide. They probably already have a blog.