A Script Writer's Guide To Writing A Social Media Story

When writing for social media, you need to be able to adapt your writing style. You have to speak like the people who use your product or service, which means using their language and taking into account their expectations when you’re crafting a story.

While this may not sound like much on the surface, it can be tricky to do well and that’s why so many brands fall flat with their content creation.

How to Write a Video Script for Social Media (4 Simple Steps)

Takeaways
1. Understand the Importance of Storytelling on Social Media
2. Tailor Your Script to the Platform and Audience
3. Craft a Compelling Opening to Hook Your Viewers
4. Keep Your Story Concise and Engaging
5. Incorporate Visual and Emotional Elements for Impact
6. Utilize Calls-to-Action to Drive Engagement
7. Test and Optimize Your Script Based on Performance Data
8. Collaborate with Video Creators and Social Media Experts
9. Stay Updated on Social Media Trends and Best Practices
10. Don’t Forget to Interact and Respond to Audience Feedback

Keep It Short

Your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram stories should be simple and succinct. You want to grab the user’s attention in the very first sentence or two, but don’t go on for too long because people will lose interest if you ramble on for more than a few sentences.

This is where shorter words are your friend: you can use them to make your story more direct, clear, and impactful without sacrificing any of its meaning.

Try not to use more than 10 words per sentence (you know where I’m going with this), unless it’s necessary for some reason (e.g., if there are lots of people talking about different things at once).

Another tip: keep paragraphs short too! It’s best practice in print media as well as online; readers will appreciate being able to scan through your copy quickly and easily so they can find what they’re looking for with ease and hopefully come back next week!

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Make No Mention Of The Brand In The First Line

You can’t just name a brand in the first line and expect people to be interested. You need to establish some context and get them hooked before you introduce your product or service.

For example, “We’re going to make you breakfast tomorrow morning.” is OK because it’s a promise that makes sense in the context it’s implied that this person will cook something for someone else (probably their significant other).

If they said: “We’re going to make you breakfast tomorrow morning,” then we wouldn’t know who was “we” or who was being invited on this breakfast date.

And if they did say: “We’re going to make you breakfast tomorrow morning,” without any context at all, then no one would care about what happens next! For social media stories to work as marketing material.

They need an audience who cares about what happens next and no one cares about something unless there’s some sort of emotional investment involved with it.

Make Your Characters Relatable

Characters are the center of every story. They’re the reason we care about what’s happening, and they give a story depth and complexity that keeps us engaged. Characters can be any age, gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status they could even be animals!

As long as they have thoughts, feelings, and actions throughout your script, it will probably work out just fine.

When writing for social media stories (or any other kind of storytelling), it’s important to remember that not all people are interested in reading scripts with characters who sound like perfect avatars of humanity no one wants their friends on social media acting like perfect avatars of real-life humans!

It’s better if your characters are flawed humans: people who struggle with day-to-day tasks or whose lives aren’t as glamorous as we’d like them to be;

People whose flaws make them more relatable than if they were completely flawless human beings (which don’t exist).

It also helps if these same characters demonstrate traits that make them stand out from the crowd: maybe they have a talent for music or art; maybe they’re really into sports but no one else understands why;

Maybe there’s something about their personality that sets them apart from everyone else around them and makes us feel different too (in a good way!).

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Pay Attention To Tone, Style, And Voice

Let’s start with the tone, which is the writer’s attitude toward the subject. It can be anything from sarcastic to inspirational and everything in between. But whatever it is, it should feel natural coming from you as a human being you know your own voice best!

Next comes style: how you present your ideas not just through words but also through images and other visual elements.

If you’re writing for social media, this will often include photos or videos (from your own Instagram account). Make sure that all of these elements are consistent with each other and fit together seamlessly without feeling forced or jarring for the reader or viewer.

Finally, there’s voice – the way that you sound when speaking or writing about something; whether it’s formal or informal; whether it feels friendly or professional; etcetera! Your voice should reflect who YOU are as a person…in short: What do YOU have going on?

Keep It Real

When you’re writing your story, make sure that the content is authentic and relevant to your audience.

Authenticity is vital for building trust with your followers, so when you use real people in your social media stories it gives them an honest look into what’s happening in the business world.

Incorporate real quotes from real people by using their names or social handles (i.e., @brian_james). For example: “We love working with Jones Media because they always meet our deadlines.”

Use authentic photos of actual employees instead of stock images or generic photos from Google Images people want to see who they’re interacting with!

A quick Google search will show you how easy it is to find these pictures online; if all else fails, ask a colleague if they have any photos they’d be willing to share on Instagram or Twitter.

This can be done through DM (direct message) on either platform–just remember not everyone wants their face out there publicly so make sure you have permission first before posting anything publically-facing like this!

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Don’t Rush It

Here’s the deal. You don’t want to rush your work because if you do, it’ll show in the final product. If you’ve ever been on a deadline and had trouble turning in something on time, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

You’re thinking “I just have to get this done,” but then your writing ends up being too short or awkward or stiff or just plain bad.

Don’t let that happen! Take your time; craft a good story; don’t worry about how long it takes or how much effort it requires just make sure it’s perfect before submitting!

Identify Your Audience

Identifying the audience of your social media story is essential. You need to know what they like and hate, who they like and hate, and what they are talking about. You also need to understand the tone of their posts so that you can match them to your content.

Find out where your audience is:

You can do this by using hashtags on Twitter or looking through Facebook groups for people with similar interests to yours.

Alternatively, find out which websites or blogs are most popular among them and look at those as well as their comments section if available – often this will give valuable insight into what topics are important for them.*

Know who makes up your target group: Once you know where they hang out online (and offline), then it’s time to dig deeper into exactly who these people are by doing some research on each social media platform.

Understand how they talk: This step depends entirely on the platform(s) where you’re planning on sharing your story/content!

Don’t Forget About The Visuals

As you’re writing, don’t forget about the visuals. Your story could be amazing, but if it’s difficult to follow or doesn’t look good, then it’s not going to connect with your audience the way you hoped.

Make sure that each image is relevant to what’s happening in the video and help tell its story by using words that are relevant as well.

Since many people still watch videos on Facebook in their News Feeds rather than on YouTube or another platform, make sure that your images are appropriate for Facebook (no nudity please).

You can also use images from other sources like stock photos or screenshots but make sure they’re relevant too!

Don’t Oversell Or Undersell The Product

This is a tricky area because it’s easy to go too far in either direction. If you don’t show enough enthusiasm for the product or service your client is offering, the audience may feel that you’re not passionate about what they do and they’ll trust your opinion less.

On the other hand, if you’re too enthusiastic about something that isn’t very good (or if something sounds great but isn’t), people will know it and get turned off by your hype.

Here are some things to keep in mind when writing social media copy:

Be specific when describing products or services. Don’t be vague; use concrete terms whenever possible! For example: “This product cleans your teeth better than any toothpaste ever has!” instead of “This product is amazing!”
Avoid salesy language like words like “must-have” or “instant gratification” unless those phrases do apply to what’s being sold in which case use them sparingly!
Use technical terms sparingly as well; remember not everyone knows exactly what a “gazebo” is so avoid using these types of words until necessary (and even then try substituting them with simpler terms).

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Use Irony And Humour If Appropriate

When you’re writing a story, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. Firstly, it should be relatable; if your audience can’t relate to what is happening in the story then they will not be engaged.

The other thing is that it should be interesting; if someone reads the same thing over and over again they will get bored very easily and may even stop reading altogether!

Now when it comes to social media stories this is even more important because users usually only have a small amount of time (less than 3 seconds).

Before they decide whether or not something is worth their attention so if your post doesn’t catch their eye within that timeframe then chances are they won’t see it at all.

This means your content needs to grab their attention immediately and keep them engaged throughout its lifespan on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook etcetera.

Humour can help with this by making someone laugh but this doesn’t necessarily mean using humor just for laughter’s sake.

There has been researching done that shows that humor helps improve moods for people who read funny posts compared with those who read non-humorous ones!

So don’t feel guilty about including some lighthearted quips into your posts because chances are that others will enjoy them too 🙂

Build Up A Mystery

One of the most effective ways to build suspense is by using a cliffhanger. (This works if you’re telling the story, or it can be implied.) “And then…and then…and then…” implies that there was a big event in between each sentence, but that you’re not revealing what happened yet.

Another way to build suspense is by creating a twist at the end of your story. This may take some planning ahead of time since you need to build up the story so that people will be surprised and intrigued by your ending twist!

A reversal is another type of surprise ending where things are not as they seem or expected them to be — for example: “I thought he was nice/nicely dressed/of age…but he turned out to be mean/poorly dressed/much younger than I thought!”.

You could even use this technique if someone has been saying something negative about another person throughout their whole speech–just reverse it at the end!

Craft A Killer Opening Line

The beginning of your story is what catches people’s attention, so make sure it’s good. The best openings are either questions or statements or both!

For example: “What if the police officer who shot Philando Castile was a woman? Would she still be acquitted by a jury?” Or: “This is what happens when you’re black and try to use your cellphone in Starbucks…”

You can also start with a fact, like this one: “In 2015, there were no African-American directors nominated for an Oscar.”

Or how about starting with a quote from someone important? Like this one: “The racial disparity between black and white inmates has grown by more than fifty percent since 2000.”

Don’t Make It About The Brand

You might think that a good way to get people interested in your story is by making it about the brand. But if you’re going to do that, you need to be careful.

You want to avoid over-selling or under-selling your product. If the script is too heavy on salesy language and doesn’t bring up any mystery or intrigue, then no one will care.

And if they don’t care, then they won’t share it on social media! So make sure there’s enough substance (and not too much) so that readers are compelled to pass along this cool thing they just read.

Now let’s talk about who should be targeted with this type of content: mostly millennials aged 18–34 years old who have an interest in fashion, beauty, and lifestyle products (#GenZ).

These people spend a lot of time online; they’re active on Instagram and Snapchat; their favorite places are coffee shops like Starbucks & Instagram HQ in San Francisco where everything looks pretty nice!

If you can write dialogue for these kinds of characters someone who would talk about their latest faves from Sephora then chances are high that your script will end up being shared by lots of other young adults both locally and globally!

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Trigger Strong Emotions Without Being Manipulative Or Exploitative

You’re probably thinking that this is a no-brainer, and you’re right. But sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the story and forget that your goal isn’t just to make people feel something it’s also to use those feelings to bring about meaningful change.

So let’s talk about how not to do it:

Don’t use emotion for manipulation or exploitation. Your purpose here is not just to tug at people’s heartstrings; it’s also got an ulterior motive of getting them invested in what you’re selling.

If you’re using emotional manipulation instead of genuine empathy for others, then you’re missing out on a chance for a real connection with these customers/readers/viewers/etc.

And if there isn’t genuine empathy involved, then any connection attempt will be shallow and shallowly motivated by self-interest.

Which can only lead down a dark road filled with cynicism and despair when they realize they’ve been had by someone willing enough (and greedy enough)

Know How Customers Talk About Your Product/Service On Social Media

Before you begin writing, it’s key to know how customers talk about your product/service on social media. This includes knowing:

The language they use
The tone of voice they’re likely to use (casual or formal)
Their interests and what type of content they’ll be sharing

To get this information, take advantage of social listening tools such as Google Alerts. Set up alerts for specific terms related to your brand so that you can keep track of any mentions online.

Use this data to inform stories that are relevant to your audience and help them learn more about what makes you unique as a business.

Conclusion

We hope this guide was able to help you understand how you can use stories to make your brand more relatable and engaging.

The most important thing we want you to take away from reading this is that there’s no “right” way to do it there are only ways that work for your brand, audience, and purpose. So go ahead and get started!

FAQs

What are the essential elements of a well-written script?

A well-written script typically includes a clear and engaging plot, well-developed characters, compelling dialogue, and a proper structure that keeps the audience hooked from beginning to end.

How can I improve the pacing of my script?

To improve pacing, consider tightening the dialogue, focusing on key story events, and strategically using transitions to maintain momentum and keep the audience engaged.

What are some common mistakes to avoid when writing a script?

Common mistakes include excessive exposition, lack of conflict or stakes, inconsistent character motivations, and overcomplicating the plot. Avoiding these pitfalls can lead to a more compelling script.

How can I make my dialogue sound natural and authentic?

To make dialogue sound natural, pay attention to how people speak in real life, use contractions, and give each character a distinct voice and speech pattern that aligns with their personality.

What are some effective techniques for creating memorable characters?

Developing memorable characters involves giving them unique traits, goals, and flaws. Additionally, exploring their motivations and ensuring they undergo significant growth throughout the story can make them more impactful.

Costantine Edward

Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.

A Script Writer’s Guide To Writing A Social Media Story