January 23, 2012

How To Create Mouth-Watering Small Business Status Updates

It’s one thing to use straight forward, matter-of-fact status updates to talk about your daily lunch special or a new product. It’s another when every word you choose drips (like the cheddar and horseradish sauce pictured above) with excitement over what you’re selling (or sharing).

The folks at Joe’s Doghouse, a hotdog cart located on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University, could have just posted “Cheeseburger with horseradish sauce and fried onions” and called it a day. But they didn’t.

By including a photo of the burger, they immediately bring their sandwich to life. Words are great (and we’ll talk more about their description later), but they can only take you so far. Joe’s image packs a one-two Pavlovian punch—bound to make any foodie’s mouth water in eager anticipation. But hotdog carts and restaurants aren’t the only ones who can benefit from adding photos to their Facebook status updates.

People are visual. If you are talking about a handbag, show a picture of the handbag. If you’re having a plant sale, show a picture of the plants. You don’t need a photo in every post but you should always be on the lookout for opportunities to add visual interest to your status updates.

Now back to the description. Joe’s includes specifics about their ingredients, helping it stand out from other burgers you might find elsewhere: sirloin steak, cheddar cheese, horseradish sauce, and fried onions. They also do a great job of using wording that paints a mental picture of what they’re selling, using each word to reinforce what you see in the picture: “piled high” “crispy” and “drip-down-your-chin juiciness.”

If you’re going to be seen on Facebook, you have to make every status update count. You must provide content that gets your followers to react—to like, comment on, and/or share your posts with others. For that to happen, your words and images should ooze with excitement for whatever it is you’re selling just like Joe’s Boston Burger oozes with melted cheddar and slathered horseradish sauce.

How are you using your status updates to make your customers’ mouths water? Leave a comment below.

By: Shawn Graham

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Categories: Customer Engagement, Marketing Strategy, Social Media Marketing