You Can Quote Me On That
Quotes are great for social media content.They're concise, attention grabbing (when formatted with a picture or made into a graphic with a tool like Canva) and shareable. A well-timed quote can get you lots of shares, so it pays to have a few up your sleeve that you can deploy as a reaction to a topical event, a seasonal holiday or something significant within your industry. It's important to verify the quotes you're using as some have been misattributed through the years but this takes less than 5 minutes of internet searching to do.
Interestingly, misattributed quotes and ones where you deliberately assign a quote to someone who would never have said that can also work as well as true ones in terms of publicity. Abraham Lincoln is one of the most widely misquoted people on social media, but intentionally so.Some of the viral Lincoln quotes we've seen include “Don't believe everything you read on the internet” and variations on that theme. These work because there's no way Lincoln could have said that, but it uses humour to convey that message.
Finding source material for quotes is easy; you'll probably see some good ones on your own social media feeds. There are collections of historical quotes available in books, and many can be found online too, as well as proof that the quote has been properly attributed. You may also use quotes from your staff or customers if there's something witty or incisive in a testimonial or in a staff meeting.
Quotes work well on social media because they don't require much input from the viewer; there's no need to sit through half a minute of video content, no issue with autoplaying sounds, and they're easily digestible. Quotes can also quickly evoke an emotional response which can be great for marketing certain products and services, or just for arousing a particular response to your brand. Sometimes the quotes you use won't be solely intended to incite a sale, but they might be part of a broader branding strategy.
As part of a reputation building or branding/outreach strategy quotes don't have to be specifically related to your business or industry. If you're trying to foster a reputation for being helpful, post some helpful quotes that relate to something current, such as the weather, covid rates or any other hot topic.If you're trying to appeal to a younger crowd, post quotes which are a young or funny take on a current event. To create a sense of authority around your company, post quotes from your team which relate to current affairs and which are insightful and positive.
Quotes made into a graphic, either by using a striking font, or overlaying on an inspirational or relevant image, perform well on any social media platform because images grab people more than text. Facebook does have the option to use one of their backgrounds to make a text post more eye catching, but for a business page this can look a little low-effort. There are lots of free tools like Canva that allow you to make an attention grabbing quote image without any specialist software or experience.
Using quotes as social media content can also help drive traffic to your website, encouraging customers to consume more of your content. Taking quotes from blog articles, white papers and case studies can help promote this content and direct users to your website from your social channels. When taking quotes from content you have created, don't be afraid to abridge a quote or update the source content to create a more attention grabbing quote.
In short, quotes make great social media content and they're can serve a range of purposes for any business.
