Eyes Wide Open

In preparation for releasing my long-form writing piece about the affects of domestication on dogs, I’ve been tasked with drafting attention-catching social media promotions.

I’ve found myself in an unexpected stump. My goal with this writing piece is to reach my people– the dog community. But the findings- that humans evolved dogs for their own enjoyment without consideration for the animals- are probably going to upset the reader. How do I get their attention about a topic they probably don’t want to hear about?

Dog. Cute dogs.

Call me a con artist but the only way I feel that I can catch the attention of my intended audience is to lure them in with this generations kryptonite– a Golden Doodle.

Instagram

Since Instagram is a picture-heavy platform, I wanted to include the hook in the picture rather than the caption.

My audience is more general for this post. Dog owners or just general dog lovers will hopefully stop scrolling for the picture and stay for the intriguing question that they suddenly need the answer to.

LinkedIn

I felt more comfortable providing a more accurate caption on LinkedIn because I believe that someone scrolling this platform is much more willing to learn, read, and even just pay attention. LinkedIn isn’t necessarily an application that someone uses to mindlessly scroll. My guess is that the average user craves knowledge or connection.

In this case, I decided to use the same eye-catching adorableness of a picture, but use an opportunity for someone to relate to my excitement of finding good career research. But then I assured the audience that no work is required on their part, I’ve done it for them.

Although LinkedIn is the social media for professionals, everyone likes having work done for them.

X (Twitter)

As a Twitter/X newbie, this was the hardest post for me. I know people on X want entertaining, informative, and brief information. With such short posts being made on the platform, it was hard to figure out a way to give someone a reason to stop and read it.

I ultimately decided that the more vague the better. Promotional content is generally frowned upon. As soon as someone sees the #ad on any post, it completely loses credibility. I wouldn’t necessarily be posting an ad, but an article promotion would be the same in the readers eyes.

I opted with a fun call-to-action with no context that states something that most people already do. Hopefully the dog owners of X will be curious as to why I would feel the need to advocate for other dogs.

And hopefully after reading my article, they’ll feel the need to advocate for them too.