Why did this work?

Sometimes I feel like I have good sense for what is going to work on social.

Sometimes I feel like I’m publishing content into an unknowable ether.

I knew that this particular piece of content would work, (all my creative spec deck pdfs do pretty well) but didn’t think it would pop off 25.8 k views.

Just for context, the O2 arena in London holds 20 k people

I started with the hook.

“I hope a law firm steals this concept.”

Personal opener + specific person + powerful adjective + subject of post.

Winning hook formula.

From there, two lines about my experience with attorneys and the things that I observed.

“As I've interacted with attorneys for the last three years, a few things keep coming up.

Their clients want to know the legal team isn't going to..”

Everyone loves the magic of three things in a bulleted list. Here it comes..

“..keep them up.

..hold them back.

..add complexity.”

As I contemplated the big three, what happened next? This is where I make the reveal of the concept.

“In thinking through how to best represent that, a building came to mind.

I wanted to show one lawyer sleeping, another awake.

Then I found this image. Lights on, lights off. That takes care of that.

Smooth lines for the sleeping, squiggly for the restless.

Throw in normal activities that clients might miss because of work demands / legal issues.

And you get a pretty decent starting point for creative / content / marketing materials.”

The steps seperated by a line kept people reading. At this point, they had to find out my basic rationale for putting this together.

“How would you make this idea work for you?”

I’m generally not a huge fan of putting questions at the end of posts. Rarely do I think people want to answer questions after reading a post. Do they want to comment and crack a joke or express concern? Yes. But they’ll do that without a question.

The content will make them type.

But I think the question works for this post.

It makes the reader imagine and think.

Want to see more? Check out the post.

I’ve done this for Mobly. (field marketing SaaS)

I’ve done this for Hona. (legal SaaS)

I’ve done this for Heare Brotherhood. (Men’s health group)

Each time I put my work into a visual demonstration, or show people how I would write lines for their brand, it does really well.

It outperforms general copywriting, entrepreneur, and other content.

Heck, it even does better than family selfies. I know, shocking. My kids are cute.

Plus, it usually starts a conversation and occasionally a client engagement.

Was this helpful?

Hit reply and give me one of these lines:

• “This was good, Morgan. Keep it up!”

• “Not my cup o’ tea. Got anything else?”

• “I don’t care about a random social post. Go back to the Captain Morgan stories.”

Or something else. :)

Yours in the fight against boring,

M