10 Tips On How To Write The Perfect Instagram Caption
So you’ve got the dream photo captured. The perfect image created. It’s candid, informational, edited to perfection, and most definitely going on your grid for optimal views, likes, and shares.
The only thing missing…
The caption.
While it’s only a few short characters, it can somehow be the cause of a lot of agony, and all with good reason. A caption is the pièce de résistance that contextualizes and possibly viral-izes a post. But it often doesn’t come as easily as you think it should. You ask - Have I written too much? Or not enough? And what’s the big deal anyway? Just whip up a few quick words and be done with it… right? Well, not exactly.
Well-written and thoughtful captions have the potential to create more engagement, which - let’s face it - is critical when it comes to mastering Instagram’s algorithm. Compelling copy in your caption can also shape your brand’s story and personality, which in turn converts sales, which helps contribute to your bottom line - you get it.
The Instagram algorithm sometimes doesn’t play fair, which means you have to have what it wants; a post is more likely to be seen if the platform likes your page’s engagement rates - through user comments and responses on a post, shares, and saves. Do you ever notice that the first few posts you see when you open the app are typically from the same few accounts every time? Well, what shows up first in your feed is determined by what posts and accounts you engage with. Give your followers more to engage with, and they’ll have more to engage with. It’s exactly the opposite of the phrase, “out of sight, out of mind.”
So what does this mean for you and your business?
For starters, what shows up at the top of an Instagram user’s channel is based on the user’s activity. So as a business, you always need to give your followers a reason to engage with your post - and captions are a good way to do so.
With this in mind, you’re almost ready to get started – but before you do, you need to be strategic. You have business goals that you want to achieve, with sales and product development, and every decision - even ones as small as your captions - should be part of a larger picture that works towards achieving those. It’s imperative that you go back to the basics, overview the primary goals of your Instagram strategy, and let those be a guiding light.
Common overarching goals for Instagram or social channels in general include:
Brand awareness and increasing visibility
Promotion for a product, a rebrand, a product launch, a new collection, or a collaboration
Collecting user-generated content with a branded Instagram hashtag
Converting sales and generating a large customer-base
These guiding principles will act as the gut-check you need before posting any sort of caption. With this in mind, here are our 10 recommendations for creating Instagram captions that are *chef’s kiss*:
Just like most things in life, less is more
We live in the information age, and stats show that the average person consumes about 34 gigabytes of data and information each day, which is a lot of information. Say what needs to be said very early on in your caption, because chances are, if you don’t get to the point, it’ll get lost in a sea of others below the fold.
Include a call-to-action
Let the people know where and how to find you! User handles are taggable on Instagram, and it’s likely that unless you have a shop directly on the app that your followers will need to be told where they can purchase your offerings. It may seem repetitive, but you’d be surprised what a good ol’ “link in bio” does to convert that caption into a sale.
Include a value add
This is where strategy comes in. Captions should not be fluff, and at the very least, they have to answer one of the following questions:
Who are you?
What are you selling?
Why should someone buy what you’re selling?
How do I find where you’re selling?
Get relevant
There is nothing more satisfying in the social mediasphere than seeing a brand hop on to a pop-culture reference or trending topic on their Instagram captions. While this requires more spontaneity than strategy, it’s an easy tactic to increase likeability and relatability for your brand. Keep your eyes and ears on the ground, keep a bank of fun lyrics, pop-culture references, catchy reality TV phrases, or anything that you can re-purpose into a caption that feels relevant to your brand identity.
Be personable
In the same way that SEO doesn’t like robotic chit-chat, neither do people reading captions - humans like human talk. We are teetering slowly but surely into the metaverse, but one thing that’s for certain is that consumers still want to be spoken to, not spoken at. Make your captions conversational, no matter how information-heavy what you’re saying is.
Tell a story, and pull on those heartstrings a bit
Similarly to being personable, Instagram captions are your brand’s opportunity to let them get to know you beyond the product offerings. It’s likely that your followers follow you because they connect with you on some deeper level – use that to your advantage.
Use emojis
Emojis are on our phones for a good reason, so use them. They’re playful but also very literal and descriptive, so if they help illustrate (literally) what you’re trying to communicate even more, then we suggest you use them.
Save the good ones for later
Spontaneity is great, but sometimes when you’re on the spot, it can be tough to come up with a catchy, captivating caption. So keep a tab in a document when you think of something, so you can refer back to it when the time comes
Use hashtags
Remember that the goal here is to create content that your users will engage with; hashtags make it easier for your existing and potential followers to find information with a theme or specific content, including your content. Do some keyword research and use your findings to generate and engage with relevant hashtags which you can plug into your captions.
Remember who you are
Yes, just like Mufasa said. Knowing your brand identity, tone of voice, and content marketing goals is the best informant for how you want to communicate to your audience. Sure the caption may not always be catchy or sexy, but if it does what it needs doing, given the tips and tricks we’ve given above, then you’re off to a good start.
To learn more on this and other great tools for you and your business, follow along at @thesocialsnippet