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How to write engaging Instagram captions 1
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marketers using our tool and formed them into an
action-ready framework to help teams build their
voice in the overcrowded Instagram arena.
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table of contents
04 Introduction
05 How to craft the best Instagram captions: planning carefully
17 Tips for having successful Instagram captions
31 To wrap it all up
introduction
This is presumably the first and foremost aspect you need to consider.
If your audience mainly consists of teenagers, you need to know their
fondness, the vocabulary they are using, or would like to see on your
page the emojis you can use to get your message better.
You can improvise, test a couple of versions and check which ones appeal
to your audience more. The analytics will hint you which caption was
more successful, and hence, new ideas for Instagram captions will arise.
Answer these questions with your team or show the captions to a friend
and ask for feedback, check if they have clearly understood everything,
and whether they got the emotions you wanted to convey. If the message
is clear for them, it’s ready to be posted, and your audience will love it, too.
You can’t just sit in a cafe and think – hm, what should I post today?
Posting on Instagram needs weekly or sometimes monthly planning.
The most important part of it is thinking of the right caption. This
reduces the chance of regretting not being able to post the best
Instagram caption that came into your mind later.
Looking for all relevant hashtags is not a matter of seconds, but at the
beginning, you can check the performance of the hashtag you are using,
its popularity, and your chances of appearing at the top. Doing hashtag
research is one of the critical components of having active posts.
If your post is longer than 125 characters, your followers will have to
click “More” to read the whole caption. If three lines are enough to
highlight the importance of the post, then you are good, no need to
add more than that. After all, it is not easy to express a whole idea with
limited characters.
However, if your thoughts are longer than 125 characters, don’t hesitate
to write them in a long but organized way. Remember that spacing,
having paragraphs, and relevant emojis will be visually pleasing for your
audience as they will easily find the information they are looking for.
BE UNIQUE
Just by googling the best Instagram captions, you will get lots of
suggestions for different situations. These are usually the captions
that everyone uses. Before just copying it and making your own, think
if your audience is going to like it.
Like you, others also find the same post and use these captions. This
makes your followers see the same content on different pages, and they
easily lose their interest in your posts. Having this in mind, we have made
a list of useful tips that you can use to guide your Instagram captions.
ASK A QUESTION
By asking a question, you make your followers think you are speaking
to them. Questions usually perform better when you present two or
more similar items or images and ask them, “Which one do you prefer”
Another best caption is ending the caption with “... and how about you?”.
People like sharing their opinion and ideas. They feel important, their
opinion is valued, and just commenting on which option they like, how
they feel, won’t be confusing and won’t think twice if their opinions are
worth sharing. Especially when you reply to comments, they know it’s
not just a technique you are using to get more comments.
So if your followers like your brand, they will be more eager to answer
your questions, share their thoughts with you.
Sometimes it seems obvious that if a follower likes your post, they will
tag their friends or will tap for sound. But we forget that nowadays
we are so distracted and absent-minded that, except for the phone,
we might even forget an important document at home if there is no
reminder for that.
The same rule applies here – let your followers know what you want them
to do – tag a friend who’d do this, watch now, see more in my bio, etc.
Emojis are a good way of expressing emotions. Even when your caption
itself doesn’t convey the emotion behind the image, using the right emoji
can help you out.
With emojis, you can also get creative and use them in one of these ways:
For a similar image, try using a different kind of caption and check which
one provides more engagement. Maybe your audience likes commenting,
and your post, which asks a question, performs better than a post giving
instructions.
MENTION OTHERS
If the image or the story is connected with one of your friends, followers,
don’t hesitate to mention them. It will make your story more reliable and
authentic. You can also mention others to give them credits for what they
have done.
Use quotes if you are mentioning what this person said. This is a good
time-saver when it comes to thinking of a caption.
ORGANIZE CONTESTS
Deep inside, we all like winning, being the first. So if you trigger your
audience to be the first to comment, the first to answer a question,
everyone will want to win the game even if there is no medal for it at
the end.
But remember that for the above methods, you need a larger audience or
at least one with active followers who like and comment on your posts. To
achieve an engaging audience, you need to read the next step carefully.
Remember that social media is not about you but about your audience.
How do you maintain communication with them? Besides answering
their direct messages and comments, do you use captions that talk
to them? How likely is it for your followers to get addicted to your
Instagram posts?
Would it be you, would you like a brand to talk to you through their
captions? Or would you rather see something which makes you indifferent
and not connected with it in any way?
If you have already planned all your social media content way ahead
but while scheduling your posts an interesting idea comes to your mind,
and you think your audience will love it, don’t hesitate to change it.
Thoughts from your heart will pay off.
Or if you have already posted, but you still feel there is a need to tell
more about the image, write that thought in a comment reply. The ones
who are interested in your ideas will definitely read all of your answers.
Remember that your page is unique; there is no second you. Even if it’s
a brand, it should still have its own tone of voice.
While writing a caption, think of how you can have the best version of it.
Before posting anything, ask your friends who have an idea about the
field to give you constructive feedback. It will help you see the content
from another person’s perspective. This is a good chance to get an idea
of how your audience perceives your captions.
If you constantly post images with interesting captions and this time
you think the image speaks for itself, an interesting idea is not writing
anything and hiding the hashtags in the comments.
Your followers will start looking for a caption, knowing you always have
the best captions and will be surprised once they don’t find it. They will
start wondering if this is a new hint; is there a hidden message behind
your silence? They will start making comments – guessing what you
could have said or just their opinion on the image without a caption.
Besides A/B testing, you also need to check the time you are going to
publish the caption. If it’s a morning post, what emotions should it give
to the reader? If it’s an evening post, do you want to show them how
productive you were during the day? Maybe tired?
Your audience should feel #relatable and find similarities between you
and themselves. This is also part of creating a special bond.
Check when your audience is most active and what type of content
works best at that very hour.
If you implement at least three of these tips, you will gradually feel the
growth of your page engagement as they will indirectly feel the care
with which you post the images and the perfectly chosen caption for it.
Now you have all the planning techniques and tips for moving forward
and being a step closer to creating the best Instagram captions. But
you also need tools at hand which will help you plan, schedule your
posts, check hashtags, and so on. Here are some of the best tools that
will come in handy:
If you are not sure whether the hashtag is good enough, you can just write
the word, and Hashtest will check if it’s the best, good, bad, or useless.
The colors are different, so there is no chance you will get confused.
If you are concerned with the length of your captions, you can copy
and paste it in Wordcounter, and you will get the number of words,
characters used.
One size doesn’t fit all. Simply copy+pasting ideas from a list of 1000
best Instagram captions will cause shadowban and negatively affect
your brand positioning and its differentiation in the market. What is the
point of posting content just for the sake of posting it? And what is the
point of writing an Instagram caption that is not engaging, aligned with
branding, entertaining to read?
Our ebook had two intentions. Firstly, to show you how a well-known
brand with huge marketing departments write captions. Secondly, how
to develop the right approach to writing Instagram captions that your
audience will love to read and engage with!
Learn more at
sociality.io/blog