Loving Instagram but not getting the reach you feel you deserve? Could this be improved by doing some work on your captions, we have shared some top tips you might want to consider to improve your captions for your posts. Here are some of our favourites, and some new ideas we might try too!

1. Do you know your audience?

Question number 1 – who are you trying to attract? It is vital in any social media work that a strategy is at least considered so you can think about your audience. as part of our training packages, we help you to develop your audience persons so you can think of them as potential customers for your business. and to this end, you can outline your customers, their goals and what are their pain points.

Once you know who you are speaking to, it will help your captions hit home.

 

2. Identify your brand voice

Hopefully, as part of your social media planning, you have considered how you want your business to be portrayed! What words best describe your business or brand? These don’t always have to be terribly serious and corporate (Instagram isn’t the place for this) But help you to be relatable to your customers.

 

3. Consider length

This is a tricky one and can depend on the strength of your image post 9 is strong then let the image do the talking!0 Or if you need to add more context with a caption then do.

Instagram will only show the first three lines so this has to be completed to encourage people to click to read more. So though the length is of interest, being interesting from the very beginning is as equally important.

People are busy and not always happy to read “War and Peace’ so be mindful of that.

If you want your entire caption to display, Instagram recommends using 125 characters or fewer.

Some brands that don’t have a blog or even a website (imagine that!)  and could use their Instagram feed as go to blog option. if that is the case, then you might want to expand your caption to be your blog space. An idea maybe?

4. Place the most important words at the beginning of the caption

As mentioned in the previous point, you need to get to the point quickly! People have a short attention span so we want to capture their interest and get a reaction from them as quickly as possible.

5. Edit and rewrite

Plan your content, and take some time to write your captions and edit them to work hard for you.

6. Use hashtags, but use them wisely

This is a key factor, we often see random hashtags appearing all over people’s captions which have no relevance and don’t actively support or help the posts they are included in.

Hashtag research is key and is easy to do before you get started. which ones you choose to use need to be grouped together ideally and not cluttering up your caption.  There are two ways to look at this –

  1. Separate your hashtags from the rest of your caption by burying them beneath a line of full stops and line breaks. Once you’ve finished composing your caption, tap the 123 key. Select Return and then enter a full stop, dash, or asterisk. Repeat those steps at least five times. Because Instagram caps off captions after three lines, the hashtags won’t be viewable to users unless they tap the “More” option.
  2. Don’t put hashtags in your captions at all. Instead, write them in the comment section right after you publish the post. Once other people leave a few comments, the hashtags won’t be viewable unless the option to See all is selected.

7. Pose a question

As with all social media platforms, interaction is a key action and asking questions to received comments is one of the best ways. So your caption could end with a question or be just a question?

You could also use the caption to get tips or recommendations from the audience.

8. Give a shout-out with an @mention

Be inclusive, if you post can feature another Instagram user, then make sure you @ them in your caption, so they get notified and people can check out their profile too.

9. Don’t be afraid to use emoji

Are emoji appropriate to use within an Instagram caption❓ We don’t see why not?

They can create a bit of colour and movement to a caption and even star in entirely for words.

Have you been inspired by any Instagram captions or accounts, then please share them with us! It’s always good to see what you find interesting. Please take a look on our website for other Instagram blogs.

If you need a hand with your Instagram caption, perhaps we can help. Call us on 01642 712871 or email us at [email protected]

 

 

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