Ever found yourself typing, deleting and retyping your Instagram captions over and over again?
Sometimes after researching, planning and creating your content, the hardest part can actually be knowing what to say! Do you need to be funny? Should you write an essay or keep it brief? Do captions even matter?! (Hint – yes, they do.)
If you want to spend less time finding the perfect words to say and more time on your actual business, here are some top tips to help you write Instagram captions that will spark interest, encourage engagement and help your posts gain the attention they deserve.
- Start with a killer opening line
The opening line of your caption is the most important, as it will be what viewers see first, so it needs to grab their attention. Don’t take ages to get to the point – you can elaborate later.
So if you’re launching a giveaway, make sure you state that immediately and follow with the details:
✨GIVEAWAY!✨
To celebrate hitting 100k, we’re going to be giving away…..
If you’re excited about an upcoming event, get your audience excited too by opening with something punchy:
THREE DAYS TO GO! 🥳
We’re so excited to be launching…..
- Break up longer captions
Your captions should be visually appealing and easy to read – no one wants to read a block of plain text when they’re scrolling through a visual platform. So make sure that you break up your captions with line breaks and relevant emojis. Get creative – you can use emojis as bullet points or to replace a word.
- Include a call-to-action
Get your followers to take action and really engage with your post by including a CTA in your caption. You can use CTAs to encourage your audience to interact with your post or to drive them to your website. If you need some ideas….
- Ask a question. Eg: “What are you thankful for today?”
- Tag a friend. Eg: “Tag a friend you’d share this with!”
- Pick your favourite – Great for carousel posts. Eg: “Which one would you pick – 1, 2, 3 or 4?”
- Direct to a website. Eg: “Check out the full video at the link in our bio!”
- Use your brand voice – but be friendly!
Instagram is a fairly informal platform, so while it’s important to use your brand’s specific tone of voice to stay consistent and recognisable, make sure you keep your captions light-hearted when appropriate. This doesn’t mean you need to be cracking jokes every two seconds, but aim to be almost conversational to keep that personal connection between you and your audience.
- Don’t overdo it
It’s great to keep eyes on your post for as long as possible by writing long captions – but don’t make them TOO long just for the sake of it or your followers will lose interest halfway through. If you need to include a lot of information, make sure you break up your caption as mentioned previously, but if you’re sharing something fun that speaks for itself then sometimes less is more.
- Save your hashtags for last
No one wants to be #reading a #caption littered with #annoying #hashtags!!
Choose a few relevant hashtags and save them for the end, so that they’re tucked out of the way. That way, your followers can focus on the actual content of your caption instead of being distracted.
So next time you’re posting a great picture or scheduling out your weekly content, take some time to really think about what you want to say first – I guarantee it will pay off!
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