If your photo is the setup, your caption is the punchline. So do it right.
The Instagram algorithm will not show your posts to people until you have a lot of engagement. Engagement means you get likes, views, comments, and responses to those comments.
For this reason, many businesses need the ideal caption to bump up engagement and create the best Instagram marketing campaigns.
In this article, we will explain what makes the perfect Instagram caption, and what steps you can take to make sure your captions are effective at getting engagement and sales. We’ll go through every step, from the moment you buy real Instagram likes up until you use your captions to create and maintain a platform.
Before moving on to the right caption, it helps to have a lot of likes on your pictures to begin with. There are two main reasons for this:
Nothing makes a caption look better than appearing right above, “14,000 people like this.”
Once you have a significant number of likes, more people will see your post, and more of them will stop to read your caption. Along with the photo, the number of likes will draw your followers in.
Now that you’ve got the whole Insta takeover definition on lock, we’ve taken our assistance a step further and laid out a few important steps to help you create the ultimate insta takeover.
No matter how long the caption is, your first line is the one that will stop people from scrolling and get them to listen to what you have to say.
In James Scott Bell’s book, “The Art of War for Writers,” he said the first line should be the equivalent of grabbing your readers by the shirt collar and pulling them into your story.
A story is a great way to get your readers’ attention and get them to read all the way to the end. Even in an Instagram caption, people love a good story.
Try a first line that makes people wonder, “What happened next?”
If you have a travel blog, tell little anecdotes from your adventures.
Start with an opening line like, “We had been lost and hungry in Greece for three hours when the little pizza place came into view.”
If you have a brand and product page, then tell the stories of customer testimonies.
Your first line could line might look like this: “Alexandra had tried everything, but she just could not lose weight, and she about to give up.”
Then, move on with the rest of the story in order. Think about what story you want to tell beforehand, and keep your narrative focused and compelling so that your readers make it to the end.
And you certainly want your readers to reach the end of your caption, because that is usually where you place the call to action.
A call to action is when you ask your followers to do something.
There are many types of calls to action. For example, you could:
This means more engagement for you, and more people see your posts. It creates incentive to comment, and, when done well, it creates sales leads.
At the very least, a call to action will mean more people engage with your posts. And the best-case scenario is that your followers become clients when they buy something they saw on your page. Either way, a call to action is a win-win.
A long caption can be broken up by some well-placed emojis.
Start a giveaway post with a megaphone and “Giveaway time!”
Instead of typing out “Photo credit goes to:” Simply use the camera emoji.
These small images draw the eye in, and they can be very powerful if they are perfectly placed.
People are willing to read long captions if they are really well-written, but a long wall of text can be intimidating. You can appeal to more people by making your captions look a little easier to read.
Sometimes as brands get bigger, they hire many managers for different social media platforms, and their message might suddenly get muddled.
Think about your brand image and your brand voice. The magic of social media marketing is that people begin to feel like they are following a friend rather than a brand, so they trust what you share. Your followers want to feel like they know you, so, in the same way a friend might have the same personality across all their captions, your account should as well.
Think about the values important to your brand, and make them shine throughout all your platforms and all your captions.
When writing your captions, draft, re-draft, and edit. Make sure they sound like they’re coming from the same voice.
Not everyone will take the time to tap on the photo and see the names of who is featured. But if you mention a brand or influencer directly in the caption, a lot more people are likely to follow that mention and see where it goes.
You can use this tip to link to your other Instagram accounts, for example, by linking between a brand account and a personal account.
You do not need to overrun the caption with mentions, but a few well-placed @’s can be a great way to get attention and spread awareness between your accounts.
By using emojis, mentions, a consistent voice, a call to action, and an excellent first line, you can get a lot of engagement on your posts, and even turn your followers into customers.
Create a brand, and utilize that brand, and Instagram captions can be a very powerful marketing tool.