Social media plays a large part in almost all of our lives, and this has grown even more during the Coronavirus pandemic. Businesses, brands and influencers have had to up their game online, driving more conversion and pushing for higher engagement. To capture the attention of scrolling users, you need great content, the right amount of posts and eye-catching, engaging captions. Captions are what drive engagement, so whether you’re a social media influencer, small business owner, YouTuber or aspiring content creator, it’s important to know how to write great social media captions. Let’s get started!
9 Tips For Writing Engaging Social Media Captions
1. Encourage Responses
Writing your caption in the form of a question can encourage followers to respond, creating conversation in the comments and boosting engagement. Open-ended questions are great for this, as they gather more responses than simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions. Keep your captions relatable, friendly and don’t forget to respond to comments to show that you are engaged, and to encourage people to be less shy and respond in future!
2. Add The Important Things First
If you have an exciting announcement, giveaway, collaboration or product launch, make sure that this appears at the start of your caption to grab followers’ attention. Getting the exciting stuff out first also means that it won’t be cut off by the ‘Read More’ feature on Instagram, for example. After 3 or 4 lines, your text is cut off – meaning that followers may miss your big announcement if you don’t shout about it first. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn only allow 280 characters, so it’s important to be succinct too (and add further Tweets to the thread for the rest of the information)
3. Get Your Hashtags Right
For Instagram, Twitter & TikTok especially, hashtags can really help to widen the reach of your content. On Instagram, for example, 0% hashtags equal an average of 18% interaction among 1k followers, whereas 11 hashtags raises this number to 79.5% interaction.
Try out some different hashtags and monitor the results. Note down those that have a wide reach, as well as some niche ones that pull in interested parties. You can always save some key hashtags into a note on your phone to copy and paste to save time. Remember to shake up your hashtags and keep trying different things, as well as looking at what hashtags similar accounts are using.
4. Know When To Use CTA’s
CTA’s (or ‘Call To Actions’) are when you ask your followers to perform a direct action, such as visiting a link, following, subscribing and so on. These are a good way to link your various mediums and social accounts, spreading your reach further, as well as alerting followers that you have launched a new product or created a piece of content they’d love. However, it’s important to make sure that not every single caption contains a CTA as it may put followers off if they’re constantly being asked to take action!
5. Figure Our Your Intention
Wishy-washy captions just thrown in quickly won’t cut it if you have a large following, or are trying to grow your following. Make sure to think about what your intention is for the post. Is it to:
- Strengthen the relationship with your followers
- Promote a product, piece of content etc
- Encourage a specific action from followers
- Show your personality
- To receive more followers / comments / likes / shares (each will require a different approach with your post and caption)
The intention behind your post should inform your caption, so having a clear idea of what you want to achieve will make your caption clearer and more effective.
6. Be Authentic
We’ve all seen influencers on Instagram posting captions that seem authentic and fun, followed by posts that immediately announce a discount code and sound like they’re written by a robot. Your voice should be consistent and authentic – after all, it’s social media. Remember that people are following you for a reason – so be yourself! Speak conversationally, be open and friendly and utilize your sense of humor.
7. Tell Stories & Anecdotes
Sometimes, a longer caption is necessary and can add so much to just a simple picture upload. Telling the story behind a shot, a trip, an outfit or a funny story that the picture reminds you of will make the post more interesting. This also lets your followers know something personal about yourself, creating trust between you. This is a win-win, as it makes the post more engaging, whilst also helping to establish a connection between yourself and both old and potential new followers!
8. Put Yourself In Your Follower’s Shoes
If you’ve created a content strategy or plan, you should have figured out who your target audience is. Check your insights and analytics to see who is engaging most with your content, and what your follower percentage is in terms of age, gender and so on.
This will help you to put yourself in the shoes of your followers. Once you’ve done this, you can ask yourself what you would want to hear, read and see. Are you giving them something to respond to, and adding something to their day? Would you stop to comment if you saw this caption and post on your feed? Does the caption reflect you and your brand? Asking these questions are important in helping you tailor your captions and content to your audience.
9. Check Your Spelling & Grammar
This one seems super obvious, but it’s important to ensure that your social media captions make sense. Your spelling and grammar should be correct, as you want to look professional and not put your followers off with incorrect captions. Grammarly is a great resource for this if you struggle with spelling. Otherwise, make sure to check carefully and maybe even have a friend or family member read over some for you before posting.
Final Thoughts
We hope you enjoyed this article on writing great social media captions, and let us know if you have any further tips that work for you and your brand in the comments!
If you’re looking for more social media tips, feel free to check out our articles on social media trends, YouTube SEO, alternative social media apps for content creators, why your brand should be using TikTok and how to brand your business!
How Audiosocket Can Help
This article is all about building successful social media channels for content creators, and music is a huge part of content creation! If you’re planning on creating content to share on any of the above platforms, it’s time to start planning aspects like music. That’s where we can help!
If you are looking for authentic, top-quality music for your project, why not check out Audiosocket? Your content deserves the best, so sign up today and access 85,000+ songs to bring your vision to life! You can access Audiosocket’s music catalog for just $10 a month as a Personal creator. Not only that, but this allows you to license an unlimited number of tracks at no additional cost. Talk about win-win!
