How to write catchy Instagram captions: Tips, tricks and tools
With a great Instagram caption comes context, personality and the urge to take action. Not only do you have quite a few words to play with, but you also have emojis at your disposal and up to 30 hashtags, too.
A compelling Instagram caption will lead to more engagement across your posts, growing your following and (hopefully) gaining clients along the way. Seeing as engagement is one of the key three things the Instagram algorithm considers when ordering content in users’ feeds, it’s pretty important.
What constitutes a great Instagram caption?
A great Instagram caption adds context to your post, shows off your brand’s personality and entertains. It sparks a conversation with your followers and urges them to take action.
That action, however, is up to you. Maybe you want to encourage comments, follows, saves or DMs. Or even try and lead people to your website (‘link in bio!’ anyone?), to download a freebie and so on.
As with any good piece of web copy, it needs to be attention-grabbing and easy to follow.
So, how can you make your IG captions attention-grabbing?
Don’t worry, we’ve got some handy tips to get your writing kickass Instagram captions in no time.
Know your audience
Working out your target customer profile is super important. Firstly, you need to know you’re creating the right content for your followers (and potential new ones).
The better you know your audience, the easier it is to use Instagram in your marketing strategy and write Instagram captions that really speak to them.
Once you know who you’re speaking to, you can answer questions that will inform what you put in your captions:
Will my audience understand this reference?
Are emojis and/or slang appropriate to use?
Do I need to add more context to this post?
Answer those questions, and actioning on the next step will be much easier.
Craft your brand voice
If you haven’t identified your brand voice as part of a broader social media marketing strategy, ask yourself this question: ‘What are the qualities and values I want my brand to embody?’
Make a list and use it to shape your voice.
If you’re not totally sure, that’s okay! Try jotting down a few adjectives that best describe your business, as these can really help to shape the tone. Is your business “Bold”, “ambitious”, or “charming” even?
Keep it brief… Ish
While Instagram captions seem to be getting longer by the day, don’t waffle on, either.
Remember, users are scrolling at a crazy pace, so you need to be concise with your caption. If you’re using a single post and storytelling in the caption, go for it, but don’t simply tell the reader everything they’ve just read in your carousel down in the caption too!
It’s also important to remember how many words you can fit in before the “More” button shows… So, try to keep your opening line nice and brief.
Create compelling first lines
Again, captions are cut off in users’ feeds after just a line or so of text. Keep the most important/attention-grabbing sentence for right here.
This is where you hook the reader in to tap and read on.
Put any @ or # later on.
Edit, write, edit again
Take your time and don’t be afraid to go through several drafts, especially if your captions are more than a few lines long. Great writing - whether you’re aiming for humour or education can take multiple drafts and edits.
Cut out the unnecessary words and keep your caption as concise as possible, while still maintaining your brand voice and personality of course.
Use hashtags, but use them wisely
Don’t just go throwing in any ol’ hashtags and hope for the best. Use hashtags that are relevant to your post and your audience. Users follow hashtags to keep up with certain topics, so put yourself in the shoes of your audience.
If you’re looking to keep your caption as neat as possible, there are a couple of ways to separate the two.
Use line breaks to put your captions downwards.
Put hashtags in the first comment instead.
Looking for comments? Pose a question
One of the easiest ways to get more comments on your post is by using the caption to pose a question to your followers.
This could be a discussion-starter in the comments, which you can follow up with in DMs.
Encourage engagement with a CTA
If your content is up for debate, encourage engagement with a call to action in your caption. This could help boost shares, comments and DMs further down the line.
Simply ask people to leave a comment, tag a friend (if relevant) or give their view.
Use emojis (if they suit your brand)
Emojis can work wonders for some accounts, breaking up text and adding a little personality to a caption.
But, they don’t work for everyone. If they’re appropriate to use in your caption, well, that’s totally up to you.
Looking for a tool to help write captions?
There are a variety of tools/apps around that help Instagram users with their caption writing.
Captiona
It works like a predictive search engine. Enter a keyword that relates to the content, and the app will deliver a list of suggested captions.
Hemingway app
Named for Ernest Hemingway, the desktop tool promises to make your writing “bold and clear.” It analyzes text and, with colour-coded highlights, points out where your writing has become sloppy or indulgent.
Grammarly
I always use Grammarly when I’m writing, it’s a fantastic tool for any marketer. So if you’re familiar with its capabilities, simply open a document and get writing.
Looking for help with your Instagram captions?
We’ve given you the tools and tips, so now it’s time to get posting!
But if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed with knowing where to start, we’re here to help.