Once upon a time, social media was for sharing memes, GIFs and life updates. Yes, anybody can still throw some emojis on an Instagram post, add a hashtag and call it a day. In some scenarios, that's completely acceptable, but sometimes that does not translate well with audiences.
Engaging ig captions or even simple engagement captions can help us produce more of the likes, shares and comments we accumulate to increase brand awareness. Here are 6 tips on how to write captions that are engaging for social media:
Tip 1: Write for your audience
Take some time to think about your audience. What are their needs? What are their wants? Here are a few different ways to successfully write for your audience:
Construct personas
It's helpful to construct a persona for your target reader. What is their age? Gender? Location? Job? What are their interests? What are their pain points? Answering these questions will help you better understand who you're writing for.
Form a connection
Once you know who your target reader is, you can start to form a connection with them. This can be done by using a friendly and relatable tone, personalizing your content and addressing their needs directly.
Ask a #QOTD
Asking your audience questions of the day (or week) is a great way to engage them with your content. It also helps you better understand what they're interested in and what issues they're struggling with.
Ask for feedback
The best way to improve your writing is to get feedback from your audience. Ask them what they liked, what they didn't like and what they would like to see more of. Then, use that feedback to make your writing even better.
Tip 2: Less is more for engaging captions
There is a time and place for long-form content with blogs and web pages, but social media is not usually one of them. Sure, Instagram can write up to 2,200 words, and Twitter has increased its Tweets to 280 characters, but is using the full allowance really the best way to go? According to Pixel Productions, ten words per caption receives around 2.35 to 3.13 % engagement.
Some good and short captions for Instagram posts include the following:
"Life is the biggest party you'll ever be at."
"A selfie a day keeps the doctor away."
"Confidence level: No filter."
Tip 3: Use a CTA (Call-To-Action)
Call-to-actions (CTA, for short) guide a follower to a certain website, product or form. Hubspot stated that 67% of Instagram users click on the Story link/swipe up. However, this option is disabled for business accounts under 10,000 followers or entirely for nonbusiness accounts. If you are in this situation, you can use captions for CTAs. CTA captions examples:
"Follow us for more awesome music! We post the latest and greatest in music news and culture."
"DM me for new releases. I'll send you a list of new releases every week so that you can stay up-to-date on the latest music."
CTAs should consist of the two following:
The action the follower will be pursuing. The action part of a CTA is pretty self-explanatory. It is the actual thing you want the person to do. In the examples above, the actions are "follow" and "DM."
Why is the follower pursuing the action? This part of the CTA tells the person what's in it for them. Why should they follow you? Because you make awesome music. Why should they DM you? Because you will give them new release information.
Tip 4: Determine the end goal for your engaging captions
What is the goal you are trying to accomplish by posting your caption? Here are some likely end-goals:
Build a community of like-minded individuals
The great thing about social media is it connects us to communities where we can express ourselves. Maybe your post is to connect, attract, or interact with like-minded individuals.
Gain a higher sales conversion on your product or services.
Suppose you are selling a service or product. In these cases, social media captions can provide CTAs (as previously mentioned) to convert the viewer's attention to a specific web page, product, post, social media page, or anywhere else that converts the buyer's attention towards making a purchase.
Share a story
It's as simple as it sounds, craft your story with the who, what, where, when, and how scenarios. Providing names shows trustworthiness, but anonymous sources don't wholly discredit your story.
Side note: Some create videos for sharing a story to tie in with their caption. Sprout Social Index has found that 66% of social media users found the short-form video to be the most engaging type of in-feed social content, up from 50% in 2020. Wyzowl released another study stating that 68% of marketers plan to use videos on their social media.
In short, creating a quick killer video can help drive your story closer to home, whether it's stunning visuals or music that fits the theme.
Tip 5: Write a killer headline (but avoid clickbait)
It's tempting to use clickbait. Whether it's engaging ig captions or tweets, influencers in the past have been shunned for being misleading. New Neuro Marketing released a study by Mukherjee, P on Twitter's clickbait detection and its shareability. On average, a clickbait title was shared 50 times less than a non-clickbait title, showing that followers are getting tired of clickbait.
While finding social media content ideas and writing a killer headline is hard, avoiding clickbait is just as important for good ig captions (or on any other platform!).
There are a few different types of clickbait:
Misleading. You see a post that says, "You won't believe what this celebrity said about the Rolling Stones!" But when you read the ig caption, you find that the celebrity in question didn't say anything about the Rolling Stones.
"Bait and switch.” You see a tweet saying, "You won't believe these 10 amazing facts about acoustic guitars!" with a link. But when you click on the article, you find that none of the "facts" are unique or accurate.
Insulting. This is when the post is designed to anger or upset you, hoping you'll click on the article to see what all the fuss is about.
Tip 6: Engaging captions keep things real
People desire a genuine connection between their favorite influencers or brands. The best captions show the good and the "not-so-good" side of your brand, whether it contains an internal issue for your business or life, or external issues that the industry you relate to is facing. You can write a caption that speaks up on issues that are troubling your community and advocate ways to fix them.
Social media allows you to keep it real and be the person that speaks up and says what you've always wanted to hear from others. While writing social media captions is a great way to connect with your followers, you may prefer to share engaging short-form videos with music. Not sure where to start? Download Studio today for a beginner-friendly and user-friendly music uploading experience!