Let’s talk about how to write captions. Analyses have shown that posts with captions get a lot more engagements than posts without.
That shows you just how vital captions are to your content creation game.
So think about it for a minute, or look back at your last posts – did you add a caption?
If so – great! Keep listening though… I’m going to break down what a caption should consist of in just a minute.
If you didn’t add a caption — you’re about to be mindblown when you do your next post with a caption and see the results.
Hook, Value, and Call to Action
Before we begin the discussion on how to write captions, let me share a straightforward tip for you…
Great captions can be broken down into three parts.
The first part is the hook, the second part is the value, and the third is the call to action.
An Example
To help you understand this perfectly, I want to walk you through some examples of great captions for you to learn from them.
Let’s start with one from Jasmine Star.
I’m not going to read the full caption, but let’s break this down together.
In this example that I’m looking at, Jasmine starts vaguely with this line – “and bonus points if you’re married.”
If you’re a married person, you’ll probably look at that sentence and think… oh, what do I deserve bonus points for?
Even if you aren’t married and are just looking to be, you’d also be interested in what bonus points married people should have.
Now that Jasmine has got you hooked on her content with a vague hook, she can now proceed to offer her value.
If you are looking at this post with me, this caption quickly goes right to the point.
Jasmine quickly gets to the point where she tells people what she wants them to know — which is that working with your partner is fulfilling.
It’s quick, it’s concise, and wastes no one’s time.
After passing across the value, Jasmine comes to the final part of the caption, which is the call to action.
When most people use the words, call to action, or CTA, they make people purchase.
But you can use them in other ways.
You can use them to tell people how you want them to interact with your post.
Do you want them to like it? Comment? Or share?
Whatever you want them to do, you must write it down and tell them to do it.
Let’s check out another example to see how you can use these three elements to construct an amazing caption for your post.
Caption Writing Rules
Another rule you should keep in mind when writing captions is to keep them relatively short when you can.
Now, I’m going to contradict myself here for a minute.
I’m saying relatively short because people want information quickly and to the point. BUT this also really depends on your audience.
What I’d suggest doing is posting a short caption, a bit longer, and then another one that’s even longer…
… see how they work for your audience.
I say this all the time when people start to show you online what they want; you need to repeat that.
Summon Your Creativity
Thirdly, you’ve got to be very creative about your call to action. In the examples we looked at, we saw Jasmine asking people questions about her posts and things like that.
You can get super creative about your call to action and even make them unique from any other.
For example, you can ask for recommendations, opinions, or even questions.
And please, if you ask for questions, make sure you reply to them.
No one likes to be ignored.
Even if you don’t ask for questions, try to reply to as many comments as you can get.
Remember, you’re not a famous account with ten million followers.
You’re at the start of your journey, and you’re trying to build a community.
You can only build that community by being incredibly inclusive.
Some people use their call to action to drive engagement, but it doesn’t mean you cannot use yours to drive traffic to your website.
It’s a call to action — you can use it to call any action.
Oh, and remember hashtags.
Captions are great and will help you build a great community.
But hashtags increase your visibility by A LOT.
If you also want to increase your reach further, you can mention other Instagram pages in your captions.
If you’ve got businesses that you collaborate with, your captions may be the best way to give them a shout-out.
As always, remember to be authentic and relatable. Your audience is smart, and they can tell if you are just there to sell stuff. Let them see your passion; let them see you!
