31 TIPS TO WRITE INSTAGRAM CAPTIONS

Instagram isn’t just a social networking site anymore, it is a means to get popular, showcase one’s work and talent, promote and advertise products. With a great picture, one can easily capture the interest of the viewer, but an amazing caption is necessary to make them stay and learn more about your post. A great Instagram caption will stop a scroller in their tracks and the longer someone spends reading your caption and engaging with your post, the better your post will rank with the Instagram algorithm.

31 Tips to write Instagram caption:

1.Keep the Important Information First:
While using Instagram, the users can easily notice we can only read some part of the caption, and for reading further we need to click “read more”. Only the first 125 words are visible to the readers in their feed, to access the rest is optional. One must start with a powerful beginning so that the people choose to read more about your caption.

2. Tell a Story About Your Brand:
Instagram is a very popular medium to advertise products. These are the posts that need a caption that tells a lot in very less words. It needs to have the honest story of the brand. You need to bring in authenticity in your picture. This might be anything from a brief history of the company or product to a personal story about an employee.

3. Consider the Structure of Your Instagram Captions:
Instagram allows its users to write captions as long as captions up to 2,200 characters. One must not fear to write long captions, but the more significant information should come first and the significance should decrease as the length increases. One must structure their captions properly.

4. Ask Questions to Encourage Engagement:
One way to encourage engagement is to ask questions. Questions give users something direct to respond to, so they are engaging with an answer rather than having to come up with an off-the-cuff comment. It increases the number of comments on the post and helps you understand your readers.

5. Use Emojis to Show Your Personality:
Emojis have been a great marketing strategy for the past 5 years. By now, they are common across social media platforms, with over 50% of Instagram accounts using emojis in their posts. Including emojis in your Instagram captions is a great way to grab interest and personalize your brand. They help to showcase the mood of the comment without adding too many words.

6. Include Relevant Hashtags:
Increasing engagement is important, but your posts also need to increase reach and attract new followers. Hashtags are one way to achieve this. Research has shown that posts with at least one hashtag receive more likes and comments than posts without any hashtags. Basically, the users on Instagram can follow a particular hashtag of their interest, can see all the posts that include that hashtag, this helps a greater number of audience to see your post.

7. Use @ Mentions to Increase Reach:
Scrolling through Instagram, you will find several accounts with a blue tick on them, these are verified accounts of celebrities and famous personalities. Keep a habit of mentioning them in your comments and tagging them in your pictures. It will help you increase followers as the people following the verified account will be able to see your post in their tagged pictures.

8. Research Your Target Audience:
Your main target audience are your followers. Take time to know them, the pages and hashtag they follow. Do not unnecessarily litter your caption by adding random hashtags. Post pictures your followers would be interested in, then add the hashtags accordingly.

9. Research Leaders in Your Industry:
If you are an influencer, follow some famous influencers. If you are a food blogger, follow some famous food bloggers. Get the drill? You have to look for trends in hashtags and posts in these accounts to know what the majority of people are interested in.

10. Write several drafts first:
It is important for a writer to make a draft before posting the caption. Most users engage in reading your caption within 30 minutes you post it, if the caption is not satisfactory to you, you can choose to edit it later, not a lot of users could see the edited version. Don’t rush, take time to frame the perfect caption. Ask for opinions, give people options to choose from.

11. Include a call-to-action:
To increase engagement in your account, make your followers comment on your pictures. This can easily be done by adding call in action captions to your picture. You have to prompt them with questions or give them tasks. It can be a question, or a challenge, or a riddle. Some writers ask their readers to spell a particular thing in different languages, while some ask them to comment about their last used emoticons.

12. Direct people to a link in your bio:
Unfortunately one cannot add a link in their captions. In these cases you can explain your thing in the caption and in the later section of the post, direct your readers to check out your Instagram bio for the link.

13. Invite people to tag their friends:
Have you seen a post saying “tag someone, if they do not reply in 30 seconds they owe you a pizza” or simply “tag someone who would like this”? This is a great strategy to increase your comment and make more people see your post. It will definitely help you to increase followers.

14. 30 Hashtags Can Be Used In a Single Post:
On Instagram, a hashtag behaves the same way as it does on Twitter and Facebook. One can actually follow hashtags they like and see posts from all open pages on their profile. Hashtags are very useful if used correctly. Use only the ones that are necessary and related to your post.

15. Cross-promote your posts over other social channels:
You don’t only have to put your Instagram posts on Instagram, you can in fact send links to your posts via any application and gain more likes and followers. You will have a larger audience if you perform this.

16. When in doubt, keep it brief:
The length of the caption depends upon what you are writing, if it’s a recipe, it will be elaborate, but a product description does not need to be long. As long as you’re front-loading the caption with the most important information, any length is okay!

17. Write a Killer First Line:
The toughest part of writing an Instagram post has to be writing an amazing first line. It will only interest your readers to stay and read more. Your first line should attract the readers, add emoticons, use Upper case to highlight a work, look for different fonts. It should be to the point and suggest the reader what is further in the caption.

18. Add a social cause:
Your post cannot always be about you and your product. You can actually add social messages in your captions. In this manner, people would like to read about you, buy your products to help your cause. You can also instruct your followers to do their bits of social work.

19. Add Line Breaks For Longer Captions:
Your Instagram captions need to be crisp and punchy. Got a long caption? No worries, add in line breaks after each paragraph. By that, your Instagram captions will keep them easy to digest, even when there are several points. Each paragraph’s first line is more important, and the rest is explanatory.

20. Use a Consistent Brand Voice:
Aside from the obvious tips on using proper grammar and spelling, one of the most important parts of any good Instagram caption is a consistent, and on-brand voice. Don’t talk as an individual, but as a brand.

21. Pick 2-3 Focal Themes:
Keep your captions consistent, your followers should think that you are an expert in what you are talking about. For this, focus and research on only 2-3 points. This will help you write dynamic captions that are detailed and unique.

22. Disclose Sponsored Posts:
You can mention the sponsor’s name on the top of the post to gain trust of the sponsor and help you gain more sponsors. Not only tag your sponsors but also mention them on your caption, it’s necessary to gain their trust.

23. Write Your Captions in Batches:
A lot of people have troubles when it comes to writing captions, a main reason for this is that they get way too ambitious. In case, you cannot write a whole caption in one day, write it in batches, edit it on the last day, that is the simple mantra.

24. Create Captions for Your Instagram Stories:
Be creative in your stories, use templates and colors. Stories are a very efficient way to get your readers’ attention. Upload your posts on story to encourage your followers to check them out.

25. Optimize Your IGTV Captions:
Your IGTV video title and description are automatically pulled from the preview you share. Try to bring in an interesting title and description of your IGTV to drive more views on your post.

26. Edit and rewrite:
Once you are done with your caption, edit it. It cannot be perfect in one go. Ask for opinions, consider them and rewrite your captions. Take your time, do not rush.

27. Try using quotes:
Not the cliché inspirational variety, but ones that are specific to the post. You can ask the photographer to give you a quote, or you can simply search through the internet, but make sure you add the writer’s name next to it.

28. The behind-the-scenes caption:
Instagram is a great platform for behind-the-scenes content. It helps your followers connect to you more. Write down the stories behind the photograph, the idea, or behind the scene fun if it’s a video.

29. The instructional caption:
Food pages write down step by step instructions for making a dish. Make sure you add all the information for the readers, and make sure to add the extra tips at the end of the caption.

30. The contest or giveaway caption:
Who doesn’t like free stuff? Organize a giveaway contest for your followers. In the caption, describe what they are running for, and explain to them how to enter the competition and the requirements to win it.

31. Use Instagram Captions That Trigger Emotions:
Our emotions heavily influence what we buy. Tapping into your followers emotions through your caption can help increase sales and can be done so when we can evoke feelings. It can simply be about someone’s family, or patriotic feelings. But restrain yourself from making anyone offended because of the same.