At BeKonstructive, we are passionate about social media marketing and the role it plays in your digital strategy. Instagram, in particular, has many tools that support your social media strategy and allow you to engage with followers in a unique and appealing way.
For this reason, we’re sharing our guide for Instagram captions and the importance they will have for your business account in 2021.
Instagram content comes in many different forms such as photos, videos, stories, reels and live videos; however, they all need to be accompanied by a caption to communicate your marketing message effectively.
Your post’s caption is the story you tell behind the product or service you sell – it gives your brand a personality through the language you use. It even allows you to add a CTA (call to action) that can encourage your followers to comment, like or even visit your website.
To help you understand more about how IG captions work and their purpose, we bring you five key points when creating copy for your Instagram posts in 2021.
Length Matters!
The maximum length for an Instagram caption is 2,00 characters. You’ve probably seen some captions that feel like they’re a novel, while others might only be 1-6 words long! Choosing the right length for your captions requires you to understand your content, your brand and your audience.
For example, if you’re sharing a simple image blocker (images included for the aesthetic of your feed) or a lifestyle picture, a short and catchy caption would work best. But if you’re sharing an educational or promotional post, then we advise you to take your time, consider your message and nail that copy!
Recognise Your Tone
Tone is everything! The tone in your IG captions need to use words and language that align with your brand voice. This creates consistency and even better engagement with your followers.
Tone can vary from friendly, calm, serious, clever, funny, cheeky; you name it! Your tone will depend on the industry you are in and the audience demographics you are targeting. Start by understanding your customers and your brand’s values. Your language will make your Instagram unique and will make it stand for something.
Emojis!!
We all love emojis. They make us feel more connected to people and brands on social media. In fact, 57% of profiles use at least 1 emoji in their posts! But it’s important to know the message you’re trying to communicate with your customers when you decide to include emojis in your Instagram content.
We advise starting small with emojis to get a feel for how your audience responds to them. You can start by adding them at the end of a paragraph or use them to list sentences. If you’re in an industry where emojis don’t have much uptake, then try using them every now and then for things like arrows or numbers.
Keep it simple by using them to break up the text in your captions to make them more engaging and increase their readability.
Importance of a Call to Action (CTA)
You don’t have to include a CTA in all of your posts, but you should in 99% of them! Calls to action allow your brand to engage with your audience and to generate questions, visits to your website or even to your physical store.
You can generate a call to action by including a question or invitation to discuss such as:
- Can you relate?
- Have you done this?
- What’s your favourite?
- Tag a friend that…
Another call to action is to increase your likes such as: ‘like if you agree’ or ‘like if you feel this way’. And to invite people to follow your account, for example, ‘follow us at @bekonstructive’ or ‘for more content like this follow @bekonstructive’.
A CTA that directs your audience to the link in your bio to take the next step is a great way to drive traffic to your website and allows users to interact with you on a platform other than social media.
BODY
Just like an essay or a story, your captions should have a body! This will save you time and make the whole process easier, especially for a long-form caption. Your body should include:
- Topic sentence (make it catchy as it will be the first thing people see)
- Introduction
- Address an issue
- Give solutions (with examples)
- Conclusion
- Call to action
- Hashtags
This list might seem like a lot, but the best part is that you have the power to decide the length of your caption!
Now that we’ve been through the ultimate guide for IG captions in 2021, we hope you nail your Instagram game in this new year. Remember that consistency is key! Give yourself time to learn, practice and become a pro at writing Instagram captions! We promise you won’t regret it.
Need help with you social media strategy?
We offer professional social media management services to support your digital strategy and your brand’s online presence. Enquire today to discover how we can help your business boost brand engagement, generate new leads and grow your revenue, all through social media.
