10 Tips For Writing The Best Instagram Captions

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Once you have your picture picked out that you are going topost, put some thought into what the caption will look like. Anyone can just quickly write something and post it up, but it's easy to want to make some adjustments later. The best Instagram captions will have a purpose, so before you start writing your caption, think about what your goal is for the post. Is it to reach new followers? To encourage a purpose?

Knowing your goal will help you to create a caption that is engaging and well thought out. Once you have a draft written out, go through and make any necessary adjustments to make it even better. It may even be beneficial to take a short break after writing your caption, write a new one, and compare the two. Instagram captions are like mini-blogs, so make sure you are treating it as such. 

There are over 1 billion users on Instagram, so no matter how specific your audience is, there is a huge audience who needs to see your specific content. Use your Instagram analytics to see your demographics. Creating content for a 25-year-old woman in the United States will be much different than creating content for a 55-year-old man in Australia. Having a crystal clear knowledge of who your target audience is, as well as your current audience, will make writing the best Instagram captions a breeze.

The best Instagram captions will attract users with the first sentence or two. Although you have 2,200 characters to write the best Instagram caption with, users will only see 2-3 lines before having to click "see more". You want to make sure that the important stuff is at the beginning of your caption, so they are more inclined to keep reading. Front-load the important pieces of writing and then save the hashtags and mentions for the end.

In order to write the best Instagram captions, you must know what your tone is. In fact, identifying your brand voice is just as important as knowing who your audience is. Whether you want to be flirty, light-hearted, or bold, it is important to keep the consistency. Ask yourself, "Which qualities are important aspects of my brand?" Create a list, and you will start to see how you can take these qualities and use them to create your voice. Another good exercise is to write down adjectives to describe your business, and then use that to determine the tone of your brand. Most accounts do not have a professional or formal tone, but it really depends on your specific brand, values, and target audience. A brand centered around children, such as Legos, may have a more whimsical tone to it than a high-end brand such as Chanel.

If you want engagement, sometimes you have to come right out and ask for it! One of the best ways you can engage with your followers and encourage them to engage with you is to have a strong call-to-action in your captions. Use verbs such as "double-tap if you agree" or "share your opinion in the comments" to compel users to do the action you are asking of them. There are so many call-to-actions that you can include in your caption, depending on what the goal of your Instagram post is.

Asking a question is a great way to get your audience engaging with you, which has multiple benefits. First, they will have their voices heard, which makes your potential customer feel good. When you ask questions, ask with genuine interest. Their answers may inspire you with new ideas for your content or even a new marketing strategy. Pay close attention to what your followers say and use the information going forward.

Encourage your followers to tag their friends. Be clever, don't just do this without reason. For example, if you posted a photo of a game you could say something along the lines of, "Tag a friend you would play this with." If you sell designer jewelry, you could say, "Tag your boyfriend, so he knows that you need this." Be creative; the best Instagram captions always are.

When creating your content, keep in mind the platform you are on. Instagram is a social media platform designed with short attention spans in mind. It is a place users come to scroll through mindlessly, not necessarily to read a novel. A long caption can serve its purpose here and there, but a general rule of thumb is to keep things brief and let the photo do the talking. The first 125 characters are all that someone will see as they scroll past your picture, making this the most important part of your caption. If you do need to write out a lengthy caption to get your point across, keep the good stuff in those first few sentences and make the rest of the text entertaining and easy to read.

There are a lot of tips out there about how many hashtags to use and what hashtags to use. Let's keep this simple. You will not be punished or anything for using all 30 hashtags, but it can look spammy to your current followers. Instead, use 3-4 really good hashtags at the end of your caption. If the hashtag fits in with your sentence, then, by all means, use it. As a rule of thumb, however, it looks nicer to leave them at the end of your caption. Using good hashtags can be a great way for new people to find you, so take some time researching hashtags and make sure that the ones you choose are attracting your targeted audience. To keep things clean looking, you can also add 5 vertical dots to break up the hashtags from the rest of your caption.

Your bio is the only place that you can include a link, other than Instagram stories on accounts with 10,000 or more followers. Place your newest blog post, products, YouTube channel, or anything else you want to get eyes on in your bio and create content with the intent to direct users there. Use websites like bit.ly to shorten your URL, so that it is cleaner and easier to remember for later if needed.

Does your photo have another person or brand in it? If it does, be sure to give them a shout out. If they see it, they may share it with their own followers, which could result in more followers, as well as likes or comments, on the photo from their audience.

Instagram giveaways and contests are some of the highest performing content. There is nothing more enticing than the opportunity to win some free stuff, so use this to your advantage. If you plan to run a contest on Instagram, use your caption to share what your audience needs to do in order to win as well as what they can win. There are 2,200 characters you can use when writing your caption, but they need to be used wisely. In order to make sure you have the best Instagram captions possible, write a few drafts each time before you post. Include the important stuff at the beginning and the hashtags at the end. A call to action is a great way to get users to engage.