6 Steps to help your captions stand out
by Sonali Shah-Kadakia — May 29, 2023
Comms Ninja Sonali Shah-Kadakia shares her tips and tricks to hook your audience with your captions. Read on to find out how you can capture your audience’s attention — fast!
Have you ever been scrolling through Instagram and stopped because the first 3–4 words of a caption were so intriguing that you had to read it in its entirety? It happens so often with me and as a brand storyteller, I dissect it into multiple pieces to study how they made it so interesting that I just had to read through the entire caption — whether I was attracted to the broader subject or not.
We live in times where our attention spans have dramatically reduced, even on social media, and we crave short-form content, especially videos. Gone are those days when people would use Instagram to write mini blogs. Today, you barely have a few seconds (between 2–3 seconds) to capture your audience’s attention enough for them to stop, pause, read, have an impact, and continue scrolling on. You have the most beautiful, perfect image that you want to share on your Instagram. How can you develop captions that make your audience stop and read? What are some things you should be doing to write meaningful captions? How can you make a lasting impression in less than a minute with powerful words?
Here are some tricks that I use to help write an interesting, impactful, and informative caption.
💡Keep multiple drafts ready:
Brainstorm and think of different caption directions to use for your image. Develop multiple drafts and test the captions amongst colleagues, friends, and family to decide which one to ultimately use. It is undeniable that captions make a big difference and need some thought before sharing them with your audience.
💡 Focus on the first few words:
It’s those first few words that will make your audience interested or not. Try to build some suspense or challenge the reader’s knowledge in the first 5–6 words to grab their attention. If you have a loyal community already, you will have some analysis on what works best for them. Use that knowledge and recreate captions that have received the best results.
💡 Let your brand voice be consistent:
It is important that the brand voice stays unified for loyal followers of your brand. For the sake of trying to capture a new audience, you shouldn’t make any drastic changes to your brand’s tone of voice on social media. Work within the framework and develop a caption that ticks all the boxes of being impactful and interesting.
💡Include a call to action:
If your readers have stopped to read through your caption, chances are they are interested in what you are saying and want to know more. Include a call to action, such as, ‘Click on the link in bio…’, ‘Follow us’, ‘subscribe to our newsletter’, ‘Buy our products/services from….’ Etc. This will enable you to build your audience as well as drive traffic to your website and services.
💡Indulge in the innate human nature of curiosity:
I discovered that when captions began with words such as ‘What we did to ……..?’ or ‘Check out the reel that took us 35 takes’ or ‘Chocolate and cheese — the surprising combination you never thought would work’ or ‘We had 36 hours to complete our biggest order. Here’s what we did/learned’ - I always stopped. The brands were betting on the basic human nature of curiosity. I wanted to know more and I sometimes felt I had to know because it seemed so intriguing. Harness the power of curiosity and interest to stand out.
💡Use hashtags:
Hashtags are likely to improve your reach and widen your audience. Do utilize meaningful and relevant hashtags to share your content with the correct audience. Personally, I like to see hashtags separated from the main content and not interspersed within. Be mindful of how many hashtags you are using otherwise, it seems ‘spammy’.
💡Pop Culture References:
Let your audience feel more connected to your brand — use applicable pop culture references. They can be a great break if you post information-heavy or technically heavy content as it lightens the mood, especially on Instagram. Instagram is still a leisure platform for most people, though vital for businesses. Using pop culture references also helps you understand your audience, and their interests and helps readers connect with the people behind the brand.
These are my 6 go-to tricks to develop a caption, on any platform, to help my client’s content stand out and be more visible. Work through these tricks and see your numbers and stats rise through the roof!
