Ever got a really good piece of social content with no idea how to caption it to make an impact?
Social captions can feel a little daunting, especially if you’re writing a whole month’s worth of content at once! To maximise your engagement and reach, there are simple things you can include in your captions to make your brand stand out against others in your follower’s feeds.
Read on to find out our marketing agency’s top five tips for perfect social captions to take your content to the next level.
What are the three parts of a social caption?
Firstly, it’s important to get the structure of your social caption right. The three key parts to any caption are the Hook, the Body and the CTA.
The Hook does exactly what it says on the tin: it hooks the reader in from the first line. As people are scrolling you want them to be drawn in by your caption, and encourage them to read the whole thing.
The Body should be informative. Tell the reader what they need to know about the post and any key information that should be taken in. The Body should link to your Hook to keep the reader interested and retain their attention throughout the caption.
Lastly, the CTA should be clear and direct. What do you want the reader to do next after reading your post? If the CTA is clear and concise, they are more likely to actually follow it. For example, direct them to a blog post, ask them to leave a comment or get them to save your post.
Want to know what you can do to make these parts the best they can be? Keep reading!
Nail your brand tone of voice
If your captions don’t match your brand, how can you expect your audience to be engaged with your content? Ensuring that your brand tone of voice is clear throughout your content is important for maintaining consistency and keeping your followers interested.
Think about what your brand stands for and what you’re selling. Is your brand cheeky and witty? Luxurious and premium? Corporate and informative? Your business and what you sell changes the way you communicate on social media platforms, and this should be considered before you write your content.
That being said, don’t be afraid to experiment if you feel your current tone of voice isn’t successful for you! You may find that adopting a different approach could engage your audience more, keep your brand values at the forefront but switch things up if you want to try to increase your interactions.
Utilise SEO within your captions
Ever gone to read a social caption and found it messy or hard to read because it’s jammed full of hashtags?
That’s what SEO is for! Social media platforms are steering away from hashtags as a tool for people to find you, and instead SEO focused captions are helping your post reach more people. TikTok is a large reason for this change. Their algorithm picks up keywords in videos users have liked to help create a more curated feed for them. So for example, if someone has liked a video about healthy recipes, your video will more than likely show up in their ‘For You Page’ if it includes keywords or on-screen text relating to healthy recipes.
As social platforms love to follow each other’s lead, we are already seeing less hashtags and more keyword focused captions across all platforms. This change is expected to continue, so it’s super important that you ensure your captions include relevant keywords to improve your reach.
One important thing to note – do NOT keyword stuff your captions! While keywords are helpful and take your social content to the next level, if your caption is purely keywords and doesn’t read well your audience will not engage with it. Find the balance between creating a really solid SEO caption, while still staying true to your brand tone of voice and creating content for your audience, not the algorithm.
Grab their attention
You DON’T want to miss out on this!
See, that’s how you grab someone’s attention.
You only have two seconds to grab someone’s attention as they’re scrolling their feed, so don’t lose their attention before you’ve even had a chance to grab it!
Short, snappy introductions that interest scrollers straight away are vital for engagement. Using rhetorical questions or a witty comment at the start of your caption gains the audience’s interest instantly and gives them something to think about. As a result, you will be more likely to receive engagement on your post as followers have stuck around to read the entire post, rather than just skip past it.
Use emojis (if it fits your brand)
Emojis are a great way to break up text in your social caption, as well as adding some colour and fun into the content. They can take a boring, uninspiring caption to the next level just by adding in some funky emojis that fit with the content theme.
To start out with, maybe create a bank of emojis that are relevant to your brand and fit with your content. These can be simple ones that are just intended to add colour or a bit of design to your caption. Don’t be afraid to play with popular or trending emojis though if you want to add a humorous edge to your content!
Although emojis are a great addition to social captions, you need to think about whether they’re right for your brand. It may be that you only use one emoji in your text if your brand is more formal, or you may use lots if your brand is targeting a younger audience. There is no right or wrong way to use emojis, it all depends on your brand’s tone of voice and who you are targeting.
Get witty!
Humour goes a long way on social media! Thinking of something witty to include within your social caption text can engage your followers. You can even tap into trends or popular sayings to relate to the audience you’re targeting and amuse them.
Think of a good phrase or pun to add to your content that still fits with the theme of your post, and your brand tone of voice. You may find this doesn’t work for your brand and that’s okay, but you also may find it boosts your engagement so don’t shy away from giving it a go!
Feeling like a social media caption wizz now? We hope these social tips have inspired you to mix up your social captions and give your accounts a refresh!
Read more from our full service Leeds agency: Punch Creative.