How to Write Better Social Media Captions
In addition to the visuals you use, writing an effective social media caption is just as important for your social media content strategy. Whether your goal is to encourage conversation or get your audience to take a specific action, the quality of your caption is what will ultimately give you the results you're looking for.
Why Are Captions So Important
Photos are great for stopping your viewers from scrolling, but it's ultimately your captions that connect you with your audience, build trust, and encourage them to take whatever action it is you want them to take. Captions really help sell what you're actually trying to sell by providing your audience with a deeper understanding of the value you have to offer either through education or storytelling.
How well written your captions are can also be the ultimate differentiation between you and your competitor. If your caption provokes some sort of emotion your viewer is more likely to remember your product or service over your competitors.
Viewers don't engage with photos, they engage with captions. Your captions are what gives your audience a reason to follow you and come back to your feed for more. However, for many of us, followers aren't what pays the bills. So, more important than more followers, effective captions are what encourages people to invest in whatever you're offering, whether that be a product, booking a service, or simply getting more people to read your blog.
Two Main Types of Captions
There are two main types of captions: Conversion-focused and conversation-focused captions. It's important to understand each of these and how they will play out in your overall content strategy.
Conversion Focused Captions
The first type of social media captions we're going to talk about is conversion-focused captions. This caption type is focused on providing value through education, usually in the form of tips, tutorials, or news/announcements. We are strong believers in this caption type because we understand the power of building trust with our audience by providing information that will improve that person's life. We all have something we can offer that can solve another person's problem. When we help solve a problem, no matter how small, we build trust with our viewers that eventually lead to conversions.
We also love a good conversion-focused caption that gets straight to the point, but in a fun and entertaining sort of way. Sometimes we don't want to read those long lengthy captions, we simply want to know where we can buy that product your showing off in your photo or video!
It's important we mention that "conversion" doesn't always mean selling a physical product or service. For you, a conversion might be simply leading them to watch a tutorial video on your YouTube channel or reading a blog on your website.
Below are examples of conversion-focused captions we found particularly well written and presented:
Conversation Focused Captions
A conversation-focused caption capitalizes on storytelling which evokes emotion in the viewer leading them to either relate to what you're saying, reply to what you're saying or share what you're saying. When writing a storytelling caption to boost conversation between you and your audience, it's important to also understand how this personal story relates to your brand and your audience. Sharing a personal story not relevant to your brand to try and get more engagement will likely backfire and only create confusion.
When sharing a personal story, consider sharing things like why you're passionate about what you do, how got started doing what you do, or a recent setback in your business you had to overcome. It's especially important to be authentic when writing these captions considering your goal is to make a personal connection with your audience. Your audience is made up of real people who want to feel an emotional connection to your brand. Tell your story in a way that lets your viewers know you relate to them and you genuinely want to hear from them.
Or, if it doesn't make sense to share personal stories but you still want to boost conversation, sharing a cute or funny video you know will spark a reaction from your audience or an inspiring quote is another great way to boost conversation. We like to refer to this content as "share bait". Picture the posts you're sharing with your friends via DM and in group text messages or the ones you're resharing to your stories... These are the types of posts we're talking about.
To better help you understand how to write conversation-focused captions, check out these examples:
