Social media can be so overwhelming, time consuming and frustrating. It sucks when you’re not getting much traction and it feels as though your posts are being lost in the void.
So how can you craft content that stands out?
Think about your audience – they are the hero of the story
It’s easy to become self-indulgent on social, but you need to remember your ideal customer at all times.
Is what you’re providing useful or entertaining? If not, don’t post! While it’s great to show vulnerability, as this demonstrates you’re an authentic human, make sure you’re not constantly making everything about you, without providing value, because you will struggle to make deeper connections.
Before you post, always ask your audience – why should they care?
Consider your business goals
Keep in mind that you’re running a business, and as such everything you do should be working towards a common goal. And this includes with your social media strategy.
What are you trying to achieve with each post? Do you want to get more comments or likes? Are you targeting a specific audience for certain posts? Do you want to increase your following?
Keep your goal in mind, and then ensure that your content aligns with this goal.
It’s also important to remember your business’s branding and tone of voice, making sure everything you write is consistent.
When you start to become recognised for a certain style and flare, you don’t want to upend this by muddling your tone of voice or diluting your brand.
Finally – always ensure your social media posts are telling an engaging story. It’s through storytelling that we make the deepest connections with other humans, so craft a strong storyline with everything you post.
What is your call to action?
Don’t forget to include a CTA in all of your social media posts! Even if it’s calling your followers to simply comment.
If you are running a competition, make sure you give specific and simple instructions (in bulletpoint form) to show them how to enter.
Keep your CTAs simple and punchy, with short sentences and easy-to-digest actions.
Make sure your most important, gripping sentence is at the very top of your social media caption to stop the scroll.
It’s handy to use Linktree in your Instagram bio so people can easily navigate to links you mention in your social posts.
Create maximum engagement
Always include emojis in all your captions, because they help to break up the text and allow the audience to better understand your tone of voice.
Ask questions in all of your captions to generate engagement and more comments. Asking for advice is also another great way to encourage user interaction because people always loved being asked for their point of view or for tips.
On Instagram, use the polls function to garner more engagement and to better understand your audience.
Another way to increase engagement is to continue to add value by offering one lead magnet every month to make your content all the more valuable. This will also help you to collect email data, which is a brilliant way to safeguard your followers should something ever happen to the social media platforms you use.
Remember – you own email data but you never have control over what social media platforms decide to do.
Finally, don’t forget to tag others in your posts and stories for the chance of re-shares. This will help to spread your reach all the way around the interwebs.
Hashtags… are they still useful?
Hashtags can still work to get a lot more eyes on the content, although there does seem to be a sweetspot with the number you use.
While Instagram will let you have up to 30 hashtags, it doesn’t mean you should use that many.
According to Hubspot, research shows that the optimum post actually uses 11 hashtags on Instagram. So it’s worth trialling this number and see if it works for you.
If you don’t want your hashtags to be as visible and distract from your post, you can hide them in the comments (but this can be difficult if you are scheduling content.)
Don’t forget to use hashtags on your Instagram stories, because these results will show up in searches too.
Take the time to research your hashtags
You can do general Google searches for popular hashtags, but I’d recommend going a little deeper in your hashtag research to find what ones will have maximum impact.
For example, see what hashtags your competitors are using on their popular posts, and consider copying a couple at a time to see whether they work for you. I’m not saying to copy them all, just trial one or two and see if you get results.
Use the search tool in Instagram to find hashtags and then see what ones your top followers are following and make sure you include these. You want to replicate your top followers by duplicating this audience, so it pays to know which hashtags they’re following.
You can also use Instagram’s related hashtags feature for more hashtag ideas.
It’s worthwhile to create your own branded hashtag and use it across all of your social media posts. Some larger companies have seen great success with this strategy. The hashtag doesn’t necessarily have to be your business name (in fact it’s more interesting if it’s not) – make it a fun hashtag that’s easy to implement time and time again.
Examples of social media posts that pop
I’ve pulled some fun social media posts from around the web to give you some examples of what kickass captions look like.
I love this post for its humour. It’s simple, straight to the point and announces a new product in a fun way.
It’s amazing to see that what’s essentially a colour wheel company can have such amazing branding and traction online. Pantone are anything but boring, and this post proves it. Once again, the use of humour goes a long way, and the image really makes the post pop.
This is a paid post but I like the way it gets straight to the point. Immediately, it’s showing you that it’ll give away an agency’s secret to drastically increasing its website traffic. For an agency wanting to grow, this post would be irresistible.
I’d highly recommend including your team members across your socials where possible. It’s a great way to demonstrate your strength as a team and the company culture. I like how this posts tells an engaging story.
Hubspot never fails to provide value to its audience, and this post is no exception. The caption thoroughly explains how tough its been for businesses during the pandemic, and what its doing to help these businesses to adapt.
Jumping on the bandwagon of events that are happening around the world is a great way to come up with ideas for engaging content. I love the audience participation of this post, how LEGO has tagged those involved, and the brightness of the photos.
Here’s another post that nails it. Although it’s sponsored content, the company has easily pinpointed a painpoint for its customers and shown how it’ll solve it. For wine lovers, this post would be enticing and I’m sure they got a number of sales through this ad.
Create kickass social media captions
And there you have it – some pointers on how to create kickass social media captions. I hope this post has helped you in some way. Do you have any pointers to add? Let us know in the comments below!
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