Caption this...

High quality content is more than an aesthetic picture. As someone with an English degree I find the caption part of social media posting the hardest, but also the most rewarding.

See it is easy to post ‘me in Liverpool today’ but it means nothing to anyone but you. Funny, engaging, thought provoking captions combined with relevant hashtags and high-quality images are going to help you reach more consumers and increase your chance of finding more clients.

One of the most famous Instagram image captions was posted by Anna Victoria. Anna is a personal trainer who owns her own company ‘The Fit Body App’. In 2016 one of her posts went viral in the mainstream media because of its engaging and thought-provoking caption. The post talks of the difference between Instagram and reality of fitness posts, smashing social conditioning and keeping it honest and truthful.

This campaign was so successful because there was a sense of rawness in the caption, it made people stop and think and reflect. According to Cosmopolitan this post received three times as many likes as her normal #fitspo posts.

This post created a wave and other fitness influencers and trainers joined her by sharing their #30secondtransformation images, with detailed captions explaining their own struggles and mentality towards the online fitness world and the message it portrays.

Here are my three tips for awesome captions on social media:

1. Specific to audience

If you wish to increase your social media reach and engage with current or potential clients, then you must know your audience. One of the first categories to consider when launching a product or service is the customer. In this way captions need to have the audience in mind. Attempting to target teenage girls then colloquial language is appropriate; whereas the same language used to target businesspeople would not be successful and deemed untrustworthy.

2. ‘Tone’ of voice

One of the biggest lessons I took from my academic English education into my business, is the importance of creating a tone of voice in writing. Lexical connotations craft a tone of voice for the reader, whether that be in captions, blogs, articles, etc. When we understand our audiences we can understand which language to use to create the appropriate mood for a strong social media presence.

3. Call to action

A call to action is the psychology of persuasion used to engage your audience through your captions. This could include inviting people to click on a link to visit your website or read a blog or answer question. However, including a call to action should not be included in every caption - would you like a friend if they constantly told you to do things? Used effectively a call of action can immensely increase click through rates - according to Protocol 80 ‘Using CTAs on Facebook posts can boost click-through rates by 285%.’

In summary, captions are more than a simple sentence at the bottom of an image. Engaging, thought provoking or funny captions can help capture an audience’s attention and help increase click through rates to your website, blog or other social media pages. Next week I am going to analyse the importance of community in your marketing strategy.

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