How to Write Instagram Captions to Deliver Engagement

您可能会认为Instagram与图片有关。精美的图像和迷人的照片无疑是Instagram的主要不同点。但是，几乎每个帖子还包括标题。而且，如果您希望自己的帖子脱颖而出，那么您也需要标题才能脱颖而出。

Instagram是一个社交网络;people want to engage with you. They may go there to look at attractive imagery, but they want to be able to comment on and share favorite posts with their friends. Therefore, they love you to show context in your images and give insights into your emotions.

人们花的时间越长，阅读和与您的Instagram字幕互动，Instagram的算法越好，您将增加您未来的Instagram帖子的可能性，使更多的受众看到。一些有影响力的人甚至借此机会使用Instagram字幕进行微博，以更深入地与追随者建立联系。

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How to Write Instagram Captions to Deliver Engagement:

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使您的标题与目标保持一致

Although less relevant for a personal Instagram account, businesses and influencers will generally set goals for their accounts. Often, they will make posts as part of an overall campaign. Therefore, it's essential that any posts they make, both the images they use and the captions that go with them, align with the goals of their campaign.

例如，Instagram广告系列的三个可能原因可能是：

1。开展宣传运动以提高品牌的可见度

2。Promote a product, perhaps for a sale or product launch

3。使用品牌Instagram主题标签收集用户生成的内容（UGC）

You are going to want your post captions to reflect the goal you choose. For example, you need to include your brand name and any branded hashtags if you're running an awareness campaign. You will need to focus on the product in question if your goal is sales, and you have to remember to include the relevant hashtag when requesting UGC.

如果您选择共享促销帖子，则可以选择包括相关的电话按钮，例如与我们联系，了解更多和下载。

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Think About the Length of Your Captions

关于标题长度有不同的看法。在一个极端，著名的名人可以用简洁的标题逃脱，有时甚至只是表情符号。

At the other extreme, some Instagrammers like to use their captions to write micro-blog posts like Beth Kirby | Local Milk.

Sprout Social recommends that you stick to captions of 138-150 characters if you wish to maximize engagement. They observe that Facebook recommends you cap your Instagram Ad captions at 125 characters to avoid your text truncating on smaller screens.

Later, however, has observed that caption lengths have risen over the last five years. The average caption in 2016 had 142 characters. This had grown to 336 characters by 2019 and was expected to reach 405 characters (65-70 words) in 2020. Later sees no reason why this trend will change in 2021.

Perhaps the easiest way to reconcile these conflicting views is to create a caption of the length that seems right for your post. However, focus on the first 140 characters that most people can see before they have to click on "More." Ensure that your first 140 characters are interesting and enticing to encourage people to continue reading the rest of the way.

Journalists often use the inverted pyramid style of writing, knowing that most people won't reach the end of their articles. Therefore, they ensure they place the most crucial information at the top of the article, gradually going into more detail as the piece progresses. They start with "The Lead," which states who, what, where, when, and how, in 1-2 paragraphs. They follow this with "The Body," which gives the crucial information – the argument, controversy, story, or issue. Then they finish with "The Tail," which consists of additional interesting or related information. If you intend to write a lengthy Instagram caption, you could use a similar style.

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Think Before Writing Your First Sentence

Whether you use the inverted pyramid style or not, the most critical line of your caption is the first sentence. This is where you catch your reader or bore them so that they skim over, take a quick look at your picture, and move onto the next post. Therefore, your first sentence needs to be compelling, ideally making the reader stop and think.

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Break Longer Captions Up For Easier Reading

更扩展字幕的一个问题是，如果您不小心，它们看起来像文字墙。Instagram仅为您提供有限的格式选项。如果人们看起来令人生畏，并且阅读它们看起来像是艰苦的工作，他们就不会阅读您的标题。

Therefore, it makes sense to break up your captions into short paragraphs of skimmable text. Modern writing doesn't use long paragraphs anyway. Look at most blog posts here on the Influencer Marketing Hub. They generally don't have more than 1-5 sentences per paragraph. So, you want your captions, even your longer ones, to be easy-to-read with short chunks of text.

Emoji, symbols, ALL-CAPS, and bullet points all help break up text blocks, too.

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确保您的Instagram字幕添加值

您必须让人们查看您的帖子有理由阅读您的标题。确保它们始终为您要共享的图像或视频剪辑增加价值。如果您编写增加价值的字幕，人们将停下来并努力与您互动。

Of course, your entire post needs to add value. Some people create posts for the sake of it, for example, sharing an image of what they've had for breakfast. However, if you share such a photo, you should use your caption to add context to your picture. Give people a reason to comment or like your post, even if the image is of an everyday activity.

Remember that if your audience likes your post, then it must be adding value to their lives. So, you can use an uplifting caption to add value to even the most mundane image.

Food blogger, Megan Gilmore, uses captions on some of her posts to explain the context of a delicious food photo or video and then shows the website where you can pick up the recipe.

Sometimes you might use your caption to expand on what you have depicted in your image. For example, your caption may explain what the image represents. Often people share memes or short gleams of information as their image. You can expand on these as part of your caption to give more in-depth information.

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Tell a Story With Your Captions

One of the main reasons many people prefer more extended Instagram captions is that it gives enough space for you to tell a story. People can become as engrossed in the story your caption tells as they are in the image you share.

For example, Annette White, on the Bucket list journey, uses her caption to explain how she needed some time out and decided to hike the Earthquake Trail.

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Include a Call to Action or Request For Engagement

与大多数在线内容一样，您应该包括一个电话（CTA），并要求参与您的Instagram字幕。请注意，在上面的示例中，安妮特·怀特（Annette White）如何试图将读者融入她的故事中，并提出“艰难的一周后如何重置？您可以在房屋半小时内探索什么酷新事物？”

您不必问一个问题。您可能只是要求读者保存或分享您的帖子或对朋友发表评论。

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Don't Be Afraid to be Personal in Your Captions

If you enjoy making Instagram posts for your friends to view, then you will have no problem with the idea of being personal in your captions. You're likely to be doing it naturally. However, if you're posting on behalf of a business, you might feel warier about this, thinking perhaps that it may come across as unprofessional.

但是，正如我们上面提到的那样，最好的Instagram帖子讲述了一个故事。这通常涉及分享个人图片或讲述一些与工作有关的故事。人们喜欢了解品牌背后的面孔，并通过个性化您的标题，您可以遇到更加人性化和相关性。它还可以增加人们参与您的帖子的可能性。

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正确使用主题标签

我们以前写过Ultimate Guide to Using Instagram Hashtags to Grow your Followers. Hashtags generally help you widen the spread of your posts and Simply Measured found that posts with at least one hashtag average 12.6% more engagement than those without.

Instagram lets you use 30 hashtags in each post, but just because you can use that number doesn't mean you should. You will gain no value from using irrelevant hashtags. Ideally, you should include plenty of relevant hashtags, however, to help your fellow Instagrammers.

For example, the post by Ashley Stark Kenner below shows an upmarket bathroom. Her caption is short, with just "Neutral but not boring. That slab.", some @mentions, hashtags, and an emoji. The hashtags all related to bathrooms, e.g., #bathroomdesign #bathroomdecor. She also makes a point of separating her hashtags from the main part of her caption.

请记住，使用主题标签的目的是在人们搜索特定主题标签时找到您的帖子。因此，您只应使用会引起您目标受众的主题标签。

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@mention - 但仅在相关时才

与主题标签一样，您应该将自己限制在相关的@mentions上。不要命名所有您想看您的帖子的人。您@Mention的人会收到一条通知，告诉他们您已经提到了它们，因此，没有什么意义地提到对您不感兴趣的人或您发表了您的帖子的主题。

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Include Emojis, But Not Excessively

表情符号为您的副本增添乐趣和颜色。此外，它们在帖子的“文本”部分中添加了一个小的视觉组件。您也可以使用相关的表情符号分解您的帖子，以使其看起来不那么局促。

但是，您需要使用合适的表情符号作为您所做的帖子。您不希望人们被一连串无关紧要或不适当的表情符号分散。如果您不定期使用表情符号，请注意，有些人已经发展了自己的生命和含义，这些生活和含义可能与您打算使用它们的方式完全不同。使用表情符号描绘水果和蔬菜时要特别小心；有些现在有解释quite different from their innocent appearance.

Of course, you can have too much of everything. Ultimately, people take the most interest in the image you share. A whole series of unrelated emojis can be just as annoying as 30 irrelevant hashtags.

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为您的字幕创建一致的样式

随着时间的流逝，您将吸引一群感兴趣的追随者，他们喜欢看您的帖子并阅读他们的标题。因此，您想创建在所有Instagram帖子中使用的一致样式。确实，您可能会在所有社交帐户中使用它的变体。

This doesn't mean that you write all your captions the same; you can have some variation. However, you should structure most of your captions the same way, keeping them a similar length. Ask yourself which hashtags and emojis you will frequently use. Will any of these become symbolic of you? How do you intend to show emphasis in your posts? What about line breaks?

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披露赞助的帖子

如果您推广赞助商品或服务，则必须在Instagram字幕中识别出这一点。FTC在美国明确表示您需要遵守他们的准则, and many other jurisdictions, particularly in Europe, have similar rules. Instagram makes it easy for you to use a "Paid Partnership with…" sub header. If you receive money to write a post, make that fact very clear to your followers.