How to Write Creative Captions for Your Business Instagram Account

Author: Rachel Durkan Category: Social Media & Digital Date: October 21, 2021

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. Despite its popularity, Instagram is often overlooked by businesses in their marketing and social media outreach. But it is an incredibly powerful tool for businesses to use, helping you to build a relationship with followers, establish your brand’s image, and increase your brand awareness.

Even though it is a largely visual platform, Instagram captions for business offer an opportunity to reach your business goals. Compelling captions can provide information to consumers, help them get to know you better, increase your visibility on Instagram, and create opportunities for further engagement.

Business captions for Instagram, or any caption for that matter, can be up to 2,200 characters in length and include up to 30 hashtags. Even if you use all that real estate (spoiler alert: don’t, if you can help it!), it’s still a relatively small piece of communications space compared to other channels. It’s imperative that you make the most of it when crafting Instagram captions for your business. You don’t have to be a literary genius to write captions if you follow these simple tips:

1. Start with strategy. Good business captions for Instagram support your overall communications strategy, align with your brand, help you meet your metrics, and are tailored to your target audiences.
2. Draw audiences in immediately. Instagram will cut off your caption after the first three or four sentences, forcing your followers to click “more” for any text that appears after. The best Instagram business titles put all the important information in those first few phrases and create enough interest for the follower to want to read the rest. Or better yet, when possible, make it short enough that they don’t have to!
3. Include a call to action. Engaging with your brand beyond reading the post requires you give your audience a call to action. Direct them to a link in your bio or ask them to enter a contest for a giveaway. Pose a question and encourage them to post their response in the comments. Have them share your post or tag a friend who might enjoy it. Request photos of them using your product and ask them to post them using your hashtag. The more your followers engage with your post, the more people will see it.
4. Keep it concise and conversational. Instagram is a casual platform, so be sure to keep your writing as casual as possible while still maintaining your brand voice. You don’t want your business captions for Instagram to cause consumers’ eyes to glaze over and alienate them. Likewise, you don’t want to bore them with heavy blocks of text. Focus on quality of content over quantity and keep Instagram captions as short as possible.
5. Tell a story. People are innately drawn to stories. Don’t just tell them something – paint a picture with your words. Using storytelling can help you craft creative Instagram posts for businesses and show personality.
6. Have fun with emojis. Using emojis can also add personality to your business captions for Instagram. Emojis can help break up blocks of text or direct readers to your call to action or other important pieces of information.
7. Use hashtags wisely. Hashtags are key to making your Instagram captions for business searchable. They can also add humor to your posts. Some businesses use them at the end of their captions to keep the initial lines looking clean, but hashtags can also be useful to break up text. However, cluttering your copy with too many hashtags could lead readers to gloss over them entirely.
8. Draft, edit, and refine. Give yourself the time and space you need to brainstorm several caption ideas for your business, write a draft of your caption, and review it several times before posting. You want to ensure that every single character is exactly what you want it to be before posting.

Instagram captions for your business should never be an afterthought. They are a great way to communicate to your target audiences and engage with them. Let us help you take advantage of the opportunity offered in Instagram captions to support your overall marketing and social media strategy. Contact our team at Paradigm today.