Tips for Social Media Captions that Boost Traffic

Though a majority of people prefer visual media over plain text, one cannot simply forgo written content. A picture paints a thousand words, but social media is known for being fast-paced! Yet, it can also be quick to fizzle out. Avoid trying to say too much and not getting your message across with the right captions. Captions can draw in more potential customers. How, you may ask? Whether you’re a small business in need of massive traffic or a corporation that wants to reach out to its audience more, these tips for social media captions can help you out.

Statista says that, as of 2020, more than 3.6 billion people worldwide use social media. With a world population of 7.79 billion, that means almost half the world is on one platform at the very least. Furthermore, according to Sensor Tower, nearly half of the most downloaded apps in 2020 were social media. With this many potential customers to reach, one cannot ignore the potential influence a business can have on their consumer base if they tapped into social media for marketing.

Types of Social Media Posts

Brands get massive engagement boosts on social media with the help of social media captions. Attract attention, and the public will talk about you. Thus, generating traffic to socials and your company website. There’s a lot of ways to get people’s attention on social media. So, here’s a quick rundown on the kinds of social media posts you can make.

• Infographics
• Photos
• Memes
• YouTube videos
• Video stories
• IGTV videos
• Live videos/Livestreams
• Links to content
• Polls/surveys
• Contests
• Announcements
• News
• Holidays
• Guides/How-tos
• Quotes
• Text posts
• Articles, especially on blogs
• Reviews from customers

Here is a list of tips on creating social media captions:

Know thy audience

You have to figure out who you’re talking to on the site, or at least, who you want to hear what you’re trying to say. Customer data such as: what demographic is generally the biggest consumer of your product, what their motivations are in purchasing it, and their general interests (or hobbies), are going to be helpful for the next steps. 

Note: Try to be not too technical or too patronizing. Your customers should understand what you’re trying to tell them but shouldn’t be treated with kid gloves.

Do a little social media fieldwork

Find the lead social media posters of your industry and see how their posts engage with their audiences. Take the time to search for relevant hashtags and check the captions of their best-performing posts. Don’t just copy and paste. Understand what type of captions are the most successful among your online competitors. Have a look at our guide to the multiple social media platforms out there.

Keep your goals for posting captions in mind

If you have a business, you have a goal when making a social media post. You may want to connect with your audience and encourage them to go to your website. You can also ask them for feedback. Make sure to keep that goal in mind when creating your social media captions.

Be true to your brand

You have to be honest about what your brand entails. What do you have that stands out among competitors? What are your strengths? Your weaknesses? What are flaws that you have but intend to offset? Know what your brand is all about and own it!

Be genuine above all

Now, you may be a business, but finding that you have the same emotions and feelings as any social media user is how you connect to your audience. Show emotions through your captions. Give the account a personality. However, be careful it doesn’t sound forced—your audience can tell if you’re forcing yourself to relate.

Keep with the flow

You have to be in tune with your target demographic and the language they speak. Not just the terms they use, but also what’s closest to their hearts and minds. Have someone who is part of the target demographic in your team so they can check if it sounds authentic. Avoid terms your company uses but aren’t popularized or don’t mean anything to a layman.

Persuasion on occasion

Push people’s participation! Ask your followers any thought-provoking question (just as long as it involves your brand) that’ll start a conversation. This will, of course, invite more traffic as the engagement continues and gets bigger. While calls to action are great and boost engagement, make sure you don’t do it too often. No one likes to be told what to do all the time.

Keep it short and simple

If you’ve got a big visual as the post’s centerpiece, ensure that a long caption doesn’t detract from that. Social media users sometimes scroll through their timelines at breakneck speed. So, get creative while not going over the character limit. As much as you can, avoid having a caption that’s long enough to warrant a ‘read more.’

Don’t rely on clickbait much

Clickbait is interesting as it really does bring the audience to read your content. However, you still have to deliver the content that backs up your title. Take a page out of a newswriter’s book and put the action in the first part of the caption, if not the first couple of words. State the facts, don’t exaggerate, and avoid using passive voice. When creating a caption to go with your social media content, make sure that the juicy parts are front and center.

Connect with your audience

Once you have built a connection between your company and your audience, engagement will flow. It doesn’t only mean entertaining questions asked about your brand, but also listening to and accepting feedback. Figure out how your audience thinks and feels. With this, you can create social media content that’s relatable to them. Not only that, but you should also figure out the trends happening now. It’ll be a big help for fostering connection.

Speak to your audience, involve your community

Continuous engagement occurs when you invite people to share ideas. They love sharing opinions. They’ll be tickled pink that you asked! So, avoid one-line sentences and instead ask questions that prompt answers from your audience. Do avoid questions that invite heated conversations—frame your question in a way that allows for civil discussion. Questions can net opinions and talk about preferences. However, it can be a subtle way to ask for feedback. Doing a Q&A marks you not as a simple company with a social media account or two but as a brand that takes the time to listen to its dear customer base. 

Make your post worthy of attention

Post useful trivia, or brighten their day, or tell a funny story. It can be anything that aligns with your brand. You want something that’ll make them think that seeing your post and reading your caption was worth the time it took to read. People don’t go to social media to feel terrible about themselves.

Make it fun!

Though humor is perfect for getting people to engage with your brand, Social Media Today says, “it is not an appropriate tool for every brand and must be wielded with discretion.” Knowing what type of humor your demographic responds to is key to creating a relatable social media caption.

Tell a story

Everybody loves a good story. It doesn’t have to be a novel; you need to mind the character limits if there are any. Stories happen to people. Share something—tell them a good story. When this happens, don’t worry too much about the ‘read more’ limit and focus on telling the story within the necessary amount of characters.

Make it visual

Retaining information is more manageable when presented in a visual format. You can use emojis, and infographics, and even ordered lists! Videos that last less than a minute, like video Stories (especially on Facebook), are a perfect example of this social media tip as well. As for the social media caption tip, if you’re using a visual aid like a photo on social media, make sure that the caption and visual aid agree with each other. You may also be interested in boosting your SEO with images.

Include hashtags

How could we forget the hashtags? These helpful little things make searching for specific posts more straightforward than ever! To keep everything neat-looking, avoid putting hashtags at the start or in the middle of your caption. You can even space them away from the caption.

Add a dash or two of emojis

While having words in your caption is fine and dandy, you can spice it up with a couple of emojis here and there! Like the Egyptian culture of old, emojis can express a variety of meanings. Create social media captions like an Egyptian!

Walk a mile in your audience’s shoes

Try to think not as a content maker but instead as someone consuming social media content. Once you’re in the mindset, think about how you’re receiving the message that your brand puts out. You can even ask someone on your team—your marketing team, or maybe outside of it—for help. Who better to give you direction on captions than everyday people who know what’s happening on their feeds? You could also consider bringing in employees aligned with your target demographic. They can give you a perspective that’s in tune with how your audience thinks. 

Keep your ear to the ground

The main thing about being in a conversation is that you have to contribute something to the group. According to this social media tip, if you post anything that doesn’t suit the conversation or atmosphere, it’ll fail.

Give it a once-over

This social media caption tip says, before you hit ‘post,’ don’t forget to proofread your caption! It’s short, which means people can pick up on typos and incorrect punctuations easier. You can even have others take a look. Who knows? They might give you a new perspective on the caption.

And that’s it for tips on how to create social media captions!

That was quite a lot, but there are other ways you can write attractive captions. What do you think? Have we missed any tips for creating social media captions?

There are a lot of things to remember when creating captions. They may be just a few sentences long, but they tell a story, nevertheless. 

If you still find this overwhelming, you may want to speak to some experts. There are many social media marketing services in the Philippines.

About Axel May Rivera

Axel is an avid fan of many dramas and songs. She is always eager to explore and discover more when it comes to movies and entertainment, especially in Korean and Filipino culture. In her free time, she enjoys reading books and playing badminton.