There’s no denying that social media sites or the so-called online market is now in such a success that it is a venture that shouldn’t be missed by businesses.
Nowadays, online-selling won’t be complete without pages and accounts created on various social media sites for businesses and brands. This is not only to advertise but really to market and actually sell.
However, though they may be a lot of good marketing materials such as photos and videos, businesses still won’t make a difference especially without proper and effective captioning.
Captions serves a lot of different purposes from promoting the brand, introducing products, explaining mechanics to calling for action (buying, following, liking and commenting)
What makes compelling captions?
Caption length
There’s no right or wrong length when it comes to caption writing. If your post adds value or is interesting, people will read it. However, if you’re in doubt whether a post is too long, you’re better off erring on short side.
Most sites don’t have much limit to captions (except twitter) so you can make longer ones if you like. Just make sure they were creative and enticing because most users don’t have time to read long and boring captions.
Making the most of the first sentence
Whether you like it or not, this holds your only chance to grab the interest of potential buyers. So, if you fail to succeed on making your first lines interesting, then people would probably just scroll past your posts. Plus, some sites cut the length of captions and hide the other parts to be revealed only when clicked. So, you really have to think thoroughly about what needs to be put on this first line.
Including a call to action or ask a question
Aside of describing or narrating, your caption should also have a sense of purpose and intention, such as leading the readers to do a specific goal such as visit your website, buying a specific product, share the post with friends, shopping a promotion, enter a contest or giveaway or even snap photos and share using a specified hashtag (this is a great way to collect user generated content)
Your goal is to encourage engagement in order to initiate constant dialogue and conversation. Know that most sites have an algorithm which looks at engagement as a metric to serve your posts to followers. Encouraging engagement also increases the likelihood your post will appear in other users’ feeds as a “recommended account” to like or follow.
Writing like a real person
People find fun on content and captions that are witty where they can relate. Actually it’s more interesting if you write captions as you speak. You may want to be strategic and intentional, but you also want to come across natural and like a friend to the user. Even if you are taking the name of a brand or business, you can sound like a regular person and you’ll be amazed how people would love to interact with you.
Being strategic is the key because it opens an opportunity to show off your brand personality. The message is the medium. So use it wisely. Also, take note that you have different audiences on different social media sites. Use that knowledge to personal and relate you captions to them.