Instagram is a visual platform, but your photos and videos aren’t the only way to stop your followers’ scroll. Clear, compelling captions are what bring your photos and videos to life. It’s important to make sure your captions are just as pawesome as your visual content.
Your captions are crucial to drive engagement with your pet’s content.
However, coming up with amazing captions consistently isn’t easy. Writing is a skill and an art, but you don’t have to be a professional writer to create captions with a bite.
This guide will teach you some simple ways to make your caption more double-tap worthy, including:
Why Do Captions Matter?
Compelling, creative captions = more engagement.
A great caption encourages more likes, comments, saves, and shares (i.e., engagement). And engagement is one of the key things the Instagram algorithm considers when ordering content in users’ feeds.
The better your captions, the more likely your current or future followers will actually engage with your account.
Elements of a Good Instagram Caption
Killer captions have a few things in common. They typically:
- Provide additional context for the post. A picture says a thousand words; however, never assume everyone sees the same story. Bring your follower’s along on the journey visually and contextually.
- Showcase your pet’s personality. The caption is the place to give your dog a voice. Let their unique personality shine here. This will not only make your content more interesting, but it helps you connect on an emotional level with your followers. The stronger the emotional connection, the stronger the relationship, community, and engagement.
- Motivate followers to take action. Great captions don’t stop with words on a screen. They push people to do something. That something could be engagement on your post or cueing them to interact with your account in some different way.
- Entertain, educate or inspire. Whenever you share content on social media, it must check one of these boxes. Always aim to add value.
Instagram’s feed is a noisy place and it’s hard to stand out. By spending some time to craft captivating captions will help.
10 Tips to Write Pawfect Captions
Coming up with clever, punchy copy every post, every time is challenging. If you’re not a natural writer, that’s okay!
Below is a list of 10 tips to help you write better captions that help your dog’s Instagram account stand out from the pack.
1. Speak to your audience. Who is your audience? Write to them!
In fact, write as if you are talking to ONE person. Give your ideal target follower a name and personality of their own. When you’re drafting your caption, keep that one persona in mind and write as if you were speaking directly to them.
Pupfluencer pro tip: Before posting your caption, read it out loud. Does it sound like something you’d actually say to a person IRL? If not, consider revising.
2. Write consistently. Use the right tone for your account, and use it consistently. Is your dog super sassy in real life? Then your captions should mirror that tone in every post.
Make sure your writing tone is authentic to your pet. The more genuine, the more it will resonate with your followers.
Whatever tone you use, keep it informal and fun. This is Instagram after all.
3. Keep it short and sweet. You only have a few seconds – if that – to get your message across. This is why it’s important to make every character count.
Instagram allows up to 2,200 characters in a caption, but just because you can use that many words, doesn’t mean you should. When was the last time you read a long-form caption?
4. Start strong. Consider the first sentence of your caption as your headline. This is what will pique your followers’ interest – or not. Get creative to quickly capture your audience’s attention. Some ways you can do this is by:
- Make a bold, intriguing, or controversial statement.
- Share an interesting statistic.
- Tell a joke.
- Use emojis.
- Reveal a “juicy” secret.
- Ask an engaging question.
5. Don’t bury the lede! Captions cut off after 3 lines (or 125 characters) so the most important idea or point must be first.
What do you want your followers to know, feel or do as a result of looking at your post? Lead with this!
If you do use longer, micro-blog style captions, make the first lines your best so your followers will be enticed to tap “more” to see the full caption.
6. Edit before posting! Before you hit “share,” take a closer look at your copy. What can you cut out to make it more succinct? Are there any spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors to fix?
There is always something to revise or cut for clarity, especially in captions.
7. Make sure your captions are easy to read. A few ways to do this are:
- Include line breaks to break up long chunks of text. Make it as easy as possible to consume your caption. If it’s not easy, they aren’t going to read it.
- Don’t include all 30 hashtags (more on that here) in your caption. This looks messy and hard to read. Instead, pick 1-2 of the most relevant hashtags in the caption and then post the rest of your hashtags as a separate comment. Alternatively, you can put all the hashtags as a separate comment.
8. Ask questions. Tell your story, but involve your followers by asking questions. This gives your followers a reason to engage with the post and helps establish a conversation and relationship with your furriends.
Types of questions you can ask include:
- Ask for feedback. If your post is about dog training, end your caption by asking your followers something like “What’s the best dog training tip you’ve ever received?”
- Ask simple binary questions. Asking a yes or no or multiple choice question requires little effort to respond to. Again, make your caption easy to read and make it easy to react to.
- Ask relationship-building questions. If you’re telling a personal story about your dog, be sure to ask your followers to share their similar experiences.
9. Include a call to action (CTA). People love being told what to do, and a call to action does just that. Encourage your followers to take action with your post.
Some examples of effective CTAs include:
- Share your answer in the comments (if you posed a question)
- Like if you agree
- Leave a [insert relevant emoji] in the comments if you feel the same
- Share this post to your Story
- Tag a friend that needs to see this in the comments
- Watch our Stories for behind-the-scenes footage
- Visit our website to learn more
Regardless of the CTA, giving someone specific directions on what to do increases the likelihood that they will take the extra step to engage with you in some way. And engagement is always the goal!
10. When in doubt, use more emojis! Everyone loves emojis – especially on dog Instagram. Can’t find the words? Tell your story using emojis!
Adding relevant emojis in your first line is a great way to grab someone’s attention and it helps provide context for the post. They’re visually pleasing to look at, add levity, and ultimately make your post more interesting.
Remember, the caption is the place to show the side of your dog that can’t be conveyed through a static photo or short video clip. We all know Instagram is a highlights reel, but the caption is where you make it real.
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