four Steps To Writing an Participating Instagram Caption
Hit the publication on your Instagram posts and wait patiently for the likes and comments to come and they don't come? They are still waiting, waiting a little longer …
Getting engagement on Instagram is no longer what it was in 2010 – we can't expect to post and reach thousands of people the way we used to. Instagram 2020 requires a little more strategy, but it's not something you can't handle. 😉
We're marketers, which means we're not just going to create a creative caption for our audience – we're going to make sure we back them up with a strategy. We will use the worksheets to help us speak to our customers where they have experience with the problem our product solves and write a clear call to action asking them to do something after reading our post to do.
Here's what we're going to use to create an engaging Instagram caption:
And we're going to break it down into 4 steps:
- What pain point and / or what challenge does your customer avatar have?
- What transformation do they get in removing this pain point or solving the challenge?
- What can you say that will make them like you more?
- What's your call to action?
Okay, grab your coffee and your blue light goggles – it's time to switch to write mode.
First step: pain point / challenge
If you think: "Doesn't that kind of sales page start?" Then we know that your coffee cup is already empty and your eyes are on the price. You're right: sales pages start with the pain point / challenge that a listing will solve.
We call this the preliminary state. It is the state someone is in BEFORE they buy your product. If your Instagram post was an infomercial, this is where they start very Talk dramatically about the problem the product solves. 😂
This is what the before-and-after status grid looks like:
Since you don't create a single Instagram post and walk away (content consistency is key), you'll highlight multiple weaknesses and challenge your customer avatar throughout your content (a.k.a multiple before and after states). Every Instagram caption should highlight a pain point or challenge.
Just like with a sales page, we want to start with a before status that will grab our audience's attention. It's the catch that makes them think, "Wait, I need to read more." For example, Sunny Lenarduzzi's audience trying to scale online wants an engaged social media audience (just like you ☺️).
To interest her, she starts her post with her pain point: she wants a more engaged audience on social media. She transforms that pain point into her opening line, "The # 1 Secret for a Highly Engaged Audience on Social Media 👇🏻".
Your audience (and anyone else who comes across this post on Instagram) will immediately know if this post is for them. This is the beginning of the secret to using Instagram closed captions: make sure they are written for a specific person.
She keeps her audience tied up by putting them in their previous state with her second paragraph.
"I've taught a ton of social media tactics over the years. And the tactic is great. I can teach you SEO and hashtag strategies for days … but without that SECRET ingredient, you could use all the tactics in the world and always see." no growth yet. "
After she has painted the picture of the before-state, it is time to give her audience the after-state that comes with dealing with this post.
What pain point and / or what challenge does your customer avatar have?
Here are the weak points and challenges of our customer avatar to give you an idea of what you are aiming for:
Step two: the transformation
Now that you know where your audience is starting, it's time to lead them in the direction you want them to go. We call this the After State – it's the place they get to once they have the transformation they're looking for. You will show them how well you know what their goals are by speaking to this transformation directly.
In Sunny's case, it's time to lead her viewers to change who they become when they have an engaged social media audience.
"If people aren't interested in your story, your journey, your experience, they don't care. Period. Social media is based on a system of leaders and followers. So you have to see yourself as a leader in order for people to want to follow you. I'd rather say you have to see yourself as a hero. How? "
Swipe ➡️➡️ to see the 6 questions that will help you identify the root of what YOU should be sharing and talking about on social media. And tomorrow I'm going to show you on YouTube exactly how to create an endless stream of content ideas that positions YOU as the hero that everyone wants to follow. "
What transformation do they get in removing this pain point or solving the challenge?
Here is an example of the before and after status grid for one of our customer avatars: Marketing Managers:
Step three: make viewers like you more
Since the people who follow you on social media have already shown you like them by clicking the Follow button, we want to remind them with your Instagram caption. People deal with Instagram posts that make them feel like they are understood and can relate to. So here's the part where we're going to take advantage of your post's relativity.
If you don't know how to deal with your target audience, here is the Client Avatars Worksheet. This worksheet will tell you who your target audience is, from their goals to the podcasts they listen to. You will get tons of information on how to relate to them on a deeper level.
Returning to Sunny's post, she shares about her audience of business owners and their challenge of not knowing what to do to get involved with Instagram. She relates to them by talking about something they are used to in their seemingly endless quest for more engagement: tactics.
"See, tactics bring you what I call 'drive by followers" – they see you on their feed, you give them something they want, and then they forget you. It's dangerous. Take it from someone who recently got rid of those "drive by followers" but is also seeing a MASSIVE increase in views and engagement. If people follow you for tactical reasons and don't bother with YOU, the algorithm gets messed up. How? Because the algorithm sees you have all of these followers but terrible commitment to your content and that tells the algorithm your content needs to suck and that's why they stop showing it to people
Getting to the root of YOU and emerging in a way that only you can because your experience and story are unlike any other on this planet. THAT is what gives you a tough audience for a lifetime and makes your engagement skyrocket. "
That extra ounce to get viewers to like you makes their post so much more reliable and increases the chances of someone saying, "This isn't just another tactic. It GETS me, so I bet it actually does will work. "
At DigitalMarketer, we use the Customer Avatars Worksheet to find out what the real goals and values are behind our avatar's wishes. For example, here's an example of what these look like for one of our customer avatars:
What can you say that will make them like you more?
Which perfectly guides us in our call to action …
Step four: call to action
Just like with a sales page, your call to action is extremely important. If you don't ask your audience to take action after you post, they won't know you want them to get involved! Yes, you heard us right – for every Instagram post you're looking for an engagement you need to ask for that engagement.
See how Sunny asked her audience to comment on her post.
"So, I'm curious what kind of lightbulbs triggered these questions? 💡👇🏻
Let me know in the comments! And we'll see you on YouTube to show you how to create content that tomorrow nobody can keep up with 💪🏻 "
Almost 300 comments later and Sunny nailed her CTA.
On top of that, she created so much value that her audience took an extra step to engage with her Instagram post – they saved it so they can come back to it later.
This is how you create an engaging Instagram caption that comes out of the park. ⚾️
Remember, all you have to do is answer the following 4 questions to create your own engaging Instagram captions:
- What pain point and / or what challenge does your customer avatar have?
- What transformation do they get when removing this pain point or solving the challenge?
- What can you say that will make them like you more?
- What's your call to action?
Make sure you bookmark this article so that you can refer to it when you sit down to write your next Instagram captions. 🤓
