Caption Writing 101

Do you hate writing social media captions?

Trust us, you are not alone.

Almost 100% of our clients come to us with the same issue: “I have great content, but I get stuck when I need to write a caption and then I give up.”

Writer’s block is real, but it shouldn’t stop you from sharing valuable content with your audience.

Our team writes over 100 social media captions a week each, so we’ve put together a few tips, tricks and pieces of advice for anyone struggling with caption writing.

The Three Word Trick

For every member of our team, this has been our go-to trick when we need to work through a lot of captions.

We start by choosing our media (a graphic, photo or video) and jot down the three first words that come to our mind when looking at the visual.

For interior design clients, we usually note the colors, textures and furniture that stick out to us most.

For our restaurant clients, we note the first three ingredients we notice in the dish.

This allows us to include and highlight the most interesting and the most important elements in the image. This also ensures we don’t miss out on what the viewers are seeing and it’s a great starting point for a caption!

Keep it Short

It’s a caption, not a novel. You can keep things short, sweet and to the point.

Capturing and keeping the attention of your audience is paramount on social media– brevity is key.

If you can write one sentence, but you’re struggling to write more, it’s probably best to stop at one!

Let the Emojis Talk

Statistically, posts that include emojis in the caption perform better than posts without.

The color draws the attention of the reader and the characters add to the personality to the caption.

If you’re struggling with writing a caption, start with a series of emojis to spark some creativity! And include them throughout the caption to enhance your post!

Let Someone Else Talk

Quotes are captions, too!

Using quotes from experts in your field are a great way to capture reader attention while still delivering high quality, on brand content to your followers.

For example, Social Media Managers could use quotes from social platform founders, influencers and digital creators while restaurants could use quotes from Julia Child, Anthony Bourdain or Bobby Flay!

Don’t Overthink It

This is probably the greatest piece of advice we have for anyone writing a social media caption.

In the end, social media was created for and thrives off of lighthearted, fun content.

Don’t get too stuck on caption writing– it’s designed to be fun, it’s easily editable and you have a ton of opportunities to create content that will track with your audience!

If a post doesn’t resonate with your audience, it’s a learning opportunity and you can adjust your strategy on the next one.