A picture paints a thousand words. Right?
Not necessarily.
Yes, Instagram is a mainly visual medium but this doesn’t mean that Instagram captions don’t count.
Those few lines of text provide a critical context for your image. They’re also central to showcasing your brand’s image and personality.
It’s pretty simple. A great photo needs a great caption. Read on to learn how to write good Instagram captions for your restaurant.
These days, Instagram accounts are run by skilled, savvy marketing professionals. Young professionals have their fingers on the pulse. They know exactly how to relate to the Instagram community and how to get their message across in the best way.
Marketing campaigns are more elaborate than ever. Carefully curated campaigns include funny Instagram captions, pop culture references, and even quirky videos and Boomerangs.
It’s clear then that simply scribbling down a few words for Instagram captions if not gonna cut it. With over 700 million active monthly users, your posts will be competing with millions of others every day. Each of them is begging for attention, which means yours must truly stand out from the rest.
Good Instagram captions are clearly an essential part of successful marketing your restaurant. Time, effort and research must be put into your captions.
Keep reading to find out why great photo captions are such an important element when it comes to a thriving restaurant. We’ll also lay down a few important tips about how to write the best captions ever.
This first point is highly important.
You need to know which of Instagram’s 1 billion users most closely fit your business’ target customer profile. The demographics of Instagram show that the social media platform is used by people across a range of income brackets. It’s slightly more popular among women than men.
But these are just broad facts. What you need are details. The more you know about your audience, the better you can tailor your Instagram marketing strategy to their specific expectations and needs.
In line with this, it’s recommended to build audience personas. Audience personas are basically archetypes that outline details about target customers.
In creating these personas, it’s helpful to ask yourself the following questions. Where do they live? What kinds of jobs do they have? What do they do for fun?
Once you know the answers to these questions, it’s easier to plan your captions around the following kinds of questions. Should I add more context to this post? Will the audience understand this reference? Are emojis appropriate here?
Identifying your brand voice is the next important step in curating Instagram content and captions that work.
Again, there are a few questions you can ask to aid this process. What kind of words describes my restaurant? What qualities does my brand embody? What are my business values?
It’s useful to use the answers to these questions to help shape your brand voice.
Generally, Instagram users expect a more informal tone. A serious tone may put people off by dampening their mood. Restaurants provide a place for people to relax and have fun. They’re generally seen as a somewhere to socialize and unwind. Because of this, it makes sense to keep things light.
There’s enough heavy, depressing information on the Internet. Restaurants offer a place of refuge, a safe space in which to enjoy food and forget about the outside world for a while. It, therefore, makes sense to show your restaurant’s personality through playful, humorous captions and content.
It’s your goal to tell your brand’s story in a way that appeals to your target customers. If you achieve this, you know you’re winning the game.
Hands up if you’ve thought of the perfect Instagram caption a while after you’ve already posted the picture?
If your hand is up, you’re not alone.
It’s kinda like thinking of the best retort after the fight or conversation has already ended. We all do it. But luckily, there’s a simple solution. Don’t rush. Never rush the process of writing or posting a caption.
Rather write down a list of ideas for captions. Sit on them. Ask colleagues for their opinions. If you make it a more planned, measured process, it allows you to think of smart or funny captions. It also enables you to pause and think about how the captions will be received.
If you’re worried about the chronological order of your posts, you don’t need to stress. The new Instagram algorithms mean that the level of engagement your posts receive is now more important than chronology.
More and more, our Insta feeds are being ordered according to the moments Instagram thinks we’ll care about the most.
Your posts’ visibility in your follower’s feeds depends on the number of comments and Likes it gets and a range of other factors, like the follower’s relationship with the user.
For this reason, it’s essential to put time and effort into planning captions. You want to excite, delight and entertain your followers to keep them around. If you do, they’re more likely to actually engage with your posts and share them with their friends.
It’s clear why increasing the share potential of your posts and maintaining engagement is critical. An incredibly effective way to do this is by including a call-to-action in your caption.
Instead of just passively scrolling by your post, you want your followers to stop and actually do something. You can encourage them to do this by using actions verbs to prompt people. It’s been shown that verbs generate more shares on Twitter than adjectives or nouns. It’s the same for the Gram.
Some examples of these phrases are “share your own story in the comments” or “double-tap for more posts like this”.
After reading this, it’s obvious that compelling Instagram captions lead to better engagement. And, as we’ve learned in the article, engagement is now a critical factor used to order Instagram user’s feeds.
When you get more likes and comments, and your followers will see your photos and videos more often. We know that a good caption and funny photos lead to more interaction.
So, what are the next steps?
The good news is that you don’t have to manage your restaurant’s social media alone. If you’re looking for an agency to help you optimize your social media presence, please contact us.
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