Copywriting for Instagram

How the Right Copy Can Make Your Posts Even Stronger

Google “copywriting best practices” for most social media platforms and you’ll find countless articles by the usual guardians of content wisdom. For Instagram, not so much.

Well crafted Instagram copy can enrich the social experience by providing users with a more complete understanding of what they’re seeing. It gives brands an opportunity to pair visual and text-based storytelling in unique, creative ways, and brings context to images that provoke curiosity. After all, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but a thousand words can raise a few questions.

Copywriting for Instagram may be one of the lesser explored areas of content, but that doesn’t mean patterns and best practices aren’t emerging. Sifting through the Instagram accounts of brands and organizations reveals the organic growth of a several trends that I’ll boil down to a few best practices. Let’s take a look.

Understand Your Audience

What works on one social platform won’t necessarily translate to another. Experiment with your Instagram copy and see what resonates with followers. There’s no wrong approach, as long as you’re respecting your objectives and brand guidelines. Long or short? Does a certain approach pair better with certain photos? Do some hashtag choices gain you “Likes” instantly, while others are more slowburn? Take notes, and you’ll be surprised how quickly you start spotting trends.

Red Bull’s Instagram feed overflows with pics and videos featuring short, high-energy bursts of action. In a style that mirrors both its photos and product, the copy provides a quick jolt of motivation. It enhances the post and speaks to an audience for whom life’s greatest moments can be summed up in one quick quip.

Find Your Voice

Are you trying to convey an idea or a feeling?

While many brands use Instagram copy to raise product awareness, villa-rental superstars, Luxury Retreats, use their copy space to promote product vibes. Each post features a jaw-dropping image showing off one of their exotic villas, coupled with a short n’ sweet line that travels straight to the lust-for-life part of your brain (believe it’s called the chillocampus).

Keep it Short. Or Long.

Instagram gives you a full 2,200 characters to work with. In most cases brands opt for shorter copy to complement, but not overshadow the image. But when used wisely, pushing the character limits can create next level posts.

The Salvation Army US, features stunning portraits of people who help or have been helped by their services. Portraits are accompanied by testimonials from their subjects, creating a rich storytelling experience. Humans of New York also uses this strategy to great effect.

Engage

Post copy is your opportunity to take engagement beyond “Likes” by encouraging users to interact with your brand. Set a task, asking people to share the results with a certain hashtag. Or just ask a simple question that people can reply to in the comments. Both strategies have the potential to grow your base of followers.

Hashtags

Hashtags are one of the easiest ways to engage new followers, but using too many has become bad Instagram etiquette. Three to five hashtags seems to be the informally agreed-upon sweet spot, so choose wisely.

Herschel Supply’s Instagram feed features stunning photos of their products out in the field. Images are accompanied by minimalist copy describing the product and hinting at a key benefit. Their copy also stands out for the way it blends contextual and proprietary hashtags. Trending hashtags are used to set the scene, and attract new viewers. A proprietary hashtag is then dropped in to identify a specific product, making it easy for viewers to click and see that item in different contexts.

Be Bold. Be Unexpected.

General Electric. Stuffy utility company. Bastion of the egghead. Instagram star. The 124 year old industrial giant could have stopped with the amazing images they post. Instead GE’s Instagram feed couples stunning photography with words that share their sense of wonder and inspire a passion for discovery.

Followers can expect the unexpected, from in-depth looks at their newest inventions to bizarre 60s prototypes that didn’t survive testing. The result is a follower rate that dwarfs their competition.

Emojis

The big question to ask yourself: are emojis on-brand? The answer may not be in your brand guidelines, but your gut probably knows.

When used in moderation, a well placed emoji can provoke a smile or infuse atmosphere into your copy. There’s also something unexplainably engaging about them. When followers see an emoji, they sometimes get the urge to emoji back. But poster beware: use too many and your copy will lose readability and risk looking a bit unhinged.

Men’s luxury powerhouse, Mr Porter, do almost everything right on social. Using emojis is no exception.

Links

There are various theories why Instagram doesn’t allow links in posts: to reduce spam, to keep users in-app, links are ugly, etc. This can be a challenge for brands and marketers, but it’s a challenge we should embrace because the results can be positive.

Linkless posts open up true CRM possibilities; brands can converse with their followers in ways that feel more natural and genuine. Content producers can challenge themselves to create authentic brand stories, and users can engage with a company on a more personal level without sales objectives and CTAs muddying the waters.

Getting Started

Don’t feel pressure to cram every technique into a single post. Take the time to do a little research on Instagram, taking note of what brands are up to and approaches you like. Once you’ve done your homework, start with a chosen style and evolve it by altering it in subtle ways over time. The key word here is evolve. Making major changes from post-to-post can create a disjointed feel.

I hope this advice helps you create amazing Instagram copy that keeps your current followers smiling and attracts new eyes with each new post. To see how we put these rules into action on our own account, follow us @peoplelikeus_mtl.