Bookmark this page and make sure you visit every time you come to schedule your business Instagram posts.
10 Examples of Instagram Caption Ideas
Post a How-To
People follow you because you know what you are talking about. You are an expert in your field. Imparting your knowledge to your eager followers is one of the most important Instagram caption ideas.
Solve a problem for a follower who is already interested in your niche, look benevolent and wise, and encourage likes, comments and saves, all of which tell Insta that this post is one that should be shown high up in your followers’ feeds.
Check out our Canva clean and simple Instagram post templates. We’ve created the image template for you, you just need to add a couple of personal touches to make it yours. These are perfect for illustrating a ‘how to’ post.
Share a Quote
As well as presenting your own wisdom, sometimes it is good to profile someone else’s too. A quote from a respected figure with a pithy, memorable, and relatable statement that is relevant to your business can do wonders for your account. People love to share them. The more shares you receive, the better that looks in Insta’s algorithm and the more potential customers view your content.
As Instagram can be a place where credits are not always properly attributed, make sure the image for your caption features the quote, the name of the person who made it and your branding and even website address. That way, if people screenshot it or save it to their camera roll, you still get your company name out there.
There are a number of sites from which you can source quotations, including BrainyQuote.
Celebrate a National Day
There are national and international days to celebrate anything and everything. From World Teachers’ Day to Talk Like a Pirate Day, each has its own following and, crucially, hashtag. People will be searching for that on the day, so create your relevant Instagram caption to capture some of the search traffic during that 24-hour period (or even longer given the different time zones). It makes you seem topical and relevant to those who see your post and allows new people who don’t follow you yet to find out about what you do.
One great resource to use to find out all about the national days coming up, so you can plan your posts, is Days of the Year. They even list the relevant hashtags you can use in your posts too.
Ask Followers to Fill in the Blanks
Likes are great, but comments are even better for showing Instagram that you make engaging content worthy of being seen by the widest possible audience. One way to encourage comments is to ask followers to fill in the blanks in a statement. People just can’t resist adding their thoughts when you leave a tantalizing opportunity.
You could create a Canva image with the phrase “The best item on a full English breakfast is ___________” and then see what people suggest, for example. The idea is to spark debate amongst your followers, who will all be convinced that their opinion is correct, and others are misguided. You can have a lot of fun with this in the comments.
Show Behind the Scenes
It’s a well-used phrase, but ‘people buy from people’. Yes, your brand and branding are important, but it is worthwhile reminding followers that there is a human being behind the business.
Connect with followers by sharing a funny, inspiring, unusual, or interesting story about your life and they will instantly feel more able to relate to you and what you are doing. This is key when it comes to making spending decisions. If they feel that connection, they could well be more inclined to use your organisation.
When scheduling your social media, make sure you let your fans glimpse behind the curtain once in a while.
Profile Your Inspiration
Every idea came from a moment of inspiration and your followers will be keen to see what inspires you to do what you do. Whether it is the person in your field who you look up to, a mood board of concepts that informed a product or merely the problem that you needed to solve that led to the creation of your business.
Show this off in an Insta image and use some storytelling in your caption to capture the attention of your fans and take them on a journey through your thought processes. This is another great way of making that emotional connection between customer and company.
Either/Or
People love to give their opinions, so encourage that to help instigate more engagement in your comments. For example, asking whether they prefer TV shows or films is a simple one, as is asking whether followers prefer staying in or going out.
Offering opposing options guides people to take a side and defend their decision in an explanation in your comment section.
You could even have fun with this and try a ‘would you rather’ type post. These are more creative situations with two equally good or equally bad outcomes, which requires followers to really think about their answers and justify them. One example would be ‘would you rather have to sing everything you wanted to say or dance all of your movements?’ Try making the question relevant to your niche to keep things on brand.
Take Part in a Challenge
There are a host of challenges out there on Instagram. These are often month-long events where there is a prompt every day for a different post. For example, one day the prompt might be ‘tidy’, the next day ‘fun’, the next day ‘mysterious’, and so on. Your challenge is to find something that fits the prompt but also remains in the voice of your account.
The great thing is that it encourages you to post every day, which is great for engagement, challenges often have hashtags, so new people will find your posts, and you can turn them into an opportunity to show off a product or service that you want to sell.
You could even begin your own challenge and be a leader in the field!
Make an Announcement
Don’t be afraid to shout about your successes. People want to hear about them. They love hearing about good news, so share away!
It could be a major new project going live, a milestone that you have passed as a business or perhaps a post about your business charity efforts, Instagram is the place to do it. Instagram caption ideas don’t always have to be about other people, sometimes you should make yourself the star of the show.
Share Before and After Shots
Instagram is ideal for displaying transformations. It could be a home renovation, a haircut, Stacey Solomon’s Tap to Tidy efforts or anything else where there is a stark difference between the before and after shots. People love them and are keen to see what your business does in order to create that change.
It helps people envisage how they can change their lives and situation by using your company and that takes them one step closer to becoming a customer.
Turn These Instagram Caption Ideas into Reality
Turn these ten ideas into reality right now, by using our Instagram templates from Canva. There are 97 templates to work with in order to illustrate the captions that will engage your followers.
You can also try our done-for-you captions and graphics package, where all you need to do is copy and paste the captions we have generated into your Instagram app. These are available on a pay-as-you-go basis, depending on how many you need for your social media. Download them today.
