Instagram is a visual social channel with great photos and engaging videos. Instagram is also about the text in your captions. The words you share are a key part of your Instagram marketing strategy, too!
Write great Instagram captions for context
The text you place in your captions provides important context for the photos and videos in your posts.
- Write helpful captions that describe, educate, and entertain.
- Always include relevant hashtags.
- Mention people or products when appropriate.
Never place hashtags in a new comment!
Place all of your relevant keywords and hashtags in your captions, and not in a new comment.
This advice comes from Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram. He shared in a recent blog post that hashtags will never work for you when they’re placed in your post comments.
Hashtags belong in your captions!
Use keywords that are relevant to your Instagram post
The text in your captions should be relevant to the subject. Your keywords and hashtags should relate to what’s showing in your photo or playing in your video.
Keywords in your captions help you appear on the Explore page in the Instagram app. When people express an interest in those keyword topics through a search, you have a better chance of appearing in the results and being found by new Instagram users.
Go ahead – use the entire caption!
Instagram gives you a lot of space for great captions. Why not use as much space as you can?
Instagram gives you 2,200 characters to work with, or close to 300 words. That’s a short blog post!
You don’t have to write a long, drawn out caption for every post. However, you should add more than just an emoji and a hashtag.
Always use the text caption! Take the time to describe, education, and persuade with your words. This strategy will help you generate new leads!
How many hashtags can I use in an Instagram post?
Instagram lets you use up to 30 hashtags per post. Make sure your hashtags are relevant to your new post. Never paste the same hashtags into every post - they need to be relevant so you're not seen by Instagram bots as a spammer.
Do Instagram hashtags go in the comments or the caption?
When you add your hashtags in your caption, everything is posted to Instagram at the exact same time as your photo or video. This is the best Instagram strategy. Hashtags in the caption will help you get found in search results which helps expand your reach. Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, does not recommend posting hashtags in a comment.
