Here’s the thing. ?There?s really no need in taking the time to write out captions if they don?t pull their weight.?When it comes to social media, your photos get people to stop, but your captions do the talking. ?So you want to make sure you create captions that get your followers to engage with you. That could mean they just leave a comment and share their thoughts, purchase a product that you?re promoting, visit your website to learn more about you, or even to book a consult. Whatever that action is, your caption should be good enough that your followers want to take action.
Because we live in a visual world and pretty much every social media platform relies on some type of visual component to go with your captions, I think we sometimes forget that once we hook people in with the visuals we have to deliver, but we must give some kind of value to get them to stick around. So, while your pictures may be pretty and eye-catching they can only get you about 30% of the way and you have to make sure that your captions are engaging enough to make people want to stay on your page.
So, how do you do this? How do you create captions that make your audience pay attention and get the results that you want? It comes down to 3 things. Those three things are who you are writing to, what do you want them to feel when reading your caption, and which actions do you want them to take next? If you can get clear on these things before you write anything, you?ll find that it?s a lot easier for you to create your content.
Let?s break down each of these three things so you?re clear on how to approach this:
Who You Are Writing To:
The first step is to figure out who you?re writing to. No, every caption that you write can?t possibly speak to everyone who is following you. It?s just not possible to talk to and appeal to every single person that will read your post. And, when you think about it, you don?t want that. You need to have those gems that when they see you, hear you, or read something you wrote, they feel like you are speaking directly to them. ?Those that are attracted to you will feel like your content was made specially for them. ?When people feel like your content was made for them, they become your patients for life. ?
Now, I know you may be providing different services in your practice, so to get even deeper into this, for every post that you write, you want to choose who in your ideal audience you?re talking to. Think about the topic that you want to talk about and choose one person who you want to help with that post. And, then write directly to them. I know that for me as a dentist, I provide various different services and all of those services aren?t right for everyone. The person who might want veneers may not be the same who?s interested in invisalign and I have to speak to them in different ways.
To learn more about finding your ideal audience, read this blog post! I break down all the details in there!
What Do You Want Them To Feel
Now that you know who you?re writing too, which is usually the hardest part, you can figure out what you want them to feel when they?re reading your caption. ?What emotions do you think would be running through them? What questions will they have after reading your post? What fears do they have? What things will they think about you, your brand, your practice, and your message?
Thinking about these questions is so important because now you can create a caption that addresses these fears, questions, and doubts specifically. You don?t have to guess what to write and this will make your caption a lot more meaningful and impactful to them. ?Again, you will be attracting the right type of people to your account.
Which Actions Do You Want Them To Take Next
The final step is to figure out which actions you want your followers to take after reading your post. This doesn?t have to be overly complicated, but it should definitely be impactful and meaningful. Too many people drop the ball on this piece and I don?t want that to be you. If you?re going to get intentional about growing your practice then you have to make sure that you?re putting intentional calls-to-action in your captions. ?Do you want them to call your office? Do you want them to answer a question? ?Do you want them to start a discussion on your photo? Think about what you want people to do, and then create the content.
I hope that this has helped you to create a solid plan for how you will approach creating your meaningful captions. As you can see it just takes some strategic planning to create captions that get you results rather than just throwing up a post here and there. When you get strategic about what you’re writing, it’s fun to see the results you start getting!?
As always, I have a FREE DOWNLOAD you can get to help you with this process! Click below to get the cheat sheet. ?It will help get your organized and help you with your caption creating strategy!
