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3-Step Formula for Social Media Captions

Small Studio breaks down how to write the best social media caption.

As professional Social Media Managers, we do it all—the content planning and strategy, graphic design, caption writing, post scheduling, engagement, and more. Today we want to talk about everyone’s favorite: captions!

While images capture attention on Instagram, captions support the story those images tell. Who are you speaking to? Are you looking to educate, entertain, or engage that person? What info do you want followers to walk away with? And what action do you want them to take next? With all this in mind, here is a simple 3-step formula for writing successful social media captions.

The steps

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

1) The Hook

The hook is your first impression

This is the first thing people see when they start to read your caption, so you better make it engaging. You could lead with emojis and an action like ✨SAVE FOR LATER✨ or you can be more subtle about your teaser. Something like:

  • You’ll never guess what we’re doing.
  • 3 things to stop doing if you want [blank].
  • True or false…
  • If you’ve ever felt [blank], this is for you.

2) The Breakdown

Now you’re in the meat of your caption. What’s the message or info you’re trying to relay? When posts are designed to educate, it’s tempting to dump all the info. We recommend keeping it high level and breaking info down into bite-sized nuggets. You can also separate those bits of information with line breaks and use emojis as bullet points to help make things skimmable.

3) The Call To Action

End your caption with a CTA or Call To Action. Things like:

  • Tap the bio link to sign up.
  • Learn more on our website.
  • Book a call to get started.
  • Sign up for our newsletter to stay in the loop.
  • Get the full story in our bio link.
  • Shop while supplies last.

When you use Campsite.bio as your bio link, you can do all of these things at once. Your Campsite.bio profile lets you create a button for every CTA you can imagine, directing people to your website, newsletter, online store, video content, you name it—all with one click.

Our advice when setting up your Campsite.bio: Be mindful of the breakdown. Just like when breaking down your social captions, feature high-level information in your profile. Use line breaks and smart design and thoughtful structure to make your Campsite.bio profile super easy to navigate.

Caption Example

Let’s pretend we’re writing a social caption to support this blog post. Here’s what we might write:

Your 3-step formula for social captions ✨Save for later✨

✅ Hook ‘em

Lead with an enticing teaser to stop their scroll, like: Our #1 hack for [blank]... 3 things to stop doing if you want [blank]...

✅ Break it down

What’s your main message? Break it up into bite-sized pieces. Use line breaks and bullet points to keep things skimmable.

✅ Call to action

End your caption by telling people what they should do next, like: tap the bio link, visit your website, save for later.

Tap the bio link for our full blog post on successful social captions 👆