Caption creation is another tricky part of the Instagram game. Depending on what your graphic or video is about, you are most likely sharing things in your caption  related to education, lifestyle or your personal life, as long as you own and run your own business. When it comes to showing your personality, you want your audience to get a better idea of who you are and what you value, without being over the top. 

 If creating your Instagram captions is slowing you down from having an awesome content marketing strategy on Instagram,  you’ll want to read on as I’m going to give you

5 Hacks To Create an Authentic Post on your Instagram Business Account  

In order for your Instagram account to show success in numbers and in relationships, engagement is the key. Engagement helps us turn our followers into customers. Engagement is all about building relationships with your followers and even other accounts  who could potentially be a part of your target audience. I try to let my followers get to know me, so they are comfortable enough to engage with me, which then can turn them into customers. 

One relieving factor is that any photo or video you have can become a great personal post. Maybe it’s what your Friday night looks like, a selfie or just a picture of something you love. 

Here’s how you can be authentic in your Instagram captions:

Use Song Lyrics 

Write two lines of a song's lyrics. Then, write one line of why you love that song. Lastly in the body of the text, mention where you were when you heard the song for the first time. To close the post, ask the audience their favorite song to get them to engage with your post. This is a great way to tell a short story about yourself.

Critique Your Outfit 

Posting a picture video of you in an outfit and critiquing it makes for a real look into your personality because we are our biggest critics. Here's an example. “I love these heels so much. I sure wish I was wearing them out to a night with my husband, but instead, I am headed to the PTA meeting.”

 So that just shows you my new shoes, maybe what kind of style that I like. It shows you that I love going out with my husband, but that I'm also a good PTA member. Right? 

What You Don’t See 

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Any photo or video works for this. Maybe it’s a picture of your neat and tidy working space. You may have your fancy Mac Laptop, a candle burning and your Starbucks coffee to top off the aesthetic. However, in the caption be authentic. Tell your audience what they don’t see.  Maybe it’s your trash can overflowing, the pile of laundry that is over 3ft tall or your papers spread out everywhere. This is a great tactic for making your audience realize that our ‘perfect’ Instagram grid doesn’t 100% define us. It tells your audience so much more about you! 

First, last, best, worst. 

Look at a photo, and if you can't think of anything, think about the first time you experienced something with that photo, the last time that you experienced it, the best or the worst. Check this photo out. The first time I saw my first house in Miami was the day we moved in. We made a quick move, so we put a deposit on a rental house sight unseen in Coconut Grove. It was December 29, 2011, and when I turned the corner on my new street, Poinciana Avenue, there was a woman in a bikini watering her lawn and seven peacocks strutting their stuff down the road. I called my best friend and said, "OMG, I'm having a panic attack. "I've moved to a tropical paradise in perpetual summer. "It is so surreal." I like this. It shows you that my first experience in Miami, I was very naive to where we were moving. And it also maybe showed you that I was a little brave. I was agreed to move into a house sight unseen thousands of miles from where I'd called home for awhile in Dallas. So this is a great strategy to let people get to know you. 

Be Magnetic

Everybody would like to have a magnetic personality, where we attract people to us. But that  also means we repel people. This works well on Instagram because it helps us get rid of those people that aren't interested in working with us or that don't care about our businesses. Instagram only shows our posts to a percentage of our followers, so we don't need Instagram showing our posts to people that aren't interested in us anyway. So let's use a magnetic caption to repel those people. 

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Be bold and take a stand. Be authentic, be you. The followers that love us will be attracted even more. For those that maybe disagree, it repels them and they get on with their business. The fun part about this is, it can be very serious, but it could be about something going on in your neighborhood, at your school, or it could be silly. It can really allow your personality to be seen. 

Once you’ve created your Instagram caption, you’ll see the results of your post. Did your audience respond positively or negatively? Did the post get comments?  Likes? Chances are if the post didn’t get a great response, then that account probably wasn’t meant for you anyway. Your Instagram is just that, yours. It’s a safe space for you to be authentic while making great connections along the way. 

Try some of these Instagram caption strategies out! I’d love to hear from you..which ones worked the best for you, which one’s didn’t? For creating the perfect Instagram post, head to another blog here.