What Reels Caption Size Will get the Finest Engagement?

You’ve toiled away in your edits, filters and sound clips in your newest Instagram Reel and are virtually able to hit put up… however you then hit the caption subject. Time for an existential disaster.

Must you simply toss in a couple of hashtags and name it a day? Or is it time to wax poetic with a mini-essay? (Don’t neglect your third choice: simply delete the draft and throw your cellphone within the ocean.) All of the sudden, a enjoyable alternative to share on social media has grow to be a possibility to query every little thing.

With regards to Instagram Reels captions, it’s laborious to know simply how a lot is an excessive amount of — will a prolonged caption assist or damage your engagement?

Effectively, if you happen to liked my story on whether or not lengthy captions work higher on Instagram than brief ones, contemplate this the sequel and buckle up.

It’s time to discover out the perfect size of an Instagram Reel caption the one method we all know how: by spamming my poor, unsuspecting Instagram followers with content material and taking some candy candy notes.

Let the science start.

At the very least that was the case for my final caption experiment. Evaluating super-short captions and prolonged, detailed ones, we discovered that longer captions overwhelmingly led to greater engagement on Instagram Posts.

Our speculation is that Instagram Reels can be no completely different. (Want an Instagram Reels crash course? Right here! You! Go!) In spite of everything, with Instagram Posts, longer captions supplied extra data, extra alternatives to attach with followers, and higher search engine marketing.

Presumably, all of these advantages can even be true of Reels. However why presume after I can spend a weekend crafting 10 Instagram Reels and utilizing them as fascinating bait to search out out the reality? Time to place my caption-craft to the take a look at.

Methodology

To check out the perfect size for an Instagram Reels put up, I posted 5 movies with longer (125+ phrases). I additionally posted 5 movies with a short, fundamental one-line description.

I made a decision that each the long-caption and short-caption movies ought to be fairly comparable to be able to be sure that the content material itself wasn’t a think about any engagement.

As a result of I just lately accomplished an elaborate renovation and am simply itching to speak about it for hours at a time with anybody who dares to face nonetheless sufficient to pay attention, I made a decision that before-and-after content material was the best way to go.

I made a pair movies about my bed room (one with an extended caption, one with a brief one), one in regards to the lavatory, and so forth.

For every video, I grabbed a unique trending sound, simply to ensure Instagram didn’t assume I used to be being too spammy.

I additionally wished to do that to faucet into the ability of the Instagram Reels algorithm, which tends to spice up movies that embody music clips.

Ten movies went out into the world. Once I checked again 48 hours later to see how they’d fared, right here’s what I discovered.

Outcomes

TLDR: Instagram Reels with shorter captions obtained greater engagement and additional attain.

Whereas Instagram Posts with longer captions obtained greater engagement in our final experiment, I used to be shocked to see that shorter captions have been extra profitable when it got here to Instagram Reels.

I suppose I didn’t must spend all that point composing lengthy captions in spite of everything. However whereas these are minutes I’ll by no means get again, the teachings of my previous grow to be the knowledge of my future. (And I’m not upset in any respect that completely unbelievable inspirational phrase I simply coined is probably going too lengthy and wordy to ever use as a caption for a Reel.)

What do the outcomes imply?

As with all of those experiments, these outcomes ought to be taken with a grain of salt. I solely left my Reels up for 2 days, and clearly they have been closely centered on one particular matter.

It’s very doable that one other sort of Reel with one other viewers would’ve fared otherwise. I didn’t even use hashtags right here, in order that additionally could have impacted my attain.

However I believe there are some key takeaways right here — particularly that you just’re higher off spending your time honing your enhancing expertise than composing the right bon mot.

Reels are for skimming, Posts are for deep-dives

Reels, like TiKTok, are designed for discovery — so the folks viewing them might not be your largest followers or cousins who really feel an obligation to observe you again.

That could possibly be the reason as to why long-caption Posts did so a lot better than long-caption Reels. In case your viewers is simply watching your content material to devour as a part of an infinite stream of quick-to-digest video content material, a sturdy caption isn’t going so as to add a lot to the expertise.

Inform your story with the content material, not the caption

With Reels, it looks as if it’s finest if the caption presents supplementary materials, not a full-on backstory.

Make certain your video can stand alone, and is smart even with out the context of a caption: if somebody doesn’t learn it, they need to nonetheless really feel like they bought all the important thing takeaways. (In search of some suggestions for creating stand-out Instagram Reels? We’ve bought you lined.)

Faucet into the search engine marketing energy of captions

Simply because captions aren’t essentially the most fascinating aspect of your Reel, doesn’t imply it’s best to simply go away that subject clean. The caption is a chance to plug in a couple of sturdy key phrases and hashtags, to extend your probability of discoverability. Even when no human being ever reads your caption, the search index positive will.

After all, everybody’s social media account is a singular and particular butterfly, so your mileage could differ. The gorgeous factor, although, is that it prices you nothing to experiment for your self with how captions (or if captions!) give you the results you want and your private social media objectives. When you’ve poured your coronary heart into crafting the right Instagram Reel, a intelligent caption is basically simply icing on the cake.

Take the strain off real-time posting with Reels scheduling from Hootsuite. Schedule, put up, and see what’s working and what’s not with easy-to-use analytics that assist you to activate viral mode.

Get Began

Save time and stress much less with simple Reels scheduling and efficiency monitoring from Hootsuite. Belief us, it’s reely simple.