Have you ever created beautiful content and you’ve got a good Instagram caption for it all written down — only for Instagram to cut you off with the “more” action?

Yeah, this right here. 👇

Just at that point when you’re about to give the perfect description of your content — It pops in. And in some cases, it affects your overall engagement and click-through rate.

What if I told you there’s a way you can use this to your advantage?

You can make the “more” action part of your secret Instagram strategy in 2021. 😲

Before you begin to deep dive into creating content for Instagram, you need to understand that for people to engage in your content, they need to stop scrolling.

Not just that, they also need to spend time viewing it and performing an action.

And one of the key things that make people stop whatever they’re doing on Instagram just to spend time on your content is — your Instagram caption.

You might not know this, but Instagram values time viewed on content and other low levels of engagement metrics such as expanding the caption (clicking “more”) and the caption read time.

Now, getting people’s attention on Instagram can be difficult as users spend an average of 53 min per day on the platform. That might not seem like a lot of time but consider how Instagram has over 1 billion active users per month.

But here’s the thing, you don’t need that much time on your content to drive good engagement for your posts.

Putting effort in creating good Instagram captions that make your audience want to click “more”, double-tap, and leave a comment is the best thing you can ask for.

Let’s cover 3 important tips on how you can entice your audience with your captions and capture those double taps!

Start by using the perfect length for your captions

Instagram is a busy place, and everyone is scrolling through their feed to see what’s of interest to them.

No one can argue that your content determines the engagement you’ll get, but one thing a lot of people miss out on is the length of their Instagram captions.

What is the perfect length for an Instagram caption?

Writing good Instagram captions can be quite tricky if you have no idea on the perfect length to abide by.

Nonetheless, it all depends on the type of audience you have or perhaps are targeting.

Instagram allows up to a 2,200-character limit but will only show around 140 characters before someone has to click the “more” action to see the rest.

In some cases, you can have a simple Instagram caption that says what your content is all about — and you don’t necessarily need people to click “more”.

This one is common among big brands like this one from ASOS.

On the other hand, if perhaps your Instagram captions exceed ~140 characters, the “more” action will be displayed.

Here’s how you can use it to your advantage:

The beginning of your caption will determine if someone will click-through. So, make sure you have a perfect start that sets up curiosity in order to lead your audience on.

Take a quick look at this example and notice how the caption is well-positioned with “here’s a little preview” to make you click “more”

They then went into detail on what the picture is all about.

You can use this exact strategy for your next Instagram caption — but make sure your caption corresponds with your content.

Make use of a line break

If you’re not a fan of long Instagram captions, but you still want to capture your audience’s attention with the “more” action, then using a line break could be your go-to strategy.

As it says in the name, line breaks are empty lines that break up your content.

When you use a line break in your Instagram caption it immediately triggers the “more” action and this is where the magic happens.

With a line break, your simple Instagram caption can have the “more’ action and that can arouse curiosity in your audience to want to know more about your content.

Not only that but it can also improve the readability of your Instagram caption.

Let’s look at this Instagram caption that is kind of hard to read how it is structured.

A perfect way to get the best line breaks for your Instagram caption is with a line break tool.

With this tool, you don’t have to worry about the character length of your Instagram captions, all you have to do is simply copy, and paste — it’ll sort out the rest.

Here’s how you do it:

Head over to a line break tool and paste your Instagram caption (you can include your hashtags if you like).

Make sure you include lines in between the sentences that you want to separate.

Now click “Copy to Clipboard” and you can paste it on your Instagram post.

You have to use a line break tool otherwise Instagram will take the lines that you put between your sentences and turn them into spaces. This removes the whole purpose and leaves us with a caption made of a paragraph of sentences that is hard to consume.

Remember our original Instagram caption example?

Now check it out after we put in a few line breaks.

Now a user is enticed to click “more” and it made the overall caption more readable.

Be sure to still entice your audience with your caption and not just use the new lines to trigger the “more” action.

Related: Top 10 Places to Find Niche Instagram Hashtags in 2021

Create a caption that makes people want to click

Less recognized engagement metrics such as people clicking “more” to read your captions can be a deal-breaker for you on Instagram.

But the only way to do that is by having your content align with your caption in such a way that makes them curious as to what you have to say.

A lot of people make the mistake of copying the same thing in their content as their captions — especially if it’s text-based photo.

This is a bad use of your Instagram caption. 😭

If you have text-based content, you should use your captions to explain further to give better context.

Take a look at Entrepreneur’s Instagram post and notice how their caption drives curiosity before the “more” action pops in.

— Start a business in 2021 with this “HOW TO” guide.

This first part of the caption is half-baked information — not much detail, but enough for their audience to know what the post is all about.

With this part of the caption leading you on, you’re driven to click “more” and get the complete information about the promotion.

The key to writing your caption this way is to not give away the most valuable part of your post before they click “more”.

To make the best use of this, ensure the first part of your caption sets you up on the right path with phrases such as:

• let me explain
• here’s the deal
• but there’s one thing
• let’s dive in
• let’s dig in further

A solid Instagram growth hack to stop users from scrolling past your content — just by having good Instagram captions and taking advantage of the “more” action.

Now, this is not something Instagram will show you stats on, but it matters to them how many people click “more” when their algorithm calculates how good your post is.

If you’re looking to step up your Instagram growth strategy in 2021, then you’re in luck.

We have new features coming to Curate like an Instagram hashtag suggestion engine that allows you to amass a collection of niche hashtags to go along with all of your Instagram captions for even better engagement.

Curious to know more Instagram tips and tricks? 🤔

Check out all of our Instagram strategies on our blog.

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