Click-through rates are a crucial part of advertising online and creating a social media marketing strategy. Social media marketing is now the norm for large businesses, In fact, it is expected for about 91% of U.S. Marketers in companies larger than 100 employees to use social media for marketing. But, what does a click-through rate mean, and how do you make it rise?
When creating a social media post, one of your main goals is to attract people from your social media post to your website. You may want your social media followers to visit your blog post, your eCommerce site, or check out your other types of content.
The best way to attract new viewers to your site is with high-quality social media captions. With a social media caption that relates to your audience and captures their attention, you can bring more viewers to interact with your website. We have a few tips to help you improve your media copywriting, craft the perfect social media caption, and improve your site’s viewership.
What are Click-Through-Rates? (CTR)
Your Click-Through-Rates (CTR) is the number of people who click on your social media content and engage with the landing page. Your CTR could increase when a social media scroller sees your promoted ad copy on Instagram, clicks on the ad, and continues to purchase something on your website. Or, your CTR could increase when a scroller sees one of your organic posts and clicks on the link in your bio to read a recent blog post.
You can find your CTR by taking the number of clicks you receive on social media and dividing it by your total number of impressions. This shows how many people simply see your content on social media, versus how many people are intrigued and act upon your social media copywriting.
Why Does My CTR Matter?
Your CTR is one of the best ways to measure the success of your social media marketing strategy. While your engagement rate on social media shows how many viewers you receive, and how many users view your content, it is less accurate in showing potential customers.
Your CTR will show you the number of customers that are more likely to convert. Your CTR will also show you what types of social media posts are more successful to your audience. By looking at your CTR, you will be able to evaluate your media copywriting, and improve upon it to increase viewership, create more leads, and inevitable more sales!
Why Do Social Media Captions Matter?
Aside from pictures, social media captions are the main driving force of your CTR. You’re social media captions show who your brand is, what you can offer the social media scroller, and tells them why they should look at your page.
Not only is creating social media posts more affordable than paying for ad copy, social media platforms often have algorithms that help you target your desired audience. Effective social media captions increase your target audience’s interest and can even increase your audience’s trust in your brand. In fact, if a consumer can reach a brand on social media, they are 21% more likely to purchase from them.
By creating a stellar social media caption, you are one step closer to driving your CTR and your sales!
What Makes a Good Social Media Caption?
Now, before you start writing copy with the goal to increase CTR, you need to know the ingredients of a good social media caption. As you sit down to create your social media caption, remember to be a bit more personable. While you may be taking a more professional approach, people turn to social media to connect with others and your social media presence can lean into that.
The best social media captions feel human, are simple, and are short enough to keep a scrollers attention. We will go more in-depth as to what each of these aspects means and why they are important to your social media presence! Follow these tips for social media captions that boost your CTR:
Have an Established Brand Voice
A consistent brand voice is crucial to your online presence. Your brand voice helps readers know what type of company you are and builds customers’ trust.
There are many brand voices used on social media today. Your brand voice may be funny, inspiring, or even absurd. When you find a voice that works for you, you can upgrade your social media caption quality!
Know Your Audience
A higher CTR comes when you are catering to the right audience! Decide what type of audience you want to intrigue. What is their age demographic? Look into what types of content they respond to, and even some of the phrases they normally use.
Try to use these phrases in your social media captions to capture their attention!
Make the First Line Count
Social media character limits are short, and so are social media users’ attention spans. In fact, Facebook found that the average attention span of people watching Facebook videos is about two seconds. This means that you’ve got a limited amount of space and time to make your caption stand out!
Use the first line of your caption to relate to the reader, and grab their attention. Then, once you have their attention, you can give them more details, and encourage them to read more!
Avoid Using Clickbait
While catching a reader’s attention right away is vital to your CTR, you should still stray away from clickbait captions. Clickbait can be different types of content that are meant to catch a reader’s attention and lead them to click on a link.
On paper, clickbait looks great, but in reality, clickbait can read like “You won’t believe what this person did!” or “5 reasons you need to stop something Right Now!”
Clickbait captions almost come off as forceful, and can sometimes drive a reader away from looking at your site. Create a caption that helps the people decide what to do next, rather than directly telling them what to do. In 2014, it was found that 80% of the time, people prefer headlines that give them more information, rather than clickbait.
Use Statistics and Facts
One way to catch a social media user’s attention is by using statistics. In the first sentence of your caption, you could bring up a statistic of how many customers have liked your product. Or you could use a statistic that shows how many people struggle with the same pain point.
You could also catch a viewer’s attention by bringing up a fun fact about your industry, or about your product. By showing you care about what your audience is interested in, your followers are more likely to pay attention to your social media presence. This can also increase someone’s interest, without attempting to immediately sell something to them!
Ask a Question
You can also start your social media caption off by asking a question. You can ask a question that brings up a common pain point or asks about something your audience is interested in. If you have a blog post about summer activities, you could ask “What are your plans this summer?” in your caption.
This question puts the spotlight on the reader and encourages them to stop and think. This is also an opportunity for you to encourage followers to answer the question in the comments. Not only can this increase your CTR, but also your engagement!
Once you’ve got them hooked, use a Call to Action (CTA)
Now that you have gotten your reader’s attention with a statistic or a question, encourage them to take action. If you are writing ad copy, you can encourage them to click on the advertisement to visit your site. However, if you are writing a social media caption on sites like Instagram, Twitter, or Tik Tok, you will have to lead them to the link in your bio.
Encourage the readers to continue reading, or to learn more, at your website. If your statistics, questions, and brand voice are strong, the reader is more likely to listen to the CTA, and visit your site.
Make it Easy To Click
Unfortunately, many social media sites do not make it easy to link to your website. If you are posting on Instagram, the best way to lead people to a link is in your Bio – but Instagram only allows one link in your bio! If it is too complicated to find your website, people may be turned away, and won’t return to your website.
That is why many are using a bio link tool. Bio link tools like Linktr.ee give you a singular link that leads your followers to your web page with only a few clicks. This makes clicking the link in your bio a seamless experience and allows you to link to multiple things in your bio.
Enhance Your Landing Page
Once you write your social media captions, your efforts to increase your CTR aren’t finished. The first sentence of your caption captured your audience’s attention, the CTA lead them to click on your link, and now they have reached your landing page!
Encourage your viewers to engage with your website. If your website has a cohesive design, is intuitive, and is easy to use, viewers are more likely to explore your site. This can increase your leads, and lead to more sales in the long run. As you write your social media captions, keep in mind where the link leads readers to, and make it a seamless, cohesive experience for your audience!
Analyze Responses and Always Adapt
As you implement these changes into your social media captions, remember to look at your response rates. As you start shifting your brand voice or trying out new methods on social media platforms, audience responses are bound to change online.
Pay attention to how audience engagement corresponds to your social media changes. Researching the online habits of your audience will also provide crucial insight into your social media strategies’ effectiveness. Always keeping an eye on social media analytics will help you continuously increase your CTR.
As you analyze responses to your social media changes, don’t be afraid to mix things up. If you notice some changes are working better than others, lean into what is working. Social media trends are always changing, making it crucial to consistently keep up with the trends. Adapt to the trends, lean into what works, and don’t forget to have a little fun along the way. After all, that is what most turn to social media for – entertainment!
Getting the Most Out of Social Media Captions
Social media copywriting takes more strategy than what meets the eye, but as you pay attention to what your audience is looking for, and you remain personable, success will come your way. Your click-through rate (CTR) is one of the best ways to analyze your social media strategy, and continuously find ways to drive traffic to your website. When you prioritize your CTR, you are impacting the entirety of your social media marketing strategy.
By putting your CTR first, you are first trying to increase your impressions. Then, you are working to increase your engagement, as well as the number of potential customers.
Increasing your CTR all starts with your social media caption. While the everyday social media user can simply put an emoji as a caption, a caption gives you the opportunity to market. Connect to your viewers by staying personable, keeping it short, and not immediately selling them something.
When users are easily intrigued by your content, they can easily visit your site and have a positive experience on your landing page, your brand is that much more memorable in their mind.
Strategizing your content, and caring about the social media user’s entire click-through experience can upgrade your social media marketing efforts.