by Want to increase event attendance? Rely on Instagram!
Whether you’re planning a yoga class or a music festival, Instagram is a perfect place to promote your event.
Here are three main reason you should market your event on Instagram:
- Reach your target audience. The Instagram community has over one billion active users. This means your attendees are also likely to be active on the platform.
- Engage with attendees. Instagram has the highest engagement rate, which means your customers are ready to start a conversation with you.
- Sell your event tickets. According to one report, 83% of users discover new products and 79% of people search for more information after seeing an Instagram post.
However, simply sharing an Instagram post isn’t always enough to attract potential attendees. You need to improve customer experience and help potential attendees understand what your event is about.
So, how can you do it?
By writing a perfect Instagram caption that sparks curiosity and encourages people to learn more about your event.
Here are seven Instagram caption tips to help you increase event attendance. Let’s dive in!
1. Keep it short and sweet
First things first: Instagram has a limit of 2,200 characters per caption.
While it can be tempting to write everything about your event, don’t publish long-form texts. Instagram is a visual platform. Publishing long-form captions can discourage your followers.
To increase user engagement, you need to keep your text short and sweet. For better event attendance, your caption should answer the following questions:
- What?
- Why?
- Where?
- When?
Want to tell more? Write a call to action that encourages your followers to learn more and include a clickable link to the event in your bio.
Tip: Read our guide on how to write the perfect event invitations for more ideas on revealing important event details.
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2. Share something valuable
Today, people organise and promote events of all types. For attendees, it can be daunting to decide which event to visit.
If you want to stand out from other event organisers, you need to put your customers first and tell them why your event is worth visiting. How? Share something valuable.
To make a long story short, let’s take a look at an example below. This cookery school promotes courses and offers a discount to encourage people to attend all three days of a course.
It’s no secret that people love discounts. And if your offer is time-limited, your attendees are more likely to make the purchase decision faster.
But if you can’t afford to offer a discount, you can look for other ideas that can bring value to your audience.
Here are several more Instagram caption tips with ideas that can add value for your attendees:
- Anticipate and answer your attendees’ questions
- List the benefits of your event
- Publish the event programme
- Give away several tickets
- Offer referral rewards
Once you’ve hooked the attention of your audience with valuable content, you can encourage people to find out more. You can also give them a solid reason to buy event tickets in-app.
Tip: Learn how you can start selling on Instagram to find out more.
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3. Add a human touch
Brand content, paid ads, and sponsored posts bombard people from all sides. Modern users don’t trust companies; they crave authenticity. Event organisers should also take steps toward being authentic.
Why? Because customers want to do business with real people. To establish a connection with your potential attendees, add a human touch.
Writing an Instagram caption is your opportunity to bring authenticity. To show a human element in your caption, include the following tactics:
- Use simple words
- Include emojis
- Mix in some humour
When writing a caption, remember to keep your specific audience in mind to meet their expectations.
4. Use geotags and location hashtags
With a solid number of users from all over the world, Instagram makes it easy for event organisers to reach potential attendees wherever they may be. But if you want to increase event attendance, you need to target people who live or work within your area.
Not only can these tags hint at your event location, but they can also attract attendees who are interested in events in a specific area. Thus, it’s important to include geotags and location hashtags when writing a good caption.
5. Tag other attendees or speakers
No matter how interesting your event is, it won’t be worth much if nobody attends. However, people may doubt whether your event is worth attention. It’s your job to help them make a decision.
How? Tag other attendees or speakers. In fact, “mirroring” is a common human behaviour, so people are more likely to buy tickets to your event if their friends or family are also going to attend.
When writing a caption for your event, think about influencers who will attend your event and tag them. Check out how Nickolls & Perks do just that:
When you tag a speaker or influencer in your caption, you also give them a reason to share the post within their community. As a result, you make word-of-mouth marketing work for your event.
Tip: Team up with local influencers to spread the word about your event.
6. Include a strong call to action
If your Instagram caption tells readers about your event, that’s great. But if it motivates them to buy tickets, that’s even better. It’s a proven way to increase event attendance.
No matter how good your copy is, you need to include a strong call to action (CTA), a short phrase that encourages people to take the desired action.
Here are several strong CTA examples for better event attendance:
- Learn more
- Buy now
- Book now
- Get tickets
What’s more, you can keep your text short if you use a link to your event page in the bio and include a CTA that encourages followers to tap on it.
Try to experiment with various CTA copies to find out what works best for your audience.
7. Break down your caption
Good Instagram copy is easy to read and understand. And while you should aim for short sentences and simple words, you also need to make your text scannable. How? Break down your caption into several paragraphs.
Just take a look at a good example of this strategy in action from Afrodisiac Live Radio:
What makes the above caption great? It’s short, scannable, and readable.
To create a similar post, choose a picture that speaks a thousand words and include a key text details in it. If you don’t have images, find royalty-free stock photos that can represent your event.
Tip: Use tools like Hemingway to improve the readability of your caption.
Caption this…
When it comes to Instagram, having an eye-catching visual is a must. But an image alone isn’t enough if you want to increase event attendance. Words are powerful, too.
To make your message hit home, you must write a great caption. The above Instagram caption tips should help you do just that. Yes, it can take time, effort, and practice, but the payoff is huge.
Do you have any other Instagram caption tips that can help increase event attendance? Share your tips and tricks in the comment below.
Author: Val Razo is a freelance SMM consultant with 5+ years of digital marketing experience who helps SMBs grow online. Val claims that Instagram has great sales potential, so she recommends both big and small brands to use this platform for business growth. Follow her on Twitter to stay tuned for more.