One of the best ways for a company to connect with it’s customers, fans, and users is to regularly post to an Instagram account. The social network relies almost entirely on photos which show rather than tell, replacing the need for catchy 140-word quips on Twitter, paragraphs of info on Facebook, or long, expository blog entries. All someone has to do is look at the photo, in most cases, and they get the message. So why would a company who relies on its Instagram account need to find freelance writers?
While a picture is often worth a thousand words, as the old adage goes, words are still necessary with most pictures, especially if you are a company trying to connect with your customers and have a real social presence. Most great Instagram posts also have captions, unless they are the absolute perfect picture — and as most photographers will tell you, perfect pictures are one in a million.
So, to come up with that perfect caption that entertains or sells or connects with your followers in the correct way, you’ll need a writer. Someone who can grasp how the photo connects to the tone and style of the company and what the brand really means and use that information to write the perfect caption. You don’t want to sound like you are selling your product or service through the post, because no one wants advertisements sent to their Instagram feeds. Neither do you want to be offensive or obnoxious. Finding the right writer for these short, to the point posts, is more critical than you might think.
Another reason to hire a freelance writer for your company’s Instagram account, is to brainstorm the photos that will actually be taken or posted, using their ideas for captions to drive the photo content. While it may seem easy to use photos on an Instagram feed to create a tone and style for your brand, entertaining visually is not that easy, as anyone in the entertainment business will convey on a regular basis. Even if you have a number of good posts on Instagram, a few bad ones can cause people to lose interest — and quickly.
In short, you need a freelance writer to take some of the pressure off of you and regularly come up with ideas for posts, along with captions. With a menu of creative options in front of you, choosing what you want to post to represent your company on a given day or week becomes a lot more dynamic, creative and just better, in general. This is the social marketing luxury a freelance writer will give you.
Eli K is a writer and journalist who has lived all over America and worked in just about every facet of the writing trade. He spends ample time on Instagram and is always followed more than he follows.
