2 reasons the algorithm likes longer captions.

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Listen to the audio to learn 2 reasons the algorithm likes longer captions.

Or… prefer to read?

Here you go:

Longer captions make it possible for you to be more vulnerable, they give context to your stories and your concepts, and they paint pictures for people. The quality of the relationships you can build when you truly share who you are, your values, and your stories are 10 times deeper. It also makes it much more likely that your audience will respond in an open and vulnerable way because they actually have the opportunity to resonate with you.

There are so many reasons to include longer captions in your content strategy and we all know what they are — but we avoid them because longer captions tend to get less engagement.

Sound familiar?

Don’t worry… the vast majority of my clients feel the same way when they start working with me!

Here are 2 data driven reasons to reconsider:

  1. The algorithm can actually tell how long someone lingers on your post. Which means — whether someone comments on your post or not, if they’re lingering on it to even read half of it, that’s considered engagement by the algorithm and can mean more traffic for that post AND that the next time you post something, that secret reader will get pushed your content.

    YEP! Even if they didn’t actually engage with it!

    But again — the trick here is to give them a reason to linger on the post. And a pic with you looking cool in your ray ban sunglasses and a short and sweet caption like “hey there” might be cute, it’s not gonna make someone linger. Especially not with the number of people who are doing the exact same thing. 
  2. Longer captions tend to get fewer “likes” and comments, yes.But the quality of the engagement you get on a longer post is 10 times greater.

    And that’s not just important for you and your business, that’s important to the algorithm.

    The length of the comments you get are weighted differently. For example, a thumbs up emoji is not the same as a comment of 4 words or more and the algorithm knows it!

    But posting one sentence long captions all the time won’t generate lengthier captions because they don’t offer enough information to make someone invested.

    Now, that’s not to say you can’t have short and sweet captions. Of course you can! In fact, I highly recommend it. I support BALANCE on a social media feed, not one or the other. But while shorter captions achieve the objective of fast engagement (which is also good for the algorithm), longer captions achieve the objective of quality engagement. And when it comes to the algorithm, quality engagement has 4 words or more.

    And to be clear — I said WORDS. Not emojis.

So if you needed another reason to open up and truly share who you are so you can impact people on a deeper level, I hope knowing that longer captions are also STRATEGIC will help do the trick.

Do you post longer captions?

Comment below to let me know! Xo

Sophia

PS: Want to stay more in the know with the algorithm and how you can leverage it? Try my FREE What The Heck To Post subscription and get 5 social media prompts a week designed specifically for coaches based on what the algorithm is doing. Try it free here.