When using TikTok as part of your social media marketing plan, most of your focus will be on the video content.

But, like any image/video-based platform, captions play a huge role in your post’s success.

When deciding on a caption, there are a few variables you should consider to ensure it will be effective and appeal to your target audience.

Think about your audience

Firstly, you must consider the tone in which you’ll deliver your desired message.

If your target audience is young people or any specific demographic, how will your language come across to them?

Young people will be more open to slang, plus there are always phrases that are popular and could be considered “trends”.

Although it may seem stereotypical, gender will also have an effect on your language, as different slang and language are more common with different genders.

If you are making any social or cultural references, will your audience understand them?

Decide on a message

Often a TikTok caption doesn’t aim to convey a particularly meaningful message, but you still want to ensure that your audience is taking the correct meaning from it.

As well as short but sweet captions, sometimes there may be important information you want to include.

Deciding how you go about writing this is key, as the essential information should always go first to avoid any form of truncation.

If you have a sale, let them know!

Any encouragement for interactions, conversions, and even sales should be at the forefront of a caption if that’s the kind of video you are making.

Though, if it’s a funny casual video, don’t make the caption too “salesy”, it can be off-putting and ruin the comedy of the video.

Be smart with your hashtags

Like many social platforms, hashtags help the algorithm decide to whom to show your content.

If you use hashtags relevant to your products or services, then it will be shown to users who have interacted with those hashtags or similar ones.

This means you must consider how specialised your hashtags are, as you want them specific to your target audience, but still general enough to actually show your content to anyone.

The number of hashtags is also important, as too many looks tacky and make the caption look crowded.

You want no more than 5 unless more are essential to the video.

It’s also good to have a mix of more general hashtags and specific ones, to increase reach while still bringing valuable traffic.

More than 5 hashtags can also confuse the algorithm and actually make it harder for your content to be understood.

TikTok SEO?

This may seem confusing, as TikTok is a social media platform, but studies have shown that social media is slowly becoming the go-to for searching with the younger generations.

For example, when trying a new restaurant, many people are likely to search for it on TikTok or a social platform, as any reviews and recommendations are genuine and have come from real people.

With this in mind, you should optimise your TikTok captions for search, especially since TikTok has increased the character limit on captions.

What keywords and specific information should you use in your caption, that users are likely to search for?

The phrasing alone could completely change a searcher’s results, so have a look into TikTok search trends before diving in.

If you need help with your social media marketing and copywriting, contact us and see how we can help!