Motivate your readers on Instagram to respond with variety of creative questions.
Have you ever had terrible Wi-Fi connection?
It’s awful, right? When you’re trying to buy a new pair of shoes, message a friend, or watch a show online, a slow or weak connection can ruin the experience—or even stop you from accomplishing what you hope to do.
A strong connection is just as important in relationships, and building and maintaining strong connections is one of the main reasons people use social media. Businesses, and especially book publishers, who understand this can leverage platforms such as Instagram to facilitate lasting, meaningful connections with their customers. When customers have a relationship with a publisher or an author, they’re much more likely to read and share their work.
To build a connection on social media, customers need to interact with a brand. So how can book publishers write captions that encourage followers to interact with their posts? Turns out, one of the best ways is just to ask.
How Book Publishers Use Questions to Drive Engagement
Using questions while writing captions can be an amazing resource for creating connection. As AsEpresso describes, “Questions give users something direct to respond to.” They encourage action—usually in the form of comments and likes. According to HeyOrca!, comments have several benefits, including expanded reach, more satisfied customers, and the ability to hear direct feedback from customers.
Questions encourage engagement, but what types of questions should brands (especially book publishers) use when writing captions? To find out, I looked at 4 publishers on Instagram and collected the first 10 posts for each publisher that included questions (40 posts in total). I then recorded what types of questions they used the most. I chose to focus on three large publishers (Harper Collins, Workman, and Penguin Random House) and one small publisher (Shadow Mountain) for this analysis. Below are the 4 question types I found, presented in the order of their frequency.
1. Rhetorical Questions (18 times)
Rhetorical questions do not require a response but still drive personal reflection, leading the customer to think more deeply about the post (e.g., “Don’t you love stumbling upon a new bookstore?”).
2. Reflection Questions (Used 12 times)
Reflection questions, as I define them, are open questions that invite the reader to answer based on their own experience (e.g., “What is your favorite book?”).
3. Discussion Questions (Used 7 times)
These questions invite users to respond to information presented in the post. They can often be helpful for gauging customer reactions and garnering feedback (e.g., “Which of these books are you looking forward to?”).
4. Yes/No Questions (3 times)
The least popular form of question—these ask the reader to give a simple yes or no response and therefore do not require much thought (e.g., “Do you have a #LittleFreeLibrary in your neighborhood?”).
How You Can Use Questions to Drive Engagement
In the same way that people want a reliable Wi-Fi connection, they also want to trust their connections with the businesses they support. Questions like the ones listed above encourage this connection by directly inviting users to interact with your company. In fact, for Penguin Random House, posts with questions increased engagement by an average of 20%.
Each of the publishers I surveyed used some question types more than others when writing captions. So try out different kinds, and see what motivates people to interact with your brand. Your customers will appreciate your effort to connect.