165 design references

Direct the campaign before writing copy

@sociyell on Instagram

Name the campaign, the one message, and the order people should meet it before anyone writes a caption or designs the frame.

What to look at

Someone sits on stone stairs, phone in hand, PITY on the sweatshirt, under HOW TO USE CALUDE FOR BRANDS. Two black cards mark the turn in terracotta script: a writing tool, then writing. Card 1 pairs a thumbs-down, Write a caption for this product, with a terracotta thumbs-up asking for the campaign, the angle, the emotion, and a three-month arc. Card 2 is one red-and-white sneaker in four photos, from the sole to a stoop. Card 3 lines up a cloud, a thumb, and a brain: one message, what dominates, and the order people take it in. Card 4 crops one woman in a towel three ways beside LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. The close is a man in a Yankees cap eating, plus an 80% claim.

Card 1 refuses a caption request and asks for the campaign, the angle, the emotion, and a three-month arc.
Card 1 refuses a caption request and asks for the campaign, the angle, the emotion, and a three-month arc.
The same woman is cropped three ways beside LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram, so the format changes more than the pixel size.
The same woman is cropped three ways beside LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram, so the format changes more than the pixel size.

Why it works

Asking for the campaign, the angle, and a three-month arc before a caption is a plan, not a tactic. Nielsen Norman Group says a content strategy names the point of the content and the formats, channels, and tone that will carry it, and that "a content strategy comes before tactics." The terracotta script is the hierarchy on the card itself: a different type treatment pulls the eye before the paragraph, which is how that group says contrast in type, not the color name alone, marks what matters. Their definition covers a graphic as well as a webpage, so the same rule is what card 3 writes out as one message, what dominates, and the order people absorb it. Card 5's line that translation is not enough matches their split between translation, where the look stays and only the language changes, and localization, where the pictures and the content plan change. These findings come from pages and graphics, not from a study of Instagram carousels.

Try it

  1. Write four lines before any caption: the campaign that would make this offer hard to ignore, the angle, the feeling to own, and what the next three months are building.
  2. Give the designer three controls: the one sentence, what should be largest, and the order a visitor meets the rest.
  3. Put the product in more than one setting from that brief, the way the sneaker moves from a sole shot to a stoop, and write down angle, light, and place.
  4. When the same idea goes to another channel, change the crop, the tone, and the length, not only the pixel size, and keep the same person or product in frame.
  5. For a second market, change a cue in the picture and have someone from that market check it, instead of stopping at a translated headline.

What it costs

The planning pass is the point, and Nielsen Norman Group says teams that skip it spend their time on captions with no aim. A local version costs more than a translation, because the pictures and the plan change, not only the words, and it needs researchers, designers, and writers who know that market. The Yankees cap and The Smoked Meat shirt are not tied to a named place, so the local feel can read as a costume. Sociyell's 80% line is their claim. The cover also spells the tool Calude.

Words worth knowing

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