How can you write copy that stands out on Instagram carousels?

When creating carousel copy for Instagram it's important to know the exact audience you're sharing to. You have to ask yourself what you aim to achieve with the carousel you want to create. Is it aimed at educating? Informing?

Knowing who you want to target, what action you want your reader to take and what they need to see to take action should be your first objective to understand.

One thing that I've found helpful is it's best to keep it as simple as possible when crafting Instagram carousels that captivate your audience and achieve your goals.

Instead of recreating what others have posted, come up with unique perspective because people want something different. There is a viral post on Instagram, that says that people buy emotions, not products. Within 24 hours, it got viral because it elaboratively explained how people are emotional beings and how their sentiments or feelings make them buy products and services.

The 1st Instagram carousel should be CLEAR and COMPELLING. One way to write a hook that's clear and compelling is lean on either a positive hook (e.g. 3 ways you can get more hours back in your week) or a negative hook (e.g. you're wasting 3 hours a day by making this one mistake!)

This is where most people go wrong - they share tips on their carousel. Tips are boring and can be found everywhere (just search Google). You can differentiate your carousel posts by having a unique style, sharing your story, and having a unique angle. Remember, with carousel posts you can share your personality (e.g. share your opinion and what you stand for), be vulnerable (e.g. share past mistakes and lessons learned), and connect with your audience.

Adding two or three adjectives in a carousel copy cannot help you gain more impressions because people don't want descriptions. They want information. That's why writing simple copy or following rules of journalistic writing is effective. You can reach larger audience. Always try to make your copy readable by adding headings and bullet points. Keep sentences short and informative. Add numbers and your experience to make people understand the topic.

" La simplicité peut être plus difficile à atteindre que la complexité . Il faut travailler dur pour arriver à faire simple" Steve Jobs

I made a separate public account for my book promotion on Insta but failed to get sales through it because I was not posting on it regularly. Therefore, I failed to build my reach. The sole way to build reach and gain audience is to post regularly. Try to identify earlier your brand's voice, tone and personality. Based on that, craft copies and design posts earlier. Use scheduling tools to automate things so that you can remain consistent while being mentally present at other things.

Carousel format is one of the most powerful ones available out there that provides massive engagement due to its intuitive user-experience nature. Hence with great power comes greater responsibility. Here's a 4-point checklist that helps write stand-out copies 1. Does the first slide clearly state a promise of a value that is too good to ignore by the intended target audience? 2. Is the first slide an attention-worthy marriage of content, design and colours (as per the brand's guidelines, assuming there is one)? 3. Do subsequent slides clearly move the needle in the intended direction of providing value, holding attention and (possibly) remaining curious? 4. Does the last slide harvest the interest with a clear call to action?