Caption prompts: a ready brief for every post
Sixteen briefs for the caption generator, ready to hand over. Each one already says what the post has to do, whether that is selling, starting a conversation, teaching or introducing you, and sets the tone and the ending to match.
Selling posts
Posts with a job to do: a caption that sells one product properly, a tease before a launch, a limited-time discount with a real deadline on it, and a client result written as proof rather than a boast.
Sell one product
One product, one reason to buy it now, and a closing line that says exactly what to do next.
Write an Instagram caption for a 12 oz bag of single-origin Ethiopian coffee we roast in Portland, $19. It's for people who make pour-over at home on weekends. Mention the blueberry note and that we roast to order every Tuesday. End with where to buy it, no hard sell.
We roast this one on Tuesdays and it ships Wednesday.Ethiopian single origin — blueberry, lemon peel, and enough sweetness that you can skip the sugar. $19 for 12 oz.Built for a slow weekend pour-over, not a 6am gulp.Link in bio, or ask us anything in the comments.#specialtycoffee #pourover #portlandcoffee
Tease a launch
A first announcement that gets the date into people's heads without giving away the whole drop.
Write a teaser post for a new ceramic mug collection dropping next Thursday at 10am ET. Twelve glazes, forty pieces total, thrown by hand in our studio. Don't reveal prices yet. Ask people to turn notifications on.
Thursday, 10am ET. Forty mugs, twelve glazes, all thrown and dipped here.Last drop was gone in nine minutes, and we are not making more of the speckled blue.Prices land Thursday with the first photo.Turn notifications on so you don't hear about it from a friend.#handmadeceramics #smallbatch #studiopottery
Run a deadline promo
A short sale post that names the discount, the deadline and the code — and stops there.
Write a short post about 25% off all winter jackets until Sunday midnight, online only, code WARM25. Urgent but not shouty — our audience is tired of fake countdowns.
25% off every winter jacket until Sunday at midnight. Online only, code WARM25.No restock this season, so what's on the site is genuinely what's left.If one has been sitting in your cart since October, this is the sign. 🧥
Post a client result
A case study told in numbers, with the unglamorous starting point left in so it reads as real.
Write a post about a client result: a local dental practice went from 4 to 19 new patient bookings a month after we rebuilt their booking page and Google Business profile. Six weeks of work. Name what we actually changed, no agency buzzwords.
Four new patients in January. Nineteen in March. Same practice, same budget, no ads.What changed: a booking page with real appointment times instead of a contact form, and 31 photos on their Google profile instead of one stock lobby.Six weeks of work, most of it spent deleting things.The page now does what the receptionist was doing by phone at 8am.
Comments and conversation
Written to be replied to rather than read. Captions that get comments by asking something honest, an opinion worth arguing with in public, and a poll for Stories that people tap without thinking about it.
Ask a real question
A question people actually answer: specific, easy to have an opinion about, and not a sales pitch in disguise.
Write a post asking our audience of home bakers what we should cover next: sourdough troubleshooting or laminated dough. Say why we're asking and give a one-line case for each.
We're writing next month's guides and we're stuck between two.Sourdough troubleshooting: why your crumb is dense, and what to change first.Laminated dough: croissants without a marble slab or a free Saturday.One word in the comments — sourdough or croissants?
Share an opinion
A take you're willing to defend, argued in four lines, ending on the sentence people screenshot.
Write a post arguing that most small brands don't need a posting schedule, they need five posts they're genuinely proud of. I run a studio and I'm tired of watching people burn out on daily content.
Posting every day is not a strategy. It's a way to get tired in public.I've watched studios publish 300 times a year and get remembered for two of them.Five posts you'd put on a billboard will out-earn a year of filler, and you'll still like your job in March.Consistency is about what you say, not how often you say it.
Write a Stories poll
Two lines of setup and a question with two answers — short enough to read before the tap.
Write a Stories poll for our bakery: should we bring back the pistachio croissant or keep the new pistachio cruffin? The setup should be honest — we only have oven space for one.
One oven, one spot on the counter, and a very loud comment section.Pistachio croissant (the original) or the cruffin (the newcomer)?Whichever wins is on the shelf Saturday morning. 🥐
Expertise and how-to
Educational posts people save and open again weeks later: five quick tips in a single caption, a myth in your field taken apart piece by piece, and a mini-guide short enough to read at the bus stop.
List five quick tips
Five things someone can use today, numbered, with no throat-clearing before tip one.
Write a post with five tips for photographing jewellery on a phone, for a small shop. Practical, nothing costing more than $30, written for someone shooting on a kitchen table.
Five things that fix phone photos of jewellery. No studio involved.1. Shoot beside a window at 10am, never under a ceiling light.2. White foam board on the shadow side. $4, more useful than any app.3. Lock focus, then drop exposure two steps — gold blows out first.4. Shoot on the fabric you ship in, not on a bare table.5. One shot on a wrist. Scale is what sells online.Save this before your next restock.#smallbusinesstips #productphotography #jewelrybusiness
Bust a myth
Name the belief, say plainly why it doesn't hold, and put something usable in its place.
Write a post debunking the idea that you must stretch before a run to avoid injury. I'm a physio — calm and evidence-based, not smug.
Static stretching before a run does not prevent injury. The trials have been clear on that for years.What it does do is briefly reduce the force your muscles can produce, which is the opposite of what you wanted.What helps: five minutes of walking into an easy jog, then a few short strides.Keep the long stretches for afterwards, where they're a recovery habit rather than a superstition.What were you told to do before a run?
Write a mini-guide
A longer post that walks someone through a process end to end — the kind that earns a save.
Write a step-by-step post on how a first-time seller prices a handmade item: materials, hourly rate, overhead, wholesale vs retail, and what to do when the number scares you. Calm and practical.
Pricing your first handmade piece, without guessing.1. Add up materials down to the thread and the shipping box.2. Time yourself honestly, then pay that time at a rate you'd accept from an employer.3. Add 10-15% for what nobody counts: listing fees, breakage, the roll of tape.4. That total is your wholesale price. Retail is roughly double it.5. If the number scares you, change the process or the material — never your own wage.Save this before your next restock.#handmadebusiness #pricingstrategy
Personal and behind the scenes
What makes an account read like a person and not a catalogue: a behind the scenes caption from the workshop, a personal story with the messy middle left in, and an about me post for everyone who just followed.
Show the process
One ordinary working moment, described so people feel let in rather than marketed to.
Write a behind-the-scenes caption about the morning we spend prepping the flower shop before opening: the 4:30am market run, conditioning stems, the cold room, and what usually goes wrong.
4:30am at the flower market, where the good ranunculus are gone by five.Everything gets stripped, cut on an angle and stood in water before it earns a place in the window.By the time the door opens at nine, we've already worked a shift.The bucket that goes over is always the expensive one.
Tell a personal story
Something that actually happened to you, with the lesson at the end instead of the top.
Write a post about the year I kept my design job while freelancing at night, why I finally quit, and what I'd tell someone in the same spot. Honest, no hustle-culture framing.
For a year I designed for someone else until six and for myself until midnight.I told myself it was temporary. It quietly became the schedule.What ended it wasn't a big client. It was a Tuesday when I couldn't remember the weekend.I left with four months of runway and two clients — less than the internet recommends, more than I expected to have.If you're in that year right now: the leap isn't bravery, it's arithmetic. Count your months.What's keeping you at the desk?
Introduce yourself
The post you pin: who you are, what you make, and why a new follower should stay.
Write an introduction post for my profile. I'm Nora, a pastry chef for nine years, now teaching home bakers online. New followers arrive every week from short video. Say what I post and who it's for.
Hi — I'm Nora. Nine years in professional kitchens, now I explain the parts nobody explains.Here you'll find laminated dough, cake structure, and why your buttercream split (it's temperature, it's always temperature).It's for home bakers who want the technique, not another recipe to scroll past.Classes open monthly. Start with the croissant series in my highlights. 👋
Formats and modes
Jobs where the format decides the words before you write any. A hook for the first two seconds of a Reel, text split across a carousel, and a week of content planned for one account in a single pass.
Hook for a short video
A first line that survives the fold, written for a vertical video someone is already scrolling past.
Write a caption for a 20-second video where I show the one knife cut that stops onions making you cry. Cooking account, casual voice.
You've been cutting onions wrong your whole life and your eyes have been paying for it.Root end stays on. That's the entire trick.#cookingtips #knifeskills #kitchenhack
Build a carousel
A caption plus one line per slide, so the whole post is planned before you open the design app.
Build a seven-slide carousel on what to check in a rental lease before signing, for first-time renters. One point per slide, ending on what to photograph on move-in day.
Seven lines in your lease that cost money later. Swipe before you sign.Slide 1: A lease is negotiable. All of it, not just the rent.Slide 2: Find the automatic renewal clause first.Slide 3: Who pays for which repair — in writing, or it's yours.Slide 7: On move-in day photograph every wall, timestamps on.Save it, then send it to whoever is apartment hunting.#rentertips #firstapartment
Plan a week of posts
One topic, five posts in five different rubrics — a content plan in ten minutes instead of an evening.
Plan a week of posts for a small yoga studio in Austin launching a beginners' course in September. A different angle each day, and at least one post that isn't about the course.
Mon — myth: you don't have to be flexible to start. That's what starting is for.Tue — behind the scenes: the studio at 6am, before anyone arrives.Wed — case: Dana came in with a desk neck and left the eight-week course sleeping properly.Thu — five things nobody tells you about your first class.Fri — the course opens: six weeks, twelve people, Tuesdays at 7.