Best Practices for Using an AI Instagram Caption Generator

Captions are more than just space to fill, they’re an important part of your social media strategy. But we can all agree—they take soooooo much time to write. And sometimes, it feels like nobody is even reading them. Womp womp.

The good news is that AI instagram caption generators exist, and they’re here to help. They can help you instantly create captions based on your posts and save so much time. They’ll also help your captions work harder for you so you can reach your goals (because your most interested followers? They are reading them).

Let’s dive into how to make the most of your captions (and how using an AI Instagram caption generator can help when used correctly!).

We’re going to cover:

The role of Instagram captions in your marketing
Best practices for captions in general
Best practices for using an AI Instagram caption generator
How to choose the best AI Instagram caption generator
How Enji’s AI copywriter works
How to schedule your posts in advance once you write the caption
Why you still need a strategy before you start creating captions
Using an AI Instagram generator can save you time (and are worth using)

The Role of Instagram Captions in Social Media Marketing

Before diving into AI-generated captions, let's remind ourselves why Instagram captions do still matter:

1. Engagement boost: Well-crafted captions encourage likes, comments, and shares, increasing overall engagement. Plus, while Instagram doesn’t always share its secrets, it’s become common knowledge that the longer someone spends on your post, the more favorably the algorithm will rank it. We call this the “linger-factor”, which basically means that the longer you can get people to linger the better your post will do!

2. Brand voice reinforcement: While not everyone is going to read the caption, some people will…usually the folks who are actually considering you! And captions are an opportunity to showcase your brand's personality and tone.

3. SEO benefits: This one is new! Instagram captions can include searchable keywords, helping your content reach a wider audience (and giving your content a longer impact). Now that Google has the greenlight to start indexing posts, this one is an even bigger deal!

4. Call-to-actions: It’s hard to tell people to do “all the things” in a one-second reel of you literally blinking at the camera (IYKYK). Effective captions can drive specific actions. From commenting with a specific word so you can send them a link, to asking your audience to share with a friend.

Best Practices for Effective Captions

Whether AI-generated or not, great Instagram captions should follow these best practices:

Know your audience and tailor your content and tone to resonate with your target demographic (Enji’s AI copywriter can help)
Keep it concise. While Instagram allows up to 2,200 characters, you rarely need to write that much to get your point across.
Use emojis strategically to add personality and break up text. Bonus points if you have a set of emojis that feel “on brand” for your business.
Use relevant keywords to increase discoverability. That’s right, hashtags are more of a thing of the past. Google very recently (as of July 2025) finally started indexing posts, so that means they can show up in search results for specific terms. You can still use hashtags, but focus more on the keywords you’re targeting throughout your caption and content.
Ask questions to encourage conversation with your audience. Remember that you’re marketing to humans!
Tell a story in your captions (this increases the chance your post will be remembered).
Include a call-to-action to guide your audience on what to do next, whether it’s leaving a comment or visiting a link.

Specifically when using an AI caption generator, you should also:

Avoid copying and pasting the caption exactly as it comes out. Look for places to add your unique brand personality and expertise.
Fact check. While AI is a great starting place, it can still spit out outdated or straight up incorrect information.
Avoid overusing emojis. While we love a good emoji, over-the-top captions with 8 emojis in every sentence are a dead giveaway that no human touched the post.

Why You Should Use an AI Caption Generator

There are so many reasons why you should be using an AI caption generator, but for the most part, all of the benefits come down to two main things—they help you save time and make you more creative.

Chances are, you need to put out more content than you did in the past to get noticed (le sigh). AI tools can spit out a rough draft within seconds but they can also boost your creativity by suggesting angles or phrases you might not have thought of. If writer’s block is ever an issue, AI offers a helpful starting point so you’re never stuck staring at a blank page.

Need more convincing? Here’s what a couple of our subscribers had to say!

"Using AI is like having a brainstorming buddy who gives you that crucial first draft, so you’re never stuck staring at a blinking cursor inside of Instagram. This way, I can spend more time refining and adding my personal touch, ensuring everything feels authentic and resonates with my audience—saving me tons of time while keeping my messaging on point." - Andrea Jones

"Social media marketing has always been something I know I need but that I dread doing because of time it took me. Enji makes posting to multiple platforms so incredibly easy! I'm able to schedule my posts in record time and that's just a fraction of what it offers." - Whitney of WildHive Studio

How to Choose the Best AI Instagram Caption Generator

While there are so many AI tools out there now, they’re definitely not created equal. Some still function more like chatbots, where you have to endlessly prompt them to finally get what you want. Others never remember your voice and tone, so it takes just as much time to get copy that sounds like you as it would to just write it yourself.

The best AI copywriters should be easy to use and focused on maintaining your brand, so you can actually use it to write Instagram captions. You’ll want something that saves your business information and even does the back-end prompting for you, just like Enji does! Speaking of Enji, it also helps you save time because you don’t need to train it or fine-tune your results. We know we’re biased, but it is the best for small business owners.

How to Generate Captions with Enji

It’s actually kind of scary how easy it is to use Enji’s AI Instagram caption generator. All you need to do is:

Set up your brand voice (do this once, not every time like other AI tools).
Tell us what the post is about, what details you want included, and what the call-to-action should be
Wait for AI to write your first draft (so that you can tweak and approve within seconds).

Watch this in action:

Scheduling Captions with Enji's Social Media Scheduler

Once you've generated your captions, Enji's social media scheduler can help you plan and automate your posting strategy. Depending on how your brain works, you can also use our AI caption writer while you’re scheduling posts too if that’s what you prefer.

Plus, when you schedule your posts in Enji, you can enjoy:

Relief knowing you are finally being consistent with your marketing
More free time since our AI tools are designed to speed up the process
Better planning since we give you a marketing plan you can stick to
Less stress because you don’t need to worry about daily content creation

You Still Need a Strategy Before You Start Creating Captions

Before you hit the ground running to create your captions (and the rest of your copy) with Enji, let’s take a quick step back. You still need a strategy first. That means you need to know what you’re promoting on Instagram, what topics you’re covering, how often you’re posting, what your goals are, and what KPIs to track.

If you just start posting random ideas–even with Enji’s help–you’re bound to burn out. A solid marketing strategy will also help tie your Instagram posts back to your overall business goals, so it becomes a solid piece of the entire marketing puzzle.

Well good news, Enji can help here too. You can get started with our marketing strategy generator to get everything you need before diving into instant caption writing.

Using an AI Instagram Generator Can Save You Time (And Are Worth Using)

AI Instagram caption generators (like the one we have here inside Enji) are powerful tools that can significantly streamline your social media marketing efforts. Because when you have a starting point for your captions, they can save you a ton of time and make you more creative. But, we all still need to remember that AI is a tool to enhance your efforts, not replace your unique voice and understanding of your audience altogether.

The best practice is to use AI-generated captions as a foundation, then refine and personalize them to really make what you get a strong piece of marketing content. And when you do this with strategic scheduling, you'll be well on your way to sticking to a solid marketing routine.

Not an Enji subscriber yet? Start your free trial here to see what all the fuss is about!