Best Valentine’s Day Captions for Businesses on Social
February 14th — whether you celebrate romantically, or with a Galentine’s celebration (or both), it’s also a big deal for brands, and Instagrammers in general.
For brands with related products, celebrating Valentine’s Day on social media is basically a prerequisite. We’ve looked at the best time to post on Instagram to maximize your reach — but what about some Valentine’s Day caption ideas for brands to use?
Whether you want to set a romantic, funny, or cute tone this Valentine’s Day on social, here are some captions brands can use to make the most of their ‘heart day’ posts.
Pop Culture Captions
Want to lean on popular images from pop culture for your Valentine’s post?
Song lyrics are a great place to look, or, select one of these classic quotes about love from popular TV shows and movies:
- To me, you are perfect. - Love, Actually
- You’re the Jim to my Pam. - The Office
- My heart is, and will always be, yours. - Sense and Sensibility
- True love is the rarest magic of all. - Once Upon a Time
- Love doesn’t always shout, sometimes it whispers. - Santa Clarita Diet
- You can’t measure love with numbers, you can only measure it in terms of intensity. - The Young Pope
- Will you accept this rose? — The Bachelor
- Three words, eight letters. Say it and I’m yours. - The Notebook
- See? He’s her lobster. - Friends
- All you need is love. - The Beatles
- Together is a wonderful place to be. - Winnie the Pooh
- You had me at hello. - Jerry Maguire
- What’s Galentines? Oh, it’s only the best day of the year. - Parks and Recreation
- Maybe our girlfriends are our soulmates, and guys are just people to have fun with. - Sex and the City
Romantic and Cute Valentine’s Captions
Leaning into a cutesy, adorable tone for Valentine’s day? Try one of these captions for your brand’s Instagram post — remember, these don’t have to be toward a person.
- Better together.
- Kisses and Valentine’s wishes.
- Two peas in a pod.
- Life is better with you.
- Still writing our love story.
- Be my Valentine?
- Cupid’s arrow doesn’t miss.
- My A-1 since day one.
- I’m yours.
- Love you to the moon and back.
Funny Captions
Whether you poke fun at love, or being single, one of these captions is perfect to bring some levity to your brand’s Valentine’s day posts.
- Happy day-before-discount chocolate day.
- Why fall in love when you can fall asleep?
- Here’s to my love: (Insert name of food, product, tv show that currently has your heart).
- All you need is love — but chocolate doesn’t hurt.
- On Cloud 9 with my Valentine.
- Things I love: you, you, you.
- You’ll always be my emergency contact.
- Valentine’s Day sucks — but you don’t.
- Love you more than chocolate (and that’s a lot).
- Thanks Cupid.
Best Valentine’s Posts from Businesses
There are an endless number of brands competing to gain the public's affection.
So how does a brand steal the content spotlight? For one, focusing on engaging content is generally at the top of the totem pole. The problem is that what constitutes “engaging content” is not only subjective, but also apt to change.
We took a look at three dreamy accounts — @urbanoutfitters, @freepeople, and @forloveandlemons — to see how they created Valentine’s Day magic through their Instas this year. With similar target audiences, we zeroed in on the strategies that they applied to stand out from the pack, leading up to the day of love.
Using a few tools on Dash Hudson’s Instagram marketing platform, we were able to dig deeper into the success of these campaigns, narrowing in specifically on engagement rates.
1. Valentines Day Instagram Post: Urban Outfitters
- Strategy: Focusing on trends
- Average per-post engagement rate: 2.26%
Known for their highly engaging #UOHome content, the retailer is truly a master when it comes to hashtags and UGC. V-Day was no different, as they created the unique #LoveUO to make it rain apropos earned content.
Leading up to February 14th, they published a series of posts using #LoveUO, which included all of the usual suspects: roses, lingerie and multiple (50?) shades of pink. But what crushed it? Heart shaped balloons, obvi. On January 24th, the first balloon post made its appearance and their audience eruptued in double-taps, sending their engagement through the roof.
They clearly took note, as they snuck these balloons in again on February 3rd, hitting an engagement rate of almost 3%. It then came as no surprise that their actual 2/14 post included these extra shiny subjects once more. This time, they reached an engagement level of almost 4%.
- Lesson: Keep your eye on the types of posts that resonate with your audience and don’t be afraid to do some good ol' fashioned recycling.
2. Valentine's Day Instagram Story: Free People
- Strategy: Leveraging videos
- Average per-post engagement rate: 1.77%
Many marketing experts agree that 2016 will be a big year for video. Especially on platforms like Instagram, which offers space for "mini-form" ad creatives. Free People is a prime example of a brand that is on board with this notion, as demonstrated with their beautiful 5-piece Valentine’s Day-themed vids.
As soon as February rolled around, they shared a clip every day of that first week encouraging users to #treatyourself in the caption. Although Free People gave their audience something unique and different, the average overall engagement rate for the videos fell below their average per-post rate, clocking in at 1.12%.
That said, Instagram will soon be letting users in on video view counts, which will provide brands with an additional way to measure video engagement. In their words: “We believe video views are the best measure of viewer intent.” Agreed.
- Lesson: Videos can be eye-catching, especially when they feature cute pups and babes… but we’ll have to take a rain check on a verdict until view counts are available.
3. Galentines Day Instagram: For Love and Lemons
- Strategy: Offering an insider view
- Average per-post engagement rate: 1.17%
LA-based label For Love and Lemons wins points for the uniqueness of their Valentine’s Day Instagram campaign. It included a series of posts featuring their muses, accompanied by Q&As presented in the style of hand-written love letters, each linking to a more detailed blog post.
Super personal, authentic, and exclusive.
The top post from this campaign featured @beccahiller (“Scandinavian Dream Girl”) and drew in an engagement rate of 1.36%, which sits just above their average rate of 1.17%.
- Lesson: Brands have the power to provide users with a unique perspective and should take advantage of this. The juicier the better.
3 Tips for Valentine's Day Engagement Posts
You’re free to choose from the Valentine’s posts above, but if you’re still looking for tips to make your Valentine’s content pop, look no further.
Creating engaging content can help grow your followers, drive conversions, and build brand awareness.
Use Insider Perspective to your Advantage
Love and Lemons is a great example of using exclusive information to entice users to their Valentine’s campaign.
Start a Blog
Starting a blog is a great way to enhance your online content, especially if you offer some valuable tips or entertaining content. Love and Lemons used their blog as an additional channel to funnel users to and from Instagram.
Get Creative
Creating engaging content is the key to successful social media marketing campaigns; however, there is no one-size fits all formula. It’s important for brands to understand their audience and take a closer look at their social analytics in order to understand whether or not an idea works, or could work
A thorough grasp of your audience will inform your creative strategy — if you’re a brand with a light and fun voice, Galentine’s content might be the best type of content to focus on, whereas an esteemed and storied brand might want to focus on passion and romance for their creative vision.
Dash Hudson’s Predictive Vision AI tool is a great feature to pre-determine which potential Valentine’s day posts will resonate most with your audience.
