Guide

How to Add Viral Captions to Instagram Reels?

Alizah Aamir Alizah Aamir
• • 3 min read
How to Add Viral Captions to Instagram Reels?
Photo by Padraig Treanor / Unsplash

In the fast-paced world of social media, your hook has about 1.5 seconds to stop a scroll. While visuals are vital, captions are your secret weapon. They not only increase the visual beauty of your video but also make it more accessible, as more people can get the message. Studies show that up to 80% of users watch social videos on mute, and "viral-style" captions—those snappy, animated, colorful words—keep viewers engaged longer by reinforcing your message visually. Captions can also be used to translate your video so people who speak different languages can understand the videos.

Now there are two ways to add captions to your videos. Either you can manually add captions to your Instagram Reels while editing them in Premiere Pro,   or you can use a simple yet effective AI-powered tool called FireCut AI. It would obviously take longer to add captions manually, while with FireCut it would just take a few minutes.

What is FireCut?

FireCut is an AI-powered plugin designed specifically for Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve. It is built to handle the "boring" parts of editing—like cutting silences, adding zooms, and, most importantly, generating stylized captions.

Unlike standard subtitle tools, FireCut specializes in adding AI captions that are currently dominating Instagram Reels and TikTok. It doesn't just put text on the screen; it adds life to it with animations, auto-emojis, and keyword highlighting. It also offers presets for viral styles such as Hormonzi, Pop Up, and Mr. Beast, etc. 

Method 1: Manual Captions in Premiere Pro

If you want total granular control or don't want to use external plugins, Premiere Pro has a built-in "Speech to Text" engine. Here is the manual workflow:

  1. Transcribe: Open the Text Panel (Window > Text) and click Transcribe Sequence.
  2. Create Captions: Once the transcript is generated, click Create Captions. This will place a "Subtitle Track" at the top of your timeline.
  3. Style via Essential Graphics: Select your captions and go to the Essential Graphics panel. Here, you can change fonts, add shadows, and adjust the font size.
  4. The "Viral" Manual Work: To make them "viral," you’ll need to manually cut the caption blocks into 1–3 words each and apply keyframes or presets for "pop" animations.

Note: This method is free but incredibly time-consuming, often taking 30–60 minutes for a single 60-second Reel.

Method 2: Captions using FireCut

If you want professional, viral-ready captions in seconds, FireCut is the industry standard. Here is how you do it:

  1. Launch the Plugin: Open FireCut within Premiere Pro (Window > Extensions > FireCut).
  2. Add Captions: Click on the "Add Captions" button.
  3. Select a Style: FireCut offers a library of presets. You can choose from styles that mimic top creators, featuring bold fonts, vibrant colors, and dynamic movement.
  4. Auto-Magic: With FireCut you can:
    • Transcribe your audio in 50+ languages.
    • Change the font, color or style as you want
    • Place relevant emojis based on what you’re saying.
    • Animate the captions
  5. Refine: If you need to change a word or an emoji, you can do it directly in the FireCut interface, and it updates your timeline instantly. You can even change captions after adding them by simply selecting them and clicking on edit captions.

The Benefits of Viral Captions

Why go through the effort of adding these styled captions? The data speaks for itself:

  • Higher Retention: Fast-moving text gives the brain a reason to keep watching, significantly reducing "drop-off" rates.
  • Accessibility: Captions make your content inclusive for the hearing impaired and those in public places without headphones.
  • Improved SEO: Instagram's AI scans the text in your video. Having clear, keyword-rich captions helps the algorithm understand who to show your Reel to.
  • Brand Personality: Using custom fonts and brand colors in your captions makes your content instantly recognizable in the feed.

Conclusion

Adding viral captions to your Instagram Reels is no longer optional if you want to grow in 2026. While the manual method in Premiere Pro is great for learning the basics, AI tools like FireCut allow you to produce high-quality, professional content at ten times the speed.

Stop wasting hours on frame-by-frame editing and let AI handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on what matters: creating great content. Start your free trial today!