Want to enhance your Instagram marketing? Well, you are in for good luck. A proper Instagram marketing strategy can help establish your presence on the platform. It should tick all the right boxes like widening your reach, increasing engagement and driving sales. So, how do you achieve it?
Here, we have included a list of 7 instagram practices that you can incorporate into your strategy to make you a superstar in Instagram marketing.
#1 Be Aware Of Instagram Trends & Changes
(Instagram Stories – latest feature from Instagram)
Instagram is always evolving, and it is important to be competitive with the knowledge of new features, trends, and updates. In 2016, Instagram has undergone a variety of changes.
The main updates are as follows
- 1-minute videos, video ads
- New Logo
- Video Views
- Explore Feature (Desktop)
- Time Stamp
- Two-Step Authentication
- Instagram Algorithm
- Creation of account through Desktop
- Switch between Instagram Accounts
- Introduced Instagram Stories
Tracking these trends can help a lot in planning your marketing strategy. Collecting data about engagement rates, post times and the relation between you and your followers are essential.
Following the trends also keeps you above all the competition. To succeed in Instagram marketing, your decisions should be data-driven and backed by insights about trends.
#2 Post Content Your Audience Wants
Once you get the data about engagement rates, you can easily understand what kind of posts your audience wants or what kind of posts that keeps your audience engaged. Your posts should always strike the right balance between inspiring and promotional.
According to Forrester, Instagram is the most engaging platform for brands among the major social media channels. With ample potential to engage your audience, presence on Instagram is a must.
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Never consider Instagram as a one-way marketing street. Instead, it is important to rely on the engagement of audience and interaction to better the relationship. How do you make your audience participate?
- Holding contests can drive engagement. It can aid in gaining new followers and can also make the current fans come back for more. Make sure that your games and contests are unique.
- If you are looking for a huge influx of people, the quickest way is to buy Instagram followers.
- Posting user-generated content is the best way to acknowledge that you take your followers and their content seriously. This will make more people participate.
- What should you do to get a response? Asking questions or opinions to users about services or products can yield response and more engagement
- Posting from different locations can also increase engagement on Instagram.
#3 Post Regularly & During Optimal Times
When it comes to Instagram marketing, quality wins over quantity. So, it’s important to post during optimal times of the day. According to CoSchedule, Thursdays and Mondays drive the most engagement. On a workday, posting between 3 to 4 PM may yield little engagement. This might differ from region to region. Use analytics tools like Keyhole, Hootsuite or Iconosquare to know when to post to attract maximum engagement from your target audience.
#4 Don’t Dismiss Instagram Analytics
(Screenshot of the analytics tool Hootsuite)
Identifying your position on Instagram among your competitors is a payoff you want. That is one of the many advantages of using Instagram Analytics tool. You can do the following as well.
- Track the performance of your posts
- Monitor new Instagram trends
- Track hashtag usage and comments
- Identify influencers
- Measure user engagement
- Switch between multiple profiles
In short, analytics tell you what requires improvement and what part of your strategy working. Over time, a large pile of data will be at your disposal helping you to measure and track your performance. It is also critical to understand how and why your followers are engaging with the content you post on Instagram.
#5 Get Discovered
Sitting around and waiting for users to find you will not yield fruitful results. On the contrary, if you make use of a variety of avenues to promote your account, the chances are high that you will be discoverable. The following measures will help you be discoverable.
- Hashtags: Who is your best friend on Instagram? The hashtag. They help you get discovered, participate in conversations and also archive content. Branded hashtags might do great wonders to your marketing strategy.
- What is Explore? It is one of Instagram’s most attractive features. You can find posts of users that your fans liked, commented on or followed. That is a lot of content to work on!
- If anybody is participating in your campaign, make sure that you tag them. If you are using User generated content, give them a shout out by using @mentions. This can increase overall engagement.
- To find content tagged at a particular location, Instagram users use geo locations. It can be helpful in expanding the size of your target audience.
#6 Tell Great Stories
Instagram lets you tell unique stories through visual content. You can utilize the increased video length to better your storytelling.
Be creative and try to show your brand in a new light. Through storytelling, you can exhibit your brand’s versatility on Instagram.Instagram recently launched a feature called Instagram stories. Make use of this feature by posting behind the scenes content. You can also hold Story’s exclusive contests to drive engagement.
Authentic and original content is what users crave on Instagram. So use your channel to inspire and engage your followers through unique storytelling.
#7 Harness The Power Of Visuals
(National Geographic is the most followed brand on Instagram because of its visuals)
Instagram is all about great content and visuals. Consider Instagram as a billboard campaign, Would you use a mundane and ugly billboard to get the driver’s attention? Obviously not. Incorporate the same principle for Instagram as well.
Let’s take a look at some statistics that shows the importance of visual appeal. According to Shopify, around 93% of buyers reported that visual appearance is what led them to purchases and another 85% said the color is important in making decisions about buying a particular product. So, let your designing team edit videos and photos to make it look more vibrant and better. If you do not have such a luxury, apps like Canva, Afterlight, Snapseed and VSCO can be of great help.
At the end of the day, Your content should stand out on the feed of your users, so do not undermine the importance of visual aesthetics.
So there you have it, adhering to the tips listed above can be of great help in achieving your goals on Instagram. If you need to increase your follower count within very limited time, then you can opt for measures like buying followers on Instagram. It will not be very easy to construct an engaged and loyal following on an Instagram channel, but with the right approach and ample experimenting, you will recognize it as an excellent fit for your brand. #happyinstagramming !