A picture is worth a thousand words – people are more likely to be drawn to visuals than to text. Most of us are increasingly time-poor, and images will convey your message faster than text can. What's more, people are more likely to have a better response to visual content. The bottom line is: people love visuals!
Instagram's focus on visual content makes it an excellent platform for engaging your audience. So here are some quick tips for Instagram marketing success:
1. Have a creative strategy
Create exclusive content that's different from what you post on your other social media channels. Location-based content does well on Instagram, so try engaging with your local community. Post some images of your team's favourite cafe for morning coffee or some shots around your office's neighbourhood. The visual nature of Instagram makes it feel more intimate than other platforms, so remember to be personable.
You also need to think about how your Instagram strategy will fit into your social media strategy, and how that will work as part of your overall marketing strategy.
2. Use relevant and interactive hashtags
As a rule of thumb, use at least four hashtags in a post and make sure you use some of the popular ones. In addition, you should create a brand hashtag that customers can use in their own posts. This increases brand awareness and extends your reach on the platform.
While it is important to use hashtags, captions can come across as spam if they're full of hashtags. To avoid this, enter your hashtags after several line breaks so they won't appear unless 'more' is clicked.
How to add line breaks to an Instagram caption
To add line breaks to a post caption on an iPhone, tap the 123 key on your keypad then tap the return key and enter a full-stop. Tap return and full-stop another two times, then tap return again and type out your hashtags. They will now be visible only if 'more' is clicked and won't crowd the main content of your caption. See the example below:
3. Take your audience behind the scenes
Customers are always curious to know what goes on behind the scenes of the brands they love. How are the products made? What is the company culture like?
You should use Instagram to humanise your brand. Let your audience see the people behind the logo and the love and effort that goes into creating your products/services. For instance, you could post a video that shows the lifecycle of one of your products. These types of posts build trust in your brand and create loyal customers.
4. Plan your content and analyse your data
Map out the content you'll share each month or quarter and create a posting schedule. You should have a variety of content that covers your strategically chosen topics as well as any trends or seasonal events.
Know when your followers are most active on Instagram and post at these times. Make sure you've set up a business account so you can see data about your followers such as:
- Gender
- Age range
- Locations
- Average times they're on Instagram on a typical day
- The days of the week when they're most active
There's no better way to step up your business than to be active on Instagram. It can also be used to increase engagement with employees if you have a large team. The platform is constantly making improvements, so individuals and business can get more out of it.
