Instagram has been rapidly growing since it’s launch in 2010. This photo sharing app has evolved to become one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. With over 500 million monthly active users, this social media giant is definitely here to stay. More and more, businesses all over are utilizing Instagram in their marketing strategies. However, it’s not very clear how to use the platform to convert followers into customers. There’s a ton of complexity to understanding the platform’s inner workings and how to fully optimize each tool, but that would take much more time to explain.
So we decided to focus on 3 Instagram tips that if utilized correctly, will show instant results.
Experiment with different Post Formats
Instagram is always coming up with different ways to produce engaging visual content. There are now a variety of features at your disposal. However, you need to figure out which ones will work best for your marketing strategy.
Here are examples of the different post types on Instagram:
Single Image
Video
Carousel
Layout
Boomerang
Don’t be afraid to mix up the type of post formats you use. Try out new ideas and keep an eye on the engagement; see what sticks and what you can do to improve your content. Recently, Instagram Stories have taken over and is now an important element to effective social media marketing. A great feature of this tool is that you can add highlights to your profile. This can allow you to provide further details about your business in an appealing way. The key to this tip is experimentation; try things out and learn from the experience.
Understand the power of Hashtags
Unlike other social media platforms, Instagram is all about using a LOT of hashtags. Hashtags on Instagram help make your posts more searchable and easier to find. They also have the added benefit of giving your post more context and allowing you to present your content to the audience you want.
Research your competition on Instagram and dive deep into finding what hashtags are popular. Instagram allows for up to 30 hashtags per post. Try to use 15 to 20 related hashtags per post since this will increase your reach. To be clear, it’s okay if you can’t hit that number on every post you make.
You don’t need to add all of these hashtags to your caption section. A good trick that some Instagram experts do is use a couple of hashtags in the caption and then add their hashtag bulk in the comment section. This cleans up the caption section while still utilizing the power of hashtags.
Keep an eye on your posts to see which get the most engagement. This will help you figure out what type of hashtags are working best and which need to be replaced. A more accurate way to do this is to invest in a social media analytics platform. However, if you’re just starting out and don’t have the funds for that all you need is time and dedication to see what hashtags are pulling in your audience.
Sprout Social created a great blog entry on How to Grow Your Audience With Hashtags for Instagram. I highly recommend reading this for a more in-depth look on how to fully utilize hashtags.
Improve engagement with the Caption section
The caption section of Instagram may not seem to be the most important element to a post. Yet, using the right call-to-action terms can significantly increase post engagement.
When coming up with a caption, try not to repeat in text format what’s already in the post. In fact, you should create unique information that’s relevant. The overall aim is to add value for the audience. If the caption simply retells what the post is showing then there’s no value being added.
Make the caption open up a conversation to your audience. This can make the post more interactive and personal to the user. It’s also a great way to add some good post engagement tactics such as the following:
‘Double Tap’: A method to get users looking at your post to leave a like. This comes in the form of asking the user to participate in giving their opinion about the caption and post. There are many ways to use the ‘double tap’ method. Some example of this include, ‘double tap if you agree’, ‘double tap if you would love one’ and ‘double tap if you relate’.
Ask Questions: This is another method to get user engagement on your post by encouraging them to leave a comment and start a conversation. Make sure once you start this method you are commenting back to users in order to drive further engagement on your post. Here’s an example: You post an image of you belly flopping into a swimming pool, the question you put into the caption could be, ‘What’s your funniest pool stories?’ or ‘What’s your worst belly flop experience?’. Each question needs to be directly asking the individual user, thus making it feel more personal. The more personal the question feels and more likely they will answer in the comment section.
Tag a Friend: This method is a double hitter as it both encourages engagement with the post as well as sharing the post with more people. The idea behind this method is to get users to link their friends to the post by how relatable it is to that individual. Here’s an example: You post a looping video of dog doing a little dance, your caption then could say, ‘tag someone who can party like him’ or ‘tag a friend who dances moves can’t match his’. Relate the post to a general idea that applies to the most amount of people and have them connect the dots on who they think it best matches.
‘Link in Bio | @username’: One of the only places on Instagram where you can have an active link to an outbound site is in the bio section of your profile. Since you want traffic from Instagram to bleed into your website, you need to add this to your captions on all related posts. To do this, all you do is at the end of the post use a call-to-action to get users to click on your username, leading them back to your profile where they can click your link. Doing this will help give you more profile interaction and possibly lead to more sales.
Need more information? We can help.
With these 3 tips, you now have the ability to radically improve your Instagram marketing strategy. Get started on creating fun and interesting content for your audience!
Is this not enough? We previously created a list of 4 Useful Infographics on Social Media Marketing which is a useful resource talking about all of the most popular social media platforms like Instagram. Wish to discuss with someone about your Instagram marketing strategy? We can definitely help you with that. Use the contact form below or connect with us on social media to get in touch. We can discuss what can be done to make your Instagram profile draw in a bigger audience.
