Instagram has become into a potent instrument for developing a devoted following and content marketing. Numerous people—celebrities, businesspeople, models, and more—have been able to use it to build profitable companies and even make a living off of their social media popularity. Influencers have flourished thanks to sponsored posts, which makes Instagram a crucial medium for revenue generation.
Instagram maintains its strength with the second-highest engagement rate at 0.70%, but TikTok leads with a staggering 2.65% by followers and 4.07% by views. Facebook, on the other hand, trails at 0.15%.
Short-form videos are becoming popular on Instagram, so it’s not just about images anymore. According to Wyzowl, 87% of marketers say that video marketing has a positive return on investment.
Here are eight practical suggestions to help you succeed if you want to increase your Instagram presence and develop a devoted audience.
- Choose an Appealing Look
- Find Your Niche
- Use Engaging Captions
- Be Smart With Your Hashtags
- Post at the Right Time
- Be Interactive
- Use Instagram Stories
- Look at Your Competition
1. Choose an Appealing Look
Aesthetics are crucial when it comes to promoting your brand on Instagram. Instagram is all about sharing pictures and videos, so the way you visually represent your brand is crucial.
Establish and adhere to a consistent brand aesthetic first. For a fashion brand, you might choose images that are elegant and well-designed. Choose colourful, dynamic images that convey energy and movement when promoting a lifestyle brand, such as Lululemon. Imagine yoga or athleisure in action. The correct images will help you establish a connection with your audience and establish the tone for your brand.
You follow someone on Instagram because you find their images and videos appealing. Make sure your material is noticeable as soon as someone enters your page by adding your finest images to your public profile.
Expert advice: Make sure the style you select is true to your brand. In order for your audience to quickly identify your distinct theme, maintain a consistent design and refrain from changing filters too frequently. The secret to creating a distinctive presence is consistency.
2. Find Your Niche
Knowing your audience and producing material that appeals to them are crucial for successfully growing your following. Consider how you want your followers to interact with your brand on social media and spend some time researching and analysing them.
Being adaptable is fantastic, but your material should be relevant to your niche. Like National Geographic’s Instagram account, for instance, if you have a travel blog, make sure your articles are inspirational to other travellers.
If fitness is your main focus, include training videos, fitness advice, and dietary recommendations to draw in fitness and sports aficionados. You may create a devoted community by creating material that appeals directly to your target audience.
If your messaging is inconsistent or your material doesn’t connect with them, people are likely to unfollow you. Make sure your content fits your audience and brand before you start posting.
Pro tip: Make sure your brand is the main focus of your professional page. To keep things different, save off-topic or personal images for your private, non-business account.
3. Use Engaging Captions
It might be annoying to go through Instagram and come upon a picture without any context, particularly if you’re interested in learning more about it. Why not inform your followers?
Use succinct, witty captions to draw viewers in and help them understand what they’re viewing.
People like to feel a connection to the accounts they follow, so captions are a great opportunity to show off the personality of your brand. The famous Nike tagline “Just Do It” is a perfect illustration of how a few strong words can convey a lot of meaning.
In a DMI webinar, content creator Evelina Krusinskaite explained that including keywords in your captions that tell the algorithm exactly what your content is about is crucial. Because people’s attention spans are limited, make them informative and valuable without going overboard.
Keep your captions brief, concise, and engaging; this will work well on social media because of how quickly things move.
The Digital Marketing Institute’s Instagram post advertising a webinar, for example, is a fantastic illustration of an informative and successful caption.
4. Be Smart With Your Hashtags
Platform algorithms have improved at presenting material that people want to see and trust as AI in social media keeps developing. Consequently, hashtags’ impact on social media has decreased.
Instagram declared at the end of 2024 that it will no longer allow users to follow hashtags on the platform. After then, posts and reels from any topics users have previously followed will no longer show up in their main feed.
Although hashtags’ function has changed, it’s still critical to understand how to utilise them on social media, particularly Instagram. Keep an eye on popular hashtags and, if appropriate, include them in your writing. Use them sparingly if you do, making sure they complement your brand.
It’s still possible for people to locate your brand because hashtags can still be searched for and users may still use them to find content.
“Hashtags can still help you get discovered as long as they are relevant to your content and represent what your target audience might be searching for,” Krusinskaite said. “Hashtags are still relevant and should be used, but strategically.”
5. Post at the Right Time
Posting at the optimum times of day, when you’re likely to receive more impressions and engagement, is the best strategy to gain Instagram followers. Even though Instagram’s timeline is algorithmic, timing is still quite important.
Click on your profile tab and then the bar chart icon to access Instagram Insights and see the optimal times. You can use this to see when most of your followers are online. Post something to make your audience’s day if the majority of them are active in the morning. Save your stuff for after work if they are the type to scroll at night.
Try to space out your posts as well. Posting several updates at once can overload your followers and won’t make you more visible.
Use the slideshow tool to compile multiple images into a single post if you have a lot to share. Instagram allows you to schedule posts for later by saving them as drafts if you’re using an Android device.
6. Be Interactive
If followers see that you are actively interacting with them through live streaming, direct messages, or comments, they are more inclined to visit your profile.
Make sure to tag pertinent individuals and locations in your material and respond to comments on your posts. Your posts become more engaged and connections are cultivated as a result.
By leaving comments on their postings, you can interact with others who have similar interests. This might start discussions and provide chances for idea sharing.
The lifestyle and community brand Girls Night in Club’s giveaway, which effectively engages its followers through participatory activities, is a fantastic illustration of this.
7. Use Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories is another method to interact with your audience. You can repost stuff from other people and exchange images, videos, feed posts, and reels. Your Stories is an interactive arena where users can leave comments, much like with stories in your feed.
Posting more impromptu, unpolished content that highlights your brand’s personality and what you’re pushing is made possible by stories. Additionally, you have the option to include links to your website, which work better in Stories than in individual posts or your bio.
“ManyChat is a fantastic AI tool for Stories that aids in lead generation and sign-ups,” explains Nicola Gwillym, Social Media Executive at DMI. The “story mention reply trigger,” which initiates a conversation automatically when someone tags your account in their story, is another tool at your disposal.
Oatly’s successful promotion of their new little carton of oat creamer with a twist is a fantastic example of Instagram Stories in action.
Going live is the greatest way to get the most out of Instagram Stories. Instagram Live lets your followers interact with you in real time by leaving comments.
Don’t use your live sessions solely to promote or sell products. Rather, make it entertaining and captivating—something that will hold viewers’ attention throughout the entire film, especially if it is accessible for 24 hours.
Live sessions are ideal for conducting interviews, promoting new items, and responding to enquiries. Sending a request to be included in a split-screen live broadcast is another way to get people to join the discussion.
Pro tip: To increase viewer involvement, ask them to send a direct message or use reveal stickers to hide the text of your story until they tap on it.
8. Look at Your Competition
Examining Instagram users who are experts in fields related to yours is a wise move. Examine their publishing schedules, engagement data, and content sharing patterns in detail.
Keep an eye on both the posts that don’t perform as well as the ones that get the most response and follows. You will gain important knowledge about what works and what doesn’t from this.
You can keep ahead of the competition and improve your own content with the help of these insights. To learn more about what your competitors are doing and how to make your strategy better, you may also think about utilising competitive analysis tools (aided by artificial intelligence).
Using Instagram to Get Noticed – Final Thoughts
Instagram’s broadcast channels, which let artists communicate text, photos, GIFs, polls, and even voice messages with their followers, are one of its developing features. Additionally, by facilitating two-way communication, these channels improve interaction. Instagram claims that over 1.5 billion messages are sent on channels each month between creators and their followers.
It’s a good idea to keep up with Meta’s current developments because new features are often being added to help marketers interact with and influence Instagram users.
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