Boost your Instagram and tap into a massive audience! With over 13% of the world’s population on Instagram and 80% of users being supportive of brands, it’s no wonder advertisers are flocking to this platform.
According to Forrester, loyalty – measured by user likes , shares and feedback – is also off-the-shelf, with a rate of 4.21 percent. That is ten times Facebook’s, 54 times Pinterest’s and 84 times Twitter’s.
But apart from such impressive topline numbers, challenges arise that point to the marketing potential dimming of Instagram due to decreased engagement rates and competition from new challengers like TikTok.
Against this context, amid a few setbacks, ambitious marketers are looking for ways to improve Instagram interaction. That’s why we’ve put together these 10 tips to ensure that your paid and organic marketing campaigns keep hitting their target – and to safeguard your Instagram marketing strategy now and into the future. Let’s go jump in.
- Post consistently
- Don’t preach—tell stories instead
- Build a strong brand
- Have a visually consistent feed
- Choose the right hashtags
- Create a branded hashtag
- Focus on user-generated content
- Explore the full range of Instagram video formats
- Use Instagram video subtitles and closed captions
- Add CTAs, everywhere
1. Post regularly
To attract followers and boost engagement rates, brands need to be active-but how active?
The sweet spot is a consistent 1–2 posts a day, according to studies. This keeps your feed fresh and relevant, and you have more chances to attract eyes to your content. Also knowing when the best time to post on Instagram is essential especially when dealing with the algorithmic timeline of Instagram.
Recommended post times can vary wildly according to which expert you are listening to. This inconsistency can create genuine confusion for content planners with some advocating 8 AM – 9 AM or 2 PM – 5 PM for your first post to even 5 AM for your second one.
In the case of National Geographic and FashionNova, two vastly different global brands, and look at their approaches. FashionNova,with its 17.3 M followers, posts 30 times a day on average – that’s about one post every 30 minutes! The engagement rate with this many followers is 0.07 percent.
National Geographic, on the other hand, uses a much more conventional method: The company posts around 5-7 times a day and has 135 M followers with an engagement rate of 0.24 per cent
The point? Two highly popular brands, and two very different tactics.
There’s no magic formula for the best time or amount of posting on Instagram.
What you can do is discover your own followers habits by using the insights feature for your company account.
This helps you decide when your followers are most active and allows you to plan accordingly to ensure that your posts remain at the top of their feeds.
2. Tell stories
Instagram is rife with bad brand marketing that is ignoring the fact that the social networking app is a visual platform.
You should be captivating viewers with photos, video , and text, not only preaching marketing messages to them.
Instead, become a storyteller, providing ‘micro-stories’ through your captions, videos, Instagram stories and profile to increase engagement rates.
Today , people crave communication, and storytelling is a way of creating that bond. They are much more likely to buy into it and share it with their peers when people feel an emotional connection to your content.
Find creative Instagram storytellers like Airbnb, Red Bull, Lego, Patagonia, and Nike for inspiration. These examples can also be used to help kick-start your imagination.
One way to incorporate storytelling elements into your Instagram strategy is to share user-generated content that will resonate with your brand. Another approach is to concentrate your captions on telling a plot.
Longer captions with narrative and authenticity elements are especially powerful because they allow brands to appear more human and to create deeper ties with their target audience. Done correct, wordy captions often stop scrollers in their tracks, and increase their time looking at your message.
Lengthy captions have recently become a bit of a trend, first embraced by influencers who use Instagram captions such as microblogs.
Long captions, in addition to being a trend, are part of a broader move to authenticity, and bring additional legitimacy to a forum long vilified for being too shallow.
Brands are picking up on the change slowly.
Take for example Patagonia. The sustainable outerwear brand is a master of storytelling, its account is teeming with environmental, nature and outdoor sports content.
Patagonia has opted in this example for an informative caption about the protection of indigenous areas in Canada.
Airbnb is yet another brilliant example of storytelling. The brand uses Stories to display glamorous guests, encounters and places.
Ultimately, don’t just post product pictures and sales pitches — provide material that aligns with what your audience is concerned about, or support them about their issues. Do that well by adopting various formats of content, such as stories, IGTV, videos , photos, and captions.
3. Create a good brand
For companies trying to create brand recognition on Instagram, transparency, innovation and consistency are king. A slapdash, chaotic style just doesn’t work.
Try to concentrate on core areas such as displaying your profile, building patterns of styles that keep your images looking new, and using hashtag mastering. You can also communicate with your followers frequently to create trust and loyalty.
By roadmapping Instagram’s processes and brand best practices, you can approach your target audience with a meaningful and reliable message.
4. Keep your Instagram feed visual
Instagram is an aesthetically dominated platform which rewards content that is visually appealing.
Though glamorous beauty is falling out of style, Instagram’s core is visual content and that will never change.
Users today gravitate to sincere thought and varied viewpoints.
Visually, high-saturation filters and perfectly positioned foods have been replaced with candid shots, subdued, earthy tones and low-key editing types.
A trendy look is to minimize highlights and increase the photos’ brightness, without changing too many of the colors themselves, resulting in a natural appearance. Some also opt for no edit at all.
But having a visually clear feed is more critical than following any particular editing style.
According to a social media survey from WebDam, 60 percent of Instagram’s best-performing brands look consistent every time they post.
Your look is meant to complement your brand identity and cater to the audience you want to draw.
Take for example the Five Minute Article. Their stream evokes a sense of calm, reflective reflection — just like their brand does.
In contrast, Glossier is consistent and authentic by posting candid and natural product photos, closeups and memes. Their content seems down-to-earth and approachable without fancy editing and professional photo shooting.
5. Hashtags are key
Choosing the right hashtags for your Instagram posts will mean the difference between emerging as a top poster or falling to the bottom of the list without trace.
Make your hashtags too generic — think # Christmas or # fashion — and your post will face potentially millions of competition. Using a combination of popular hashtags and industry-specific hashtags instead to find the right hashtag to communicate with your target followers.
Check for the best results on any hashtag. Look at the type of content on their top-performing posts and the number of likes — if your content fits, you have a winning hashtag on yourself.
The amount of hashtags that you use is critical, too. While Instagram allows up to 30, a mass of tags below your caption runs the risk of looking untargeted as well as unprofessional. That’s why 91 per cent of top brand posts use seven or fewer hashtags to get lots of likes. Posts with more than 11 hashtags get the most interaction according to some. Even one hashtag can increase your post engagement by up to 12.6%.
Identify how many hashtags your rivals and industry influencers usually use to help you determine which number is right for your brand, and then play with various volumes of hashtags on your posts before you find your sweet spot.
Note that the Instagram algorithm penalizes “annoyingly repetitive” behavior, so you can adjust the number and form of hashtags that you use to lower this probability.
6. Create your own hashtag
A branded hashtag often forms a key part of a successful marketing strategy for Instagram.
A general, branded hashtag is the best starting point. It should be short, memorable and in some way include your company name. Think of Frank Body’s # FrankEffect, or ColourPopMe ‘s Color Pop Cosmetics.
A branded hashtag has the advantages of making your content more discoverable, driving traffic to your profile and creating a stronger community around your mark. It will also help you organize your content, making it easy to track and find.
Place the hashtag in your bio, so that anyone who visits your profile can easily see it.
And nobody is saying you only have to have one hashtag. For a particular campaign or competition, you can also create hashtags, showcase brand advocates or encourage user-generated content.
Take for example the athleisure brand Athleta. The brand has opted for the hashtag # PowerofShe, which fits in with its women empowerment mission.
The furniture retailer West Elm and his hashtag # mywestelm are another example. By promising to share the best shots the hashtag encourages user-generated content.
7. Concentrate on user-generated content
User-generated content is a holy grail for marketers on Instagram. It’s a chance for followers to get more deeply involved with a brand while reducing marketing costs because your audience creates and approves content.
It’s an approach that has paid dividends for the content campaigns best generated by users. Starbucks’ # RedCupContest for example is a perfect example of turning followers into brand advocates.
The campaign, launched every December, asks followers to submit creative photos of the famous red Christmas cup from Starbucks. To date, the hashtag has 37,000 entries so it is safe to say it was a success.
Virtually any industry can take advantage of content generated by users. Just take a look at Santander and their campaign for “Prosperity.”
The campaign tapped into everyday life ‘s emotions and humor by soliciting short user-generated clips from followers that were collated into a video clip about what prosperity means to its clients.
The result was a heart-warming and impactful campaign which managed to elevate the image of the brand.
8. Discover all the Instagram video formats
A picture might be worth 1000 words, but a video is worth 1.8 million words.
uWhile lovers of Shakespeare may strongly disagree with such a status, the effectiveness and popularity of online video content is unchallenged . Instagram recognizes this, and offers marketers to deploy a suite of video options.
From Instagram Stories where videos and stills can be mashed into one ad. Be sure to use the strengths of each video format to standalone 60-second videos, ideal for long-form features.
Consider , for example, the live video option of Instagram stories for a Q&A or big revelations about new products or services, or use a pre-recorded ad to offer your followers authentic, behind-the-scenes stories to increase Instagram engagement.
And not to forget IGTV. Although the feature was proclaimed dead by some experts, the diagnosis may be premature.
Instagram originally intended IGTV to be a destination for long-form original video content. However, adoption struggled with 72 per cent of brands reporting no intention of creating IGTV content in 2019.
This also gives savvy marketers an opportunity, though. Brands will have less competition for views when they are a first-mover on IGTV. In addition, they will work in a unique, mobile-friendly layout perfect for evergreen content, such as featurettes and interviews.
Take for example Imperial College. The university based in London uses IGTV to attract new students with related content, such as a video that answers the question on everyone’s mind: “How much do students spend on coffee?
9. Use video subtitles and closed captions
60 percent of stories are viewed with sound on … meaning that 40 percent are viewed without sound, according to Instagram.
With video increasingly dominating online space, audio has become a poor cousin with a considerable number of users preferring not to allow sound when viewing a video. That’s why subtitles have become so essential for marketers, allowing the delivery of core messaging on-screen alongside visuals.
Facebook research shows that video captioning increases the average viewing times of video by 12 percent. Messaging efficiency is also massively boosted, boasting an 82 percent success rate as compared to 18 percent with sound on and zero captions. Another study found that 80 percent of people said captions would increase their chances of watching the enitre video.
On Facebook, you can create an auto-captioned video that you can save and post on Instagram or, alternatively, create your own dedicated captioning file.
While no one can deny captions’ attention-grabbing power, they are not officially part of story best practices for Instagram.
Most stories continue to be watched with sound on. And once a user allows sound, it’s on until they disable it — making it still important to invest in a great sound experience.
10. Add CTAs wherever you can
Followers may love your Instagram ads but be sure that by using a powerful Instagram call to action, all that love actually leads to somewhere.
While CTAs may be inserted into your profile, images, or caption copy, the most direct way to increase interaction rates and push followers in a certain direction is to use the official CTA buttons that Instagram makes available to business.
These appear below your post and are ideal for delivering the attention of short, punchy CTAs like ‘Learn More’ and ‘Call Now’ which snare followers.