Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about social media marketing tips Instagram. This is a platform that you probably already use and have thought about using for your business. But as with any social media network, there are best practices and a few things you should avoid. So here are 6 social media marketing tips Instagram to help you drive engagement and enthusiasm with the photo-sharing platform.
Are you using the right Instagram hashtags for your personal or business Instagram profile? You probably know that if you don’t use your niche hashtags you are missing out on a lot of potential traffic or sales. And, when you only have a few seconds to impress potential followers and customers, making sure you have the right Instagram hashtag is a must. Here is a list of Instagram hashtags for each of your goals below:
Instagram marketing tips for business that you can’t afford to ignore
1. Use a business account
Just in case you skipped over the section above and plan to dive into the rest of the Instagram marketing tips while using a personal account, here’s why you should reconsider.
A business account gives you access to features you can’t use with a personal account, including:
- Instagram Insights (see Tip 21)
- Instagram ads (see Tip 20)
- Instagram Shopping (see Tip 16)
- Primary and secondary messaging inboxes
- Contact information and a call-to-action button on your profile
A creator account has its own set of benefits for influencers and content creators. But for most marketers, a business account is where it’s at. Hop back up to the top of this post and convert your account if you haven’t already done so.
2. Clearly define your goals
All social platforms are tools. But you can’t use those tools effectively unless you know what it is you’re trying to build.
Instagram marketing can mean different things to different marketers. Are you looking to:
- Create an online presence for your business?
- Increase brand awareness?
- Get new leads?
- Establish your brand as an industry leader?
- Sell products directly from the app?
You might even want to combine several different outcomes. But unless you know where you want your Instagram strategy to take you, you’re unlikely to get there.
We’ve got a whole blog post on goal setting to help you decide what matters most to your business.
3. Know your audience
A little preliminary research can help you figure out who you can best reach when you’re thinking about how to market on Instagram. For example, our post on Instagram demographics shows that:
- The most active Instagrammers are between 18 and 29.
- The United States is the largest Instagram market.
- More urban residents use Instagram than their suburban peers.
But that doesn’t mean you should only use Instagram to try to reach urban Americans in their 20s. Instead, you need to define your target market so you can create content that speaks directly to that audience.
This will also become critical when it comes time to choose targeting options for your Instagram ads.
4. Optimize your profile
In just 150 characters, your Instagram bio needs to make a great first impression, convey your brand personality, and tell people why they should bother following your Instagram account.
That’s a lot to ask from a small space.
Fortunately, you also get a few other fields on your Instagram profile to showcase what your brand is all about and make it easier for people to find you. These include:
- Your name: 30 characters, included in search.
- Your username: AKA your handle. Up to 30 characters, included in search.
- Your website: A clickable URL you can change as often as you like.
- Category: A business feature that tells people what you’re all about without using up bio characters.
- Contact info: Tell people where to find you.
- Call-to-action buttons: Give Instagrammers a way to interact with you directly from your profile page.
Tourism Vancouver does a good job of making the most of all the fields the profile has to offer.
Source: @Inside_Vancouver on Instagram
For more profile strategies, check out our blog post on how to optimize your Instagram profile for business.
5. Choose the right profile photo
For most brands, your Instagram profile photo should be your logo. This helps provide credibility and allows visitors to see at a glance who you are.
Your Instagram profile photo displays at 110 by 110 pixels, cropped to a circle with a 110 pixel diameter. However, it’s stored at 320 by 320 pixels, so you should upload a file that large to make sure it still looks good if Instagram changes how profile pics are displayed.
If your logo is a square, you’ll need to zoom out to make sure the whole thing shows within the circle:
Source: The Home Depot on Instagram
6. Create visually compelling content
Instagram is a visual medium, so your posts have simply got to look great. You don’t need professional photography equipment, but your photos and videos do need to be sharp, well-lit, well-composed, and in focus, at a minimum.
If you’re using images other than photos, like infographics or animations, make sure they’re crisp, clear, easy-to read, and eye-catching.
Even more important, your visual content needs to be compelling. Great photos are nice, but if they don’t tell a story, or get viewers excited, they’re not going to engage followers.
Not sure what to post? Here are a few ideas:
- Behind-the-scenes posts: Give followers a look at your office, your storefront, or your manufacturing process.
- Quotes and text-based images: Play with text to create visually interesting content with no photos required.
- Regrams and UGC: User-generated content is by nature authentic and compelling.
- Instructional posts: Teaching followers how to achieve a goal is about as compelling as it gets.
- Videos: The maximum length of a video post on Instagram is 60 seconds, but you can go much longer with IGTV.
- Reels: See Tip 17 for more details on this multi-cut video format.
Beauty Brand Glow Recipe uses IGTV videos to showcase skincare routines for different skin types using their products. They post previews of the longer videos to news feed, so followers always know when a new tutorial is ready to watch.https://www.instagram.com/tv/CGFoufIjBg5/embed/captioned/?cr=1&v=13&wp=540&rd=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.hootsuite.com&rp=%2Finstagram-marketing%2F#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A48717.59999996424%2C%22ls%22%3A47660.59999996424%2C%22le%22%3A48420.09999996424%7D
We’ve got a whole blog post packed with content ideas for Instagram, if you need more inspiration.
Keep in mind that compelling content can extend your reach if people are inspired to share your newsfeed posts to their Stories. So, when thinking about how to market your business on Instagram, focus on creating content that’s worthy of a share, not just a quick like.
8. Come Up With an Interactive Branded Hashtag
If you’re looking to create instant engagement, interactive hashtags are a great way to get it.
Red Bull has racked up over 299,612 posts featuring their tag, #itgivesyouwings.
Customers can then use the tag to post user-generated content. This allows users to search through all posts relating to your brand.
It also lets you easily search through images that you might want to consider re-posting on your own page.
Creating a hashtag that your company (and other users) can search for is essentially free advertising.
Every time someone posts a photo using the tag, they’re exposing your company to their followers.
If you already have a popular brand slogan or phrase, consider making that your branded hashtag. Coca-Cola successfully accomplished this with their hashtag, #ShareACoke.
But no matter what you’re posting, you need to post at the right times and refrain from over-posting.
9. Post at The Right Times (and Don’t Over-Post)
Over-posting on Instagram is a surefire way to turn off your existing followers.
If all they see is your brand on their news feed, they’re probably going to unfollow you as fast as possible.
But you want to post on a consistent basis so that you stay in their news feed regularly.
One of the best ways to do this is to only post during peak days and hours when your followers are online.
According to SimplyMeasured, the worst days to post on Instagram are Wednesdays and Sundays, while Mondays and Thursdays are the best days to post.
According to research from CoSchedule, the best times of day to post are between 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM, as well as 2:00 AM.
The hour between of 8:00 and 9:00 AM correlates with the time of day when people are getting ready for work or commuting to their jobs (and checking social media for the day).
And 2:00 AM is the time of day when most folks are up scrolling through Instagram when they should be sleeping, so this makes sense as a second most popular time to post.
You can find when your followers are most active in Instagram Insights, so your best days and times to post might be a bit different depending on your specific audience.
Schedule your posts to go live during these days and times with a tool like Hootsuite, CoSchedule, or Sprout Social.
The research also shows that you should post between one and two times per day, but no more or less.
If you’re tempted to post more, then use Instagram’s carousel album feature to post multiple images or ads in a slideshow format.
That way, you won’t overwhelm your followers’ feeds.
After you’ve made these changes, track your metrics to keep an eye on areas where you can improve.
10. Make Sure You Track The Right Instagram Metrics
You can’t improve your Instagram performance and optimize it unless you know how well your page and posts are performing (or underperforming).
When you have measurable results, you’ll know exactly what works and what doesn’t.
Begin by tracking your follower growth rate.
The total amount of followers you have is commonly seen as a vanity metric. And it is.
But your follower growth rate isn’t.
When you keep an eye on what the growth rate of your followers looks like, you can see how the kind of content your posting (or your posting frequency) is affecting things.
Next, measure engagement rates. This includes likes and comments.
You want to find out the average engagement percentage of your total followers as well as the average engagement rate of each post to get a clear picture of how your page is performing.
If you’ve got a smaller following, your engagement rate should be higher. Here’s what your rates should look like based on your follower count:
Finally, you need to track your URL click-through rate.
If you don’t already have a link to your website in your Instagram bio, add one ASAP.
Then, measure how many people are clicking through to your URL.
The average CTR on Instagram is 0.94%, according to Conversion XL.
The more effective your Instagram marketing techniques on your audience, the higher your CTR will be. If it’s low, work on improving your approach.
A tool like Sprout Social will measure just how many clicks that your link is getting in comparison to impressions and engagements.
Conclusion
Social media marketing has changed the way we connect with people. It is no longer about the quantity of followers, but rather the social signals that a post creates. By learning from talented marketers on Instagram and implementing their strategies you can build a following, drive traffic to your website and generate quality leads.