If you’re looking to promote your business on Instagram but don’t know where to begin, we have you covered. We rounded up a list of our favorite social media marketing tools for Instagram. From analytics to helping you create more quality content, these tools will help take your Instagram game to the next level.
Many of you have emailed me on how to grow your Instagram account and how to get more followers. I’ll be honest, I don’t use Instagram because I am stuck in ye olde worlde when it comes to social media (imgur.com profile anyone?). That being said, here is a list resource that will help you with growing your Instagram presence.
Many businesses feel pressured to be present on every social media platform … and they forget about strategy. Don’t make this mistake.
Since Instagram is very different from other popular social sites, it requires a distinct marketing strategy. Start here to develop your brand’s own unique style.
1. Set your goals for Instagram.
Before you start posting on Instagram, ask yourself (or your team) one thing: Why are you on Instagram? As popular as the platform is, your answer shouldn’t be, “… because everyone else is.” To be successful on Instagram in the long-run, you must have a set purpose and goals so you can justify your time, energy, and monetary investment.
There’s no right answer here. Maybe you’d like to use your Instagram feed to post and sell your products to customers, like Anthropologie. (Many ecommerce and physical products businesses are on Instagram for this reason.)
Maybe you’re leveraging Instagram to share portfolio content so followers can see your product (or service) in action, like my esthetician, The Wicked Waxer.
Perhaps you’re on Instagram to simply build brand awareness by posting motivational quotes and fun visuals, like one of my favorite organizations, The Blurt Foundation.
Maybe you’d like to use Instagram to share user-generated content so that followers can see real people using your product or service as Orangetheory does. (Many worldwide businesses or businesses with franchises do this, too.)
Whatever the reason, be sure to define your Instagram goals first thing. And, guess what? Your Instagram can have multiple goals — you can post product images while also sharing user-generated content (UGC). It’s less about the type of posts you share and more about why you’re sharing them. If you know the why, you can know how to measure your performance and use Instagram Analytics tools.
2. Determine your Instagram target audience.
Determine the audience you want to reach before you begin marketing on Instagram. If you have other marketing strategies in place, draw from those to keep your efforts consistent. Don’t forget to consider factors like age, location, gender, income, interests, motivations, and pain points.
Don’t know where to start? Monitor popular events and interest hashtags related to your business. See who’s using and engaging with these hashtags and check out their profiles. You can also take a look at your competitor’s followers. Instagram makes it easy to define your audience.
3. Conduct a competitive analysis.
After you determine your Instagram audience, do a competitive analysis to see what other marketers in your field are posting.
If you already know your top competitors, start by reviewing their Instagram profiles. If not, search for terms related to your business and industry to find similar accounts.
Conduct a quick audit of related accounts to see what posts are getting the highest engagement, what popular hashtags they’re using, what their captions are, how often they post, and how quickly they’re growing. This information can serve as a benchmark as you start growing your own account.
While auditing your competitors’ content, take note of any opportunities they might’ve missed. Adding unique content into the mix will help your business to stand out from the rest.
4. Configure an editorial calendar.
Creating an editorial calendar can help you save time and manage your Instagram presence. Fill in your calendar with some Instagram post types and plan your captions, hashtags, and posting times in advance.
Your editorial calendar is also a great place to record any key events to highlight on your Instagram account, such as new product launches or special offers. With an editorial calendar, you can keep an eye out for real-time opportunities instead of scrambling for last-minute posts.
Manage and plan your Instagram content with our free calendar guide and template.
5. Build a consistent brand on Instagram.
Random or disjointed content confuses your audience and can cause you to lose followers. To prevent this, maintain a consistent brand aesthetic on your Instagram account.
Determine what this looks like by thinking about your brand personality. What are your brand values? How would your customers and employees define your brand? Are you bold, playful, gritty, or adventurous?
Apartment Therapy‘s brand personality is bright, clean, and organized, and its account reflects all three of those traits. Ideally, brand aesthetic helps your brand become recognizable, meaning someone could see your picture in their feed and instantly know it’s yours … without seeing the name.
Taco Bell is another great example of brand aesthetic. Its feed focuses on the bold, on-the-go lifestyle of its millennial audience and features fun images to drive engagement.
Once you determine your brand personality, refine your content to match. This can even apply to the color palette used in your photos.
Brand aesthetic doesn’t just apply to visuals. Aim to post images with your brand narrative in mind, too. Including compelling stories in your captions can make your brand more relatable.
For example, Red Bull’s feed features plenty of high-energy images and videos that add to its brand’s story.
6. Grow your Instagram follower base.
Growing your following takes serious time and energy. You may be tempted to take the easy way out and buy followers … don’t do this! Purchasing followers won’t actually drive engagement, which is really what you need to ensure your posts are being seen. (Also, Instagram’s recent API changes will automatically delete those followers!)
Here’s what you can focus on to build a following the right way.
- Make sure your username is recognizable and searchable. If people can’t find you, they can’t follow you! Fill out your bio. It’s the last thing someone sees before they make the decision to follow you so be sure to include who you are and what you do.
- Once your profile is optimized (which we talked about in this section), start posting. It’s a good idea to populate your feed with ten to 15 high-quality posts before you really start engaging people. If users visit your profile and find it empty, they probably won’t follow you.
- Then, start following accounts that interest you and relate to your business. Think of Instagram like a community and look for other businesses in your area or influencers who might enjoy your product or service. As you follow accounts, Instagram will suggest related ones that you can follow, too.
- After you follow an account, interact with their content. This is the most natural way to draw attention to your own Instagram account without being spammy. When you follow or interact with an account, the account owner will get a notification. This could prompt them to check out your account and start following you. Always appreciate your followers by responding to their comments and engaging with their content.
- Encourage others to share your content. Invite brand ambassadors to share your account or collaborate with similar accounts.
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
Dozens of social media sites, hundreds of thousands of posts, and an eternity of hashtags – with so much content, it can be difficult to know how to engage properly. After that, even if you do start making some headway, how can you know if your content is successful? And what are the marketing trends for social media on Instagram?