More than 13% of the global population is currently using Instagram.
Not only has it proved itself to be a major social media platform to help generate revenue through ads, but it has also been classified as a major business market to sell products right after Facebook. Businesses have successfully made almost $11 billion using Instagram ads alone in the year 2019.
Statistics reveal that more than 72% of teens in the United States use Instagram on a regular basis. And almost 35% of the adults in the United States are found using Instagram. It indicates that a significantly large market of the United States is found on Instagram.
With so many people using Instagram alone in the United States, it is hard to avoid that Instagram observes a massive amount of engagement. As far as engagement is concerned, it depends on how many likes, shares, and comments activity the platform observes from its relative consumers.
Forrester reports that engagement on Instagram boasts a rate of 4.21% which is approximately 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times higher than Pinterest and 84 times higher than Twitter.
Yet, businesses still complain that their Instagram accounts are failing to grasp enough attention.
So if you’re one among the link of social media marketers who are wondering why their strategies aren’t working out quite the way you expect them, here are organic and paid marketing tips for you.
Learn how you can tweak your Instagram marketing campaigns to create the perfect engagement.
Follow Up a Periodic Posting Schedule
If you want to attract followers or boost your engagement rate, you need to make sure that your brand remains active on Instagram. Research indicates that a brand can stay active on Instagram if it consistently posts at least 1-2 posts a day.
Alongside the frequency, it is also necessary that brands should know when it is the best time to post on Instagram especially when you’re dealing with its algorithmic timeline.
Researchers advocate that the best times to post on Instagram are 8 AM, 9 AM, 2 PM or 5 PM.
Start out by studying the behavior of your audience on Instagram; study their habits and at what time they are the most active. Based on that data, you can identify when your audience is most active.
Only then, you will be able to truly make sure that your post starts appearing at the top of their feeds.
Go for Story-Telling instead of Marketing
Brands usually get so engaged in devising Instagram marketing strategies that they forget that the whole purpose of a social media platform is to create inspirations by sharing stories. Brand messaging is important but it is not everything; if you want to sell your product, don’t brag about it.
Instead, use your brand messaging in a concealed way; share it in the form of a story to communicate.
By becoming a story-teller, you can automatically increase your engagement rate. For example, how effectively @rawmazingbyrimsha has used a powerful story-telling aspect to describe a simple image.
Start publishing micro-stories with the right captions, videos and at the right time and see it all grow.
Some brands leverage user-generated content to entice other users. A remarkable testimonial from one of your customers can really trigger others to start talking about your brand to create resonance.
There are some remarkable inspirations which you can take as examples such as Airbnb, Red Bull, Lego, and Nike. These brands set examples by sharing experiences or posts based on empathy.
Explore Different Instagram Video Formats
A picture might be worth a thousand words, but a video is worth 1.8 million.
From Instagram Stories mashing up videos together to stills appearing into a single ad, from standalone 60-second videos to long-form video content, videos have become quite the norm.
These videos are really doing wonders for brands marketing on Instagram.
Imagine, you’re planning to start a new brand for t-shirts and you want to go viral with it. Images displaying your product with a price caption might not have the kind of impact as a bunch of guys and girls wearing your t-shirt at a party! If you can convince a celebrity to appear wearing one; then it’s quite the plus point for your business. For months, you can just post clips of that video on Stories.
You can show your audience around some of the back-stage sneak peeks during the video production. You can gain testimonials from your happy customers in video formats and publish them online.
I mean there is so much more you can do with Instagram videos, all you have to do is be creative.
Just Like Videos, GIFs are also Great
On average, an audience only watches a video on Instagram for 15 seconds or less.
As the research concludes, people have a rather small attention span. If you want to win your audience as a brand, then you will have to learn how to create and post a GIF on Instagram.
The GIF format is sort of more appealing than the photos. It’s because GIFs are not only cost-effective but they are also very time effective. In just a matter of minutes, you will create a dynamic image that will attract thousands even millions. With the right GIF associated with your brand, you can create a good impact on your business and brand in the global market. The business will flourish and you’ll be all set.
Choose the Right Hashtags for Instagram Posts
Hashtags define whether your post is going to appear at the top or sink at the bottom of Instagram. Hence, it is highly essential that you use the correct and most relevant hashtags on your Insta-posts.
One great way of empowering your business on a social media platform like Instagram is that you can use generic hashtags. For instance, if it’s a holiday season and Christmas is just around the corner, then you can use the #christmas hashtag so your brand can compete against a million others on the Internet. If you want to target an audience interested in fashion, you can further add the #fashion tag to your Instagram post. Just mix the right hashtags and your post will start appearing right away.
The best hashtags are the ones that you mix and match. It helps you reach the maximum audience.
As a result, your brand will not only earn engagement but will also find interested followers.
By the way, don’t forget that the number of hashtags which you will use in your Instagram post also decides how it is going to perform. While, Instagram allows you to add up to 30 hashtags in a single post, but my recommendation is that you keep it to a bare minimum, enough to get the job done.
For me, 7 is the ideal number. 7 hashtags are good enough to give your brand quite the exposure. Don’t just take my word for it, almost 91% of posts by the top brands use seven or fewer hashtags.
Funnel Down Instagram Traffic to Your Website
One of the best things about having an Instagram account is that you can attract some good traffic to your website. You can include a single clickable link in your bio if that’s your choice. You can even host special offers and promotions to encourage followers that they visit your website and make a purchase.
By making use of strong call to actions, you can engage your audience and convince them.
Do remember that all Instagram’s ad formats offer a call-to-action button which Instagram followers can click and reach to your website. You can even partner up with an influencer who can help you promote business using their own content. Finally, to make sure you can check your traffic stats and deploy good analytics software at the backend to glean insight on how much traffic you’re observing.
Leverage the Power of SEO to Win on Instagram
They might not sound good going together, but who so ever told you that you can’t build an SEO strategy for your Instagram account? In today’s competitive world, SEO is significantly important.
The two areas of Instagram that has a direct impact on SEO are account handle and account name.
When you are creating a handle with the @ make sure that it is relevant to your business niche. Don’t forget that Instagram can understand the content of your post and if your content doesn’t go well with the Instagram handle, then you shouldn’t expect your Instagram post to appear in the Explore section.
The second is your account name. It usually appears right underneath your profile picture on Instagram. So when you are creating a brand account on Instagram, make sure that it includes your account handle and your relevant industry. This will help you to appear among your relative audience.
All these practices will give you the ability to appear in front of your target audience and eventually your brand will start appearing in front of everyone. Before you know it, you will have people coming.
Host an Instagram Contest & Offer Giveaways
Another great way to create engagement on your Instagram account is by hosting Instagram contests.
Creating loop giveaways is one way to hold the contest. Assume that there are four people participating as hosts within a contest. Everyone contributes to purchase a prize and then ask their respective audiences to post on Instagram accounts. To participate, all they have to do is leave a comment.
Certain loop giveaways can loop together with a good number of Instagram accounts which may easily give exposure to millions of people. Sounds like a great option to crunch some big numbers.
So there you are; these are some tips on how you can well engage your audience on Instagram.
Stay tuned as we will be publishing some more great ideas to help you out.
By following these 21 tips for Instagram best practices in 2019, you can maximize your Instagram channel’s potential. So no matter how the network evolves, you can increase Instagram engagement and keep those likes, shares and comments coming.
Thank you very much for your help tips. I think it is better to post when your followers are mostly online. It would be the time when your followers will interact with your post. According to well-known social media marketing company in Vancouver, the posting continuous story is another good and effective as posting contents.