If you are looking to get better engagement with your Instagram account here are our Top 5 Tips for to reach more potential customers and build a stronger presence & bond with your audience.
1. Engagement is Key
Engage with your audience through stories, liking, commenting and followers and create good, valuable conversation with your followers. Engagement breeds engagement! As well as posting good, regular content that your audience can relate to and like, you have to be on the ball constantly in regards to engagement. If someone is commenting on your post, it’s your responsibility as the owner/curator/instagram-chief-executive-officer to offer a valuable response. As well as responding to people who are already commenting and engaging with your posts, it’s even more important to engage with those who don’t. By opening up conversations with new people, accounts, and brands, you’re putting your own account on their radar and getting a potential return follow, comment, or like. It all counts!
2. Real Reels are King! (Well – for now anyway.)
The trend of perfectly curated Instagram accounts giving us major #FOMO whether it be dogs, homewares, or influencer accounts is out, and real-ness (or reel-ness) is in. These gorgeous feeds and imagery worked excellently for a while, but now, the masses who use instagram for personal use are looking for something more human and relatable. That’s where Reels – and also Stories come in. A more casual and human approach is a winning combination, we we this with the rise of ‘takeovers’ by brand ambassadors on major accounts to give their otherwise boring or safe brands a vibe. It gives the everyday Instagram user a ‘sneak peek’ into the inner workings of a brand; an ambassadors day, the production process, even mailing orders. Reels let us feel like we have exclusive access to what goes on behind closed doors.
Stories on the other hand don’t clog your instagram grid, I personally love to see details on stories that don’t make it to their other perfect posts. Stories are essentially easily digested bite size pieces of information, delivered straight to a separate feed, with a crisp 24-hour expiry. Delicious! This means you can post what you want on the go without it affecting your feed aesthetic. Simply add an instagram story by clicking on the small blue + icon next to your profile image. For bonus points make sure you add a ‘sticker’ or poll, music or quiz to further encourage direct engagement with your brand.
3. Schedule your Content
By using a scheduling app it’s easy to see what your overall feed will look like, and schedule specific posts for certain days (think Valentine’s Day, Christmas etc) for when you’re out of office. These apps often have insights and can recommend prime times for your posting and popular hashtags. You can set up your feed to look effortlessly chic months in advance.
Sick of typing out hashtags on your tiny phone keyboard every time you post? Set up specific lists for sets of posts in your scheduling app (for example, ‘photography’, ‘fashion’, etc) and copy them into relevant captions. Scheduling streamlines your experience on Instagram into a measured, simple strategy. Give it a go!
4. Know Your Audience
It’s best to post when you know that your audience is online.We recommend as a general guide to post when people are scrolling through their feeds on their way to work, or winding down after work. You should consider how much of your content they want to see per week (don’t inundate them if they only check their phone a couple of times per day), when they’re active (stay at home parents vs. students vs. white collar workers vs. teenagers), and what content they want to see (fashion, influencers, text posts, recipes, cartoons, infographics). Your instagram relies totally on what your audience is willing to engage with. It’s easy to see what kind of person is following your instagram account through built-in insights, as well as some light market research of your audience. Look at the other accounts they follow and what they engage with. Inside insights (go to your profile, click menu, click insights) you‘re able to see when they’re active, their age, and gender. Using this info, tailor your content towards them and watch your engagement soar.
5. Repost Wisely
Correctly crediting the owners of the content that you repost isparamount to good instagram etiquette. Tag the account in the picture as well as the first line of the caption, to make sure the account is getting good exposure. By setting an example on repost etiquette, you’re also setting expectations of people who might repost from you (and gain new followers from them!). The owner will be grateful, and hopefully engage with the post, which helps you in turn.Everybody wins!
Instagram, the algorithm and the rules surrounding it are changing all the time. This is just a summary of tips for now, which may change in a month or may be redundant in a year! It’s important to pay attention (especially as a brand who may rely on social media interactions) to the ever changing cosmic craziness of Instagram and its elusive algorithm. Happy posting!
