A cheat sheet on how to make Instagram work for your brand
For marketers and brand professionals, Instagram remains the undisputed darling of the social media scene this 2021—and it’s not hard to see why. Almost 13% of the world’s population is on it, and out of this percentage, a good 80% of them, well… follow brands.
Against this very impressive backdrop, marketers are seeking new and more engaging ways to get the most of what Instagram has and can offer. That’s why we have put together these 5 very useful tips to guarantee your campaign’s continuous success in hitting its mark with its target audience and market. Let’s dive right in, shall we?
Timing is everything.
There are a number of ways to increase your Instagram engagement. Posting when your audience is most active is a quick win to reach a better number of people, thus increasing your number in terms of your posts’ visibility.
Instagram’s algorithm allows posts that generate a lot of engagement in a short period of time to move at the top of your followers’ feeds. Spend some time monitoring and tracking your Instagram analytics to learn when the best time to post is for your audience.
The longer the captions, the better.
Did you know that one of the factors that affect how your Instagram post performs in its algorithm is based on the time spent on posts? Your Instagram captions can be up to 2,200 characters long! That’s a whole lot of space to share with your audience to captivate them into staying into your post using some well-written, informative, and witty captions.
According to Instagram, the average caption length has more than doubled since 2016, and guess what? Those with longer captions got the most engagement! According to the forecast, 2021 will be filled with posts that have an average caption length of 405 characters.
Make it fun, fun, fun!
Let’s face it, there’s a lot that goes into an Instagram post to be deemed effective especially for brands. You need time, effort, and planning are all essential in getting things right but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun!
Since Instagram started we’re seeing more and more brands add humor, memes, and pop culture references to their campaign posts and content. From including filters in IG stories, to adding memes and GIFs to our feeds, our engagement rates increase when we post something quirky and fun!
Keep your hashtag game strong!
If you want to increase your Instagram engagement, knowing and understanding which #hashtags are driving more people to your posts is of utmost importance.
Also, filtering your hashtag analytics by various metrics including likes, comments, impressions, reach, and saves is a great measure to help your content strategy. It helps you pick which hashtags to keep using or leave behind knowing fully well that the stronger your hashtag game is the more impressions, and eyes on your content!
Make your content public and shareable.
Instagram giving its users the ability to share feed posts on their Stories or DMs is a convenient feature. It helps content creators and brands to reach even more people. The key here is making content you know your audience will want to repost.
Comparable to producing content that is deemed saveable for later consumption, shareable content needs to be highly related to what your target audience likes and needs. Think about posts that could spark intrigue, shock, fun memes, or just some very relatable quotes.
Video content sells!
Indeed, 2020 was a big year for Instagram video mostly because of the introduction of Reels. And, it shows no sign of slowing down this 2021! Consequently, incorporating more video content into your content strategy guarantees a remarkable increase in your post engagement on your Instagram profile.
Needless to say, producing video content doesn’t need to feel daunting. In fact, video content can be really easy to make.
Just some tips from us to you…
Well, there’s no denying that Instagram is a competitive place for marketers and brands. You need to get creative in getting recognized by your target audience and market. So next time you’re planning and strategizing your Instagram content, try to incorporate these tips and see how your audience responds.
