Top Instagram Tips for your Brand

To celebrate the last ten years of Instagram, we have pulled together our top Instagram tips for utilizing Instagram as a business tool.

This October saw popular social media platform Instagram mark its 10 year anniversary – that’s ten years of sharing photos with friends, creating unique hashtags and getting a glimpse into the life of celebs around the globe. But it has become more than just a photo-sharing tool. With an audience of over one billion monthly active users, Instagram can provide businesses with the chance to reach a targeted and interested organic audience.

 

Tip 1 – Get creative with your imagery

Forgive us for stating the obvious, but it is essential to have an aesthetically appealing feed on Instagram in 2020. Unsure of what to post? Here’s an Instagram tip: Keep things simple – choose a colour scheme, maintain a clear brand image and post a variety of photos, GIFs, and short videos to keep your audience’s interest piqued.

Is your business more B2B? Share useful information with your audiences in a unique way, showcase your workers and your company culture, give us a behind-the-scenes look at your operation or share some high-quality media of the product or service you’re selling.

Tip 2 – Consistency is key

As the old saying goes, consistency is key! The Instagram algorithm (like all social media algorithms) favours profiles that post on a consistent basis. This isn’t to say you should post every day, but sticking to an agreed posting schedule is key to your content getting as much reach as possible.

Same goes for your captions. You want your posts to have creative, interesting and informative captions that either educate, inspire or engage your audience. And again, make sure it’s consistent! Your tone and voice should match up with your branding – you don’t want to confuse your followers.

Tip 3 – Engage with your audience

While posting to Instagram is definitely important, you shouldn’t forget to engage with your followers as it could increase the chances of your content being seen by a larger audience. Throw out a few likes, tag collaborators or customers, leave meaningful comments, but above all be authentic – in other words, don’t be too salesy.

Engage with big names in your industry and get involved in larger conversations that are happening. Turn employees into evangelists of your business to help spread the good word.

Tip 4 – Utilise all the feature IG has to offer

Over the last decade, Instagram has introduced a tonne of features that you can use to showcase your business in new and exciting ways. We’ve highlighted a few that you should consider when creating a social media plan for Instagram.

• IG Live

This is a fun way to be more transparent and engage directly with your audience. Deliver a Q&A, showcase some tips or provide updates on your business.

• Stories

Upload video clips to a story which is viewable for 24 hours before it vanishes. These also include a variety of stickers, music, polls, questions, and other tools marketers can use to get insights from their audience.

• IGTV

Allows users to upload video content that is up to an hour-long which opens up the kind of content you can share on the app.

• Shoppable Tags

You can now add tags on photos that redirect to your store. For example, if you have an image of your product on your feed you can add a tag so users can purchase the item directly from you.

Tip 5 – Optimise your profile and bio

Fitting everything that your business has to offer into a 150-word bio can be a bit of a challenge. Ensure your profile is optimised in a way that tells your target audience exactly who you are in an authentic and informative way.

You only get one clickable link so make sure it’s driving people where you want them to go. And it can take you to more than just your website – it could be to your store, to get app downloads, drive event registrations or more. Or get more link options by using third-party apps like Linktree.

Tip 6 – Use Hashtags effectively

Hashtags can be a very effective tool to expand the reach of your posts and open yourself up to new audiences – if used strategically. You can add up to 30 hashtags per post, but we recommend using no more than 10 that are relevant to your business; we want quality over quantity.

Company and campaign-specific hashtags are useful as it makes it easier for users to find you and your content. Aim for hashtags that have at least 1000+ shares, industry-specific ones like #tech #games and #IT or larger popular trends such as #tbt (Throwback Thursday) or #instadaily. Test having them in your caption or in the comments, whatever works for your aesthetic.

Tip 7 – Balance your Content

Make sure to balance your content on Instagram – there is nothing more infuriating than seeing the same piece of content over and over again. Not only does it look as if you have a content shortage, but it can also clutter up your feed and put people off engaging with you in future.

Plan out your content in advance – whether weekly or monthly – and if you find yourself in a rut then go back to the creative drawing board. When is your next bit of content coming in? Can older content be repurposed? Get creative.

Tip 8 – Analyze your successes

If you have an Instagram for Business account you will have access to Insights – detailed analytics on your posts. By utilizing this you can see which content performs the best with your audience and then expand on what works and reduce what doesn’t. Note down various aspects like captions, posting times, hashtags and more to find any correlations. 

Regularly monitoring your Instagram Insights is key to finding out what works for your clients. Through testing and measuring results you will improve your Instagram offerings.

Did you enjoy these Instagram tip? Interested in more PR and Marketing advice? Check out our blog.