Top 10 Tips for Your Instagram Strategy

• Date: 06 February 2020
• reading time: 4 Minutes
• Blogger: Raunak Pandey

With one billion users worldwide, Instagram is like a bomb, followed closely by Facebook. In the world of social media, images are often more meaningful than words and visual content with attractive photos is likely to be noticed on the web.

So what Instagram strategy should be put in place to attract more visitors? This is what we will see below:

Because images directly arouse our emotions, Instagram was originally programmed for mobile use, but now most of its features can be used on a PC. Social network users can publish their photos for free with unlimited photo storage, but also edit them with filters and functions such as contrast enhancers. From Instagram, the images can also be distributed on other social networks such as Facebook or Twitter.

Stories are becoming more and more popular on Instagram: perhaps in response to the success of the Snapchat platform, Instagram has developed a transient form of content. The Instagram Stories appear directly on the home subscribers and can be created from items such as photo display, video or boomerangs - special moments captured in mini video loops. The little extra thing is that the story only remains visible for 24 hours before automatically disappearing from the screen. According to the latest figures, 500 million users already use them daily.

More and more laymen are becoming Instagrammers: many users have literally become addicted to posting breathtaking photos right after preparing a nice meal to put water to the mouth of others, or to post photos of their vacation live. But companies are also represented in large numbers on Instagram. Since 2016, there is the possibility of creating a company profile, with which one can access statistics and create announcements. Meanwhile, 80 percent of Instagrammers follow at least one business account.

Companies registered on Instagram

As is normal on any social network, users create links and comment on each other's photos and videos. The tone is generally friendly and hates speech little used. This makes these platforms suitable places for businesses.

For your first steps on Instagram, we will give you some recommendations. Before you start, you must first analyze your goals and target groups to draw your conclusions for the platform. Next, establish an editorial plan and define a sophisticated communication strategy in order to always keep an eye on the content that may be relevant and interesting for your potential customers. The image of a brand works extremely well on Instagram - especially with a young target group since 90% of users are under 35 years of age.

To start, it is important to choose a profile name and a profile photo with a high recognition value in order to enter an appropriate description (biography). The goal is to create a perfect triad that matches your corporate design, your presence on other platforms and, of course, the Instagram universe. Speaking of perfection: you or your business do not need to be attracted by the aesthetic side that many have already criticized and which often seems overrated. After all, it's not about building a world of illusions, but about giving your business an authentic and friendly face on Instagram. Whether it's creative product presentations using professional images or humorous office photos of everyday business life, there are many ways to captivate users.

Our top ten tips for your Instagram strategy

The following 10 tips can be combined:

First of all, a warning: don't buy your subscribers. Even if development takes longer, you want interested and interactive fans, no fake accounts or passive member accounts.

Instagram is a social network. It is therefore fashionable to like and comment regularly on the contributions of other members. Take the time to respond to comments from your fans. This commitment pays off because it increases ties with your community. At the same time, you follow the important rule of the social web to always listen to your fans and followers.

To prevent your business from being forgotten, you should post regularly - but not too often either, as your fans might perceive this as spam - with the result that they may no longer want to follow you. More than one or two contributions per day are generally not recommended for businesses.

Make sure your photos/images and videos are of high quality. Carefully select the appropriate image section and modify the images if necessary.

Use popular and trendy hashtags and find out which hashtags your fans are using on relevant topics. You will thus find users who are particularly interested in your products and services. It's also a good idea to use niche hashtag tags to specifically target your own target group.

Write in a lively and entertaining way while keeping the storytelling method in mind. The interaction of attractive photos and stimulating text will help you get the attention you want.

Organize contests and create a new catchy hashtag. Invite your community to tag their messages with this hashtag. With such challenges, you will get a lot of traffic and content generated by versatile users. Display the best messages on your account and mark the creator of the message.

Prizes offering a special reward are well received in competitions. It is not so much the material value of the good, but more to offer something unique. In general, the winners display very beautiful texts in which they proudly present their prizes.

Cooperation with influential people is an obvious option. However, the best thing to do is not to be too blinded by the high number of subscribers, but rather to see if you can find potential fans for your business among the subscribers. It is first and foremost a perfect match between the brand and the influencer, so that the latter is perfectly suited to your profile and that it gets the message behind your products in the best possible way.

Take part in popular Instagram rituals. Perhaps your company can score points with special high-tech equipment, stand out from the crowd with a special factory site, or offer a healthy canteen menu at the start of the week? So get involved in #healthymonday.

Learn from the best without copying

Let your users inspire you - thanks to User Generated Content - and actively integrate their ideas. Thus, Burger King also has its followers via Instagram Stories Burger and offers them to create a burger according to their own tastes, with personalized ingredients, and this against a special code for an order. Besides, the fast-food chain did not charge them anything for the creations they composed themselves. And it also paid off for Burger King, as the company managed to gain many new followers.

The Burberry brand, which we associate with English luxury fashion, uses Instagram to change its image and allowed its fans to buy limited edition clothes from the new collection 24 hours a day by shopping for stories without those having to go to London. Of course, Instagram users were very enthusiastic about this action.

Ads on Instagram

While the focus should always be on your own channel, paid advertising is a good addition. Advertising prices on Instagram are lower than on Facebook, but subscribers know them better and are more responsive. Some have already felt the blow. So there are two million advertisers on Instagram. Mobile advertising revenues may soon cross the $ 10 billion mark.

You can integrate a call to action directly into advertisements and attract customers to your website or online store. By the way: 130 million people already use Instagram Shopping and this can also be integrated into stories.

Instagram videos and stories: a growing phenomenon

Create your content as videos up to 60 seconds long in an exciting and entertaining way. A high-quality film attracts attention and the good old saying, "a short presentation is better than a long speech", lends itself well to it.

As we have already mentioned, the number of Stories users is exploding, so this feature could soon catch up with the flow or even replace it. If you are launching a new product or if your company is hosting an interesting event, you can get your community involved immediately. Videos are not limited to the traditional length of one minute. However, the live videos do not disappear after 24 hours, but immediately after the end of the transmission. Even if it is only an ephemeral product, you should still pay attention to the quality of sound and light.

Take the Instagram train on the move

If you start with the concept and strategy and keep an eye on your community's expectations, Instagram will help you succeed. Post a successful mix of relevant and engaging images and videos to maintain regular communication with your subscribers. At the same time, don't forget to stay on top of all the news Instagram has to offer.

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• Blogger: Raunak Pandey
• Founder at Maiden Stride
• Raunak is a Mechanical Engineer by qualification & Marketer by passion. He is the founder of Maiden Stride, a leading digital marketing company that provides world-class search engine marketing services and website & application development.
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