11 Tips To Smash Your Instagram Strategy

From mastering hashtags to using Instagram’s live video features, there are tons of ways you can take your Instagram strategy to the next level. In our latest video, our Inbound Marketing Executive shares 11 tips to help smash your Instagram strategy…

See below for the full video transcription.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:

Hi guys. My name is Daniel; I’m the Inbound Marketing Executive here at Flaunt Digital. Here are 11 marketing tips to help grow your business on Instagram.

Switch to a business account

So, number one, the first tip that I’m going to be sharing today, is simply to switch your profile to a business account. How you do this, you simply go into your settings and there’s a section that says, “Switch to business profile.” You have to have your Instagram page linked to a Facebook page to be able to do this. And what it allows you to do, it gives you access to extra features that are only available to businesses. So, for example, if you’ve ever noticed an account that has a ‘contact us’ button, for example, their telephone, or an address, or something like that on their profile, that’s because they’re a business account. You can also use it for a few other things that are going to be mentioned in this video. So, for example, analytics and being able to access Instagram adverts as well.

Take incredible photos

So, tip number two is simply to take incredible photos. So what I mean by this, no one’s really going to take that much notice if they see a poor-quality photo on your Instagram and it’s not going to be great for your credibility either as a business. So what you want to be doing, you want to be taking creative photos, something that’s going to be eye-catching and that people aren’t going to scroll past. Maybe go out of your comfort zone a little bit as well and try something new for your business.

Master hashtags

So, tip number three is to master the use of hashtags. You might see a lot of people using hashtags on Instagram, some of them using them well, some of them not so much. So best practices for using hashtags on Instagram is probably using between 5 to 10 hashtags at the bottom of your post, and you’ve got to make sure that these are all relevant to your post because you don’t want it to come across as being a spam post or something like that. Again, it’s not going to be great for the credibility of your business. Instagram actually has a limit of 30 hashtags on each post, and whilst this can be useful sometimes, again, it’s not going to look great for your business if you put in 30 hashtags on the end of every post.

Listen to the data

So, tip number four is just to listen to the data. So, as I mentioned before, if you switch to a business account, you should be able to access detailed analytics for your account. So, for example, you can see what day of the week your posts performed best, what time, and your best-performing post depending on engagement, impressions, that kind of thing. And yeah, it can just be great to actually understand what posts are working best and then use that data in the future just to maximize your Instagram efforts.

Play with Instagram Stories & Live Video

So, number five is just to play around with Instagram stories, and live video, and newly-launched Instagram TV (IGTV). So whilst these features might not be for all businesses, you never know, it might work for you. So, with the stories, that’s simply like a 15-second snapshot of a video, an image, whatever you want. And it stays live for 24 hours, but Instagram actually recently introduced something called highlights, which you can essentially tag past Instagram stories to the top of your profile. So, for example, if you’ve just launched a new product range and you’ve been posting quite a few Instagram stories, you might want to put together a highlights reel on the top of your Instagram profile for that. Live video is also really great for certain brands. You can use it to share behind the scenes insights of your brand. Again, maybe you’re launching a new product, you might want to give a teaser of what’s actually coming. And Instagram TV. It’s essentially a long-form video platform. It’s still in quite early stages so quite a few brands are still testing the waters with that and seeing what works best. But, yeah, these three Instagram features can be really useful and something a bit more out-of-the-box that a lot of brands aren’t doing at the moment.

Consistency is key

So tip number six, consistency. So if you’re posting good-quality content but there’s not really any pattern to how you’re posting – so, maybe you put together three videos, one week, and then you go without posting for a few weeks, and then put out another image – people aren’t really going to know when to expect your content. So if you follow a pattern, maybe you post something on a Tuesday and a Friday, every week, then people are going to know what to expect. They’re going to keep coming back to your profile at those times, and it’s just going to work well. So another good thing about consistency is that people are going to know when to come to your profile, and if they’re liking your pictures more, liking your videos more, commenting on it, then that’s going to work well for you because Instagram are going to pick up on that, they’re going to promote your posts to more people on their timeline, especially the people that have already been liking and engaging with your photos. So, yeah, that can be a great way to just up your reach a little bit and get some more engagement.

Tag relevant accounts

Tip number seven is tagging relevant accounts. So, say for example you’ve just done a guest blog that’s featured on someone else’s site, why not tag them in the post as well? This can be great because they might pick up on that and then they might engage with your post, might drop a comment, might like it, and again, that’s only going to work well for you. Another great thing about tagging people in posts is that it’s actually going to show up on their profile. So, if you go on the Instagram profile and you look to the furthest tab on the right, that’s actually a section with posts that people have been tagged in.

Use Instagram’s e-commerce features

So, tip number eight, especially if you’re an e-commerce brand, is to make the most of Instagram’s e-commerce features. So until recently Instagram had a huge problem with links, whereby you could only really access links through someone’s bio. Of course this wasn’t great if you were selling products on Instagram. It was lagging behind platforms like Twitter and Facebook. But recently Instagram actually launched two new features, both called ‘Shoppable Posts’. One of them is just in the standard Instagram posts and the other’s actually on Instagram Stories. And what it allows you to do, if you have tagged your account to the Facebook catalogue for your business, then it just allows you to tag products on your actual posts or your stories. For example, say you’ve just launched a new t-shirt range, you can actually link this just the same as you would if you were tagging another person, and then your followers can just click on that and directly go and purchase your product.

Go behind the scenes

Tip number nine, we’ve already touched on this slightly; it’s just to go behind the scenes. So this is always great just to add more of a human touch to your business, especially if you are in an industry that doesn’t necessarily have that personable feel. You can use Instagram Live to do this, or again, Instagram stories, or maybe even Instagram TV. So, for example, say it’s someone’s birthday at work, you might want to just post a quick story celebrating that, and, yeah, it can be a great way to just humanize your business.

Engage with other users

So, tip number 10 is to engage with other accounts. So this can just be a great way to build relationships with other brands, other influencers, anything like that, and it can be a great way to get in front of their followers as well. So say you’ve just seen a post from a brand that has a similar target audience to you, obviously as long as they’re not a competitor, you might want to like their post or maybe even comment on it. And this simply just allows you to get in front of their followers, and, just, yeah, build relationships a bit more with other brands and other accounts on Instagram. You never know, they might do the same back to you in return.

Experiment with Instagram Ads

Tip number 11, my last tip, is just to experiment with Instagram Ads. So this can be great way just to boost your reach a little bit more, get in front of some new people, especially if you aren’t having much success with organic posts at the moment. Maybe you want to try out boosting a few of them just to increase your following a bit more. Or if you want to take this to the next level, you might want to put together a more advanced campaign. But yeah, either way, Instagram ads can just be a great way to give your Instagram profile a little bit of a boost.

So, yeah, as you can see, there’s loads of ways that you can take your Instagram strategy to the next level. Try a mixture of some of these tips. Some of them might work for you, some of them might not, but it’s all about testing and, yeah, just seeing what works best.

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