With the pandemic still ongoing, and cities under lockdown, this might be the best time to rethink strategies to promote your account. You would think, why now? It’s simple, the platform continues to evolve, and we have seen massive growth in the number of interactions on the platform. This also means that strategies that used to work previously might not work anymore. Hence, there is no harm in keeping as many strategies as possible for trying to boost engagement on your account.
Post More Often
It’s not possible to run out of content to post on Instagram. You have so many options from regular photos, customer images, memes and videos, and much more. But you need to figure out what type of content works best for you and your audience. To find an answer to that question, you need to ramp up your content posting.
Posting at least once a day is considered a norm on Instagram these days. But considering the lockdown situation, you can post more than once as well. Once you start posting more frequently, you will be able to understand the time frame where you get the most engagement. And that’s where you should post more often.
Don’t forget to use Instagram stories as well, since they allow you to get past the line of posts and get in front of people’s feed. And you add as much as you want in these stories without being considered as spam.
Post on Multiple Platforms
You should consider the time and effort it takes to create that perfect post. It will be a waste if you don’t promote it on other platforms as well. For example, you can use different platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, to cross-promote your posts. This should offer you more engagement on your content. But you have to be aware of the post formats for every platform, such as hashtags on twitter and a description of Facebook.
If it gets harder to manage the posts on your own, you can always utilize a publishing tool. These tools offer you to schedule the posts during the time you see the most engagement on all of these platforms.
Content That Matters
Though Instagram has become a place where brands are competing with each other to come on top, it’s still a place to share the experience with others. And that will never change.
As a brand, you need to utilize that aspect of the platform. Focus on content that’s more people-centric than posting only your product images. Such as selfies and pictures of people using your product will speak more than posting just the photos of your product. Its Instagram’s specialty that offers brands an opportunity to provide their products as an experience instead of an annoying “Buy Now!” ad that no one likes.
Have Custom Hashtags
Whether you have a big or small business, it’s important that you create hashtags that encourage users on Instagram to share and promote your product on the platform. Create a hashtag that reflects what your product, services, or values are. Once you have them, these hashtags should promote your product on your behalf.
Other than a hashtag created for your brand, you should also use some generic hashtags that are related to your industry. This allows for better searchability for people on the platform—a great little hack to increase your reach quickly. Do not overdo it though, six to nine hashtags are enough for a post.
Use Tagging
You might be thinking; we have already talked about hashtags, why another point for tags again? Well, we are talking about tagging brands, followers on your posts. You might not be aware of it, but tagging can help promote your Instagram efficiently.
For example, if you tag other brands and accounts on your posts, they’ll get a notification of the same, and you might get a shout out in return from them. Similarly, if you are using someone else’s post as a reference, you need to tag their account to notify them that you have hosted their content. They might share your post with their followers, which is an indirect way you are getting more engagement.
It’s a good idea to tag locations as well, anyone searching for that location will have a great time finding your content there as well. This is a great technique to grab some new followers.
Create a Theme or Niche for Your brand
To stand out from all the other brands on the platform, it’s essential that you create some sort of theme or niche unique only to yourself with your posts. Creativity plays a significant factor here.
For example, if you have products related to outdoor adventures, then posting images that show high-resolution images or photos of people out in the open can be an excellent idea for a theme. Or, if you are a fashion blogger, using bold colors on images of your posts can also build a unique item.
Influencers
As we already mentioned above, you can promote your Instagram account using experience instead of directly posting ‘buy now’ ads to your followers. There’s one more method, Influencers.
Using Instagram influencers to extend your reach can help your business a lot. Though some of them might cost you some money, they are worth spending on. They’ll offer you an opportunity to tap into users that were unavailable to you or were out of reach before. But before going for an influencer, you have to make sure they have followers that interact and engage with their content.
Contests & Giveaways
If you are looking for the quickest method to increase followers on your brand account on Instagram, running contests, and hosting giveaways might be the best option here. These contests generally end up with brands receiving a huge amount of engagements.
But you still need to be careful as these contests also attract people who are just looking for free stuff. They might come and go based on these contests. It’s a good idea to run a small one on your account to see how well people react to it, and what kind of engagement you receive in return. Based on the results, you can decide whether contests are for you or not.
