We are all working from home right now amidst a lock down situation. While working, we all have impulses to browse Instagram or Facebook every now and then. This is true for you, for me and for everyone around the world! We just cannot resist browsing through social media and it’s not bad at all! Irrespective of the work, people love to take a quick glance at what’s new on Instagram, they can catch up with the news, movie updates, updates from their friends and relatives etc.
This is the time when people are spending more time on browsing the social media channels and it is favorable for the businesses and individuals who would like to get noticed and create a remarkable social media presence.
Instagram is a platform where more and more people browse the latest updates and you need to get more creative with your posts! Your posts should be eye-catching, something that the audience cannot ignore!
People browse Instagram posts really fast and you need to make an impression in just those 3-4 seconds when people browse through. That’s tough but not unattainable!
Creativity Mode On!! Here are some handy tips for posting the most alluring Instagram updates:
Before you go about posting on Instagram, it is important to ensure that your business profile is properly set up. Use a nice profile image and see to it that your Instagram handle clearly mentions what you do. Write an impressive and fun bio and don’t forget to mention your website URL.
#Hashtags
Whatever you post on Instagram, remember to add a hashtag. You might have read about the importance of hashtags but you need to know how important they are. If you are not sure about which hashtags you are supposed to use, there are tools online to get the perfect hashtags for your posts. Hashtags help people to search what they want from millions of posts
Analyze the Instagram accounts of your competitors to know what they are posting and with hashtags they are using. It is ideal to post something on the most trending hashtags as your post will be visible to a larger audience. What you need to do is use some relevant hashtags when you post something on Instagram. Make sure that you are not using too many hashtags as your post might look spammy otherwise. Look for hashtags that are popular and relevant to your business and your Instagram post and you will be able to reach out to a wider audience instantly.
You can even come up with innovative hashtags for your business and use them in your posts. If you have a tagline you can create a hashtag with that tagline as well.
Related : Can Hashtags Get You More Instagram Followers?
Instagram Stories – Get In The Limelight!
The Instagram stories platform is a creative playground! You can have a great image; you can have a good background, have special effects, write the text that you want, use emojis, put up a location, Phew! While posting Instagram stories, you can be overwhelmed at times about what to post and how to post it. Here’s what you can put up as your Instagram stories:
- You can post an image
- You can go live
- You can post a video
- You can write a text as your story
- You can have a series of pictures
You can decorate your story with all types of effects and animated smiles. You can incorporate your brand image as well. If your business brand image has a certain color combination, you can use that as your color palette for posting your Instagram stories. Adding animation elements helps in catching the attention of the viewers. Posting Instagram stories is very simple, when you start posting, you will see many options for embellishing your stories.
The best thing about Instagram stories is that they can get noticed really fast. Stories are featured at the top of the follower timeline; this is a spot that is checked daily by the users.
Related : 10 Smart Ways To Promote Your Business Through Instagram Stories
Post Product Teasers
Product teasers set a background for new product launches. This is a great tactic for creating suspense about your products and enhancing sales. But for this trick to be effective, you need to play your cards right!
Post a well-documented product teaser, it should be thought provoking and interesting, something that people will want to remember and check on later.
Don’t be too pushy while posting product teasers, otherwise your post will be taken as just another marketing tactic. Your product teaser should include a benefit that people are going to get through your products or services and this should be presented in a fascinating way. However before you post a product teaser, you must have a connect with your audience. If you get a considerable likes on your posts, you have done it!
Remember! Your ad should be laid back one with an excellent out of the box image.
Create Sponsored Ads
Instagram has become a powerful marketing platform and you will see Instagram ads on a regular basis. Just like Facebook, the best part is that you can set an ad budget for your Instagram ads. You can either display just one sponsored ad or you can create multiple ads through the carousel feature.
Sponsored ads provide your business brand with a whole new approach to reach out to their audience. Prior to the launch of sponsored posts, only the users who were following your account were able to see your updates and photos. Now the brands have the opportunity to promote their sponsored images to anyone that fits into the criteria of their targeted audience.
For creating the finest sponsored ads, you need to create engaging content that is exquisitely prepared for your target audience.
Related : What Is The Potential Of Instagram As Your Advertising Channel?
Partner With Influencers
If you want to reach out to your potential customers with a higher impact, partner with influencers. Influencers are the people who are industry experts and they have already built a loyal audience; and most importantly, people follow them and trust them! If they recommend something or talk about something, people will be interested for sure.
If you partner with the right influencer related to your industry, you will be able to put your brand in front of a large number of people. Take your time to find out the right influencers for your brand and then partner with them. Finalize a few influencers and get in discussion with them. Having influencers endorsing your brand is really worth the time and effort.
Influencer marketing has long term benefits and a larger scope. People quickly browse through Instagram, but if they see an industry expert talking about something or recommending something, they will wait and watch and do the needful too.
This is a great way to create a lasting brand awareness in a short span of time.
Related : 10 Unimagined Strategies For Finding The Best Social Media Influencers
Post At The Right Time
Avoid making too many posts just because you think that more and more people are going to see them. It’s true that you should post consistently but over posting is a big no no! Over posting is going to turn off your followers and you will be looked upon as someone who is just interested in marketing your products.
Don’t end up portraying yourself as spamming; if that happens, people will start unfollowing you soon.
You need to figure out the right time intervals to post on a consistent basis.
People should remember your brand and you shouldn’t be over posting too, you must strike the right balance.
One of the best solutions to this is posting on the peak days and hours when you think that your followers are online. You need to research about this. You need to know the time intervals when your followers are more active and post at those times.
Usually the morning time is when people are having their tea or coffee and they love browsing through Instagram to know the latest updates. So this is one of the most favorable times to post.
Write Eye-Catching Captions
It’s true that you can post the images you like on Instagram, but you cannot ignore the importance of captions. No matter how good your post is, in absence of a really good caption, it won’t get the right response.
The voice of your brand is as important as the look of your brand!
You should consistently post good captions for all your posts. On Instagram, you can add a caption up to 2200 characters. You can put up a quick tagline or you can use this space for brief descriptions. Having said that, it is important for you to be aware of the fact that only the first two lines of your caption appear in the news feed and then the rest of the caption can be seen after tapping on more.
As people usually scan the captions quickly instead of reading them completely, it is crucial for you to get all the information in the first two lines itself.
Over To You…
Instagram is home to a huge number of users and you need to be at your creative best for making your mark. Along with posting on a regular basis, you also need to work on developing your Instagram network. If your audience comments on your posts good or bad, believe me it’s all good, they are interacting because they are interested, reply to them and make an effort to reach out. With huge number of people browsing Instagram on a daily basis, this is a great time to get acknowledged.
