10 Feb Top 10 tips to end your bad romance with Instagram
Instagram is a complicated social media platform, with regular algorithm changes making it hard to crack the “Instagram code”. If you don’t have a clue what to do to increase your following and improve your brand’s awareness, here are ten tips to help you:
1. Use all the features: To keep up with other popular social media apps like TikTok, Instagram has introduced many features. Don’t just post on the app, get involved! Create Reels, Guides, link your website, your shop and most importantly create Instagram stories. People tend to go through their stories more than their feed so keep that in mind!
2. Target your audience: Don’t just post random images to your feed; think about your target audience and the kind of content they might like to see. Do they want fun facts? Do they like graphics or photographs? Do they like familiarity, or novelty? Are they watching your story? Do they share your content to their story. If so, is that because the graphic is cool? It is often about trial and error. See what they respond to the most, and then do more of that. You can even stalk your competitors to find out.
3. Be consistent: You cannot expect a large following or quality audience if you only post sporadically or once a month. People like to see that you are active – it makes them feel engaged like they can contact you about your product/services and will get a quick response. Creating a daily story that people grow to expect is an important trick to stay top of mind. Make it a habit to post daily on your story and plan a reoccurring schedule for all of your other posts
4. Get creative: People like to see fun and interesting content on social media. Avoid sticking to the same type of content and explore other avenues. We suggest attempting story polls, questions, incorporating video content as well as adding in some information about your team, making you more relatable.
5. Engage with your followers: You can’t just assume that once you gain a follower, they will stick around forever. You have to keep them interested! A great way to do that is to incorporate the above ideas to involve your following. However, it is vital that you are always available to answer any questions, DMs (direct messages) or comments. Make it a habit to reply to comments in general, even if they don’t contain a question. You need to create an open relationship between your brand and its following.
6. Follow likeminded people/industry bodies: You’re not stalking, you’re investigating! Check out your competitors and see what works for them and what doesn’t. This can only help you improve your own content. Plus, most times they will follow you back. It’s a win-win.
7. Use analytics: We cannot stress this enough! You will never know how to improve your content without looking at the statistics. It will assist you in a magnitude of ways and it’s completely free, so get going!
8. Feed aesthetic: The look and feel of your feed is important! You should have a running theme throughout. If you are constantly changing your colour scheme, fonts and graphics, people will struggle to get an idea of who/what your brand is. Additionally, you want to ensure it is cohesive because messy content is not appealing and puts people off your brand completely. The whole point of Instagram is aesthetics – that’s why images take so much more screen space than captions. Your captions don’t even show on your posts page.
9. Saving and sharing: Instagram has released some information on its latest algorithm. They revealed that saving and sharing content is way more effective when supporting a brand than liking or commenting on their content. Create content your audience would want to share with their network, or save for later reading.
10. Have fun: Play around with your content, try out new things and see what works best for you. If a post isn’t as successful as your others, don’t sweat it! Just make sure you learn from it, keep improving and creating fun, interesting, shareable content.
Even with the help of these tips, you might still struggle to get it right. Why not hire a professional social media team who knows just how to position your brand to engage your market? Reach your Instagram goals; email info@swmcommunications.co.za for a social media audit or consultation.
Helpful Resources:
https://later.com/blog/how-instagram-algorithm-works/