Instagram stands as a sweetheart for every marketer. According to the research, Instagram engagement(shares, comments, and likes) is 12 times larger than Facebook, 85 times larger than Twitter, and 55 Times larger than Pinterest.
The active marketers on Instagram are searching for ways to gain Instagram engagement against TikTok’s backdrop. Here are the 15 simple steps to grow your engagements on Instagram and protect your marketing tactics on Instagram now and in the upcoming years. Let’s jump in.
Upload Consistently
Uploading 2-3 posts a day remains a good consistency. Through this, your content looks more unique, fresh and gains more audience to your stunning content. Knowing the perfect time on Instagram to upload is also an essential factor while dealing with the algorithmic timeline of Instagram.
And also, there are no recommended times to upload on Instagram. For some users, it works effectively when they upload at 5 AM and a second post at 5 PM, while for others, it works when they upload between 9 AM-11 AM and a second post at even 7 PM. So, you want to find your audience when they are more active on Instagram using Instagram’s insight feature and need to plan accordingly.
Develop a Brand
Creativity, consistency, and clarity are the significant parts of developing brand awareness on the platform.
Spend more time on areas like maintaining your profile, making attractive styles to your feeds, and the hashtags you use. You need to interact more with your fans to gain loyalty and engagement to your brand.
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Select Correct Hashtags
Choosing the right hashtags to your posts on Instagram results where your post to be; whether a top post or bottom of the feed, without any trace.
Come up with the best hashtag mixing of industry-specific and trending hashtags to get the perfect hashtag to attach with your targeted fans. Avoid generic hashtags like #Food, #Christmas, etc., because your post needs to face heavy competition among millions.
Make a Branded Hashtag
One of the major parts of a successful marketing strategy on Instagram is a branded hashtag. Begin with a branded hashtag, and it should be catchy, meaningful, and contains your brand name in any form—for instance, #digivike from Digital Vike or #decorateme from Decorate Cosmetics. Put your hashtag in the bio section so it is visible for everyone who visits your profile.
UGC(User Generated Content)
Instagram’s UGC is a little heart for every marketer. It is an excellent way for fans to put themselves deeply with a business or brand, reducing the cost of marketing because the content is created and uploaded by the audience.
For example, #RedCupContest from Starbucks is an excellent example of converting fans into brand supporters. The campaign wants the fans to upload images of Starbucks red Christmas cups more creatively. The hashtag acquired over 38,000 entries to date; everyone says it is a huge success; what about you?
Instagram Reels
It allows Instagram users to make fun, creative, and short-term video content using sounds or music on the platform. Instagram integrated this feature recently, knowing that reels are the prominent feature on another platform, TikTok. Using the ban of the TikTok platform, Instagram grabbed the whole audience to its reel feature, which increases the platform’s audience rate.
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The primary objective of the reel is to entertain. Nowadays, most of the business and brand using Instagram reels to grow their brand authenticity with more Instagram reels views, likes, and comments. They also find out that reels are the perfect spot on the platform to reach targeted audiences.
Use Captions And Video Subtitles
According to the fact, sixty percent of Instagram stories are viewed with hearable sounds, which means that forty percent are viewing with no sound. While video content dominates the online areas, many users opt to watch video content with no sound option. So, video subtitles become more effective for marketers to deliver their message through texts along with visuals.
And captions are another significant part of increasing feasible engagement. A study says that 90% of the audience concluded that captions would make them want to watch the full video content.
Embrace AR Filters On Instagram
Instagram introduced the AR filters on the platform last year, and it took the platform by storm with multiple magnificent filters getting above a million views.
Though it is more prevalent among young users on the platform, some industries grow around AR filters. You can enhance your video content and make color grading through AR filters and bring your video content more attractive.
Video Ads On Instagram
Most Instagrammers state that it is essential to master the platform’s advertisement format. While image ads remain strong on Instagram, video content format is also a more powerful tool to target a chosen audience group.
Instagram provides three video content formats to make ads:
- Single video content allows the users to make sixty-second video ads.
- Carousel ads will enable users to swipe more images and video content to look on.
- Story ads provide a full-screen mode which allows the users to run visually arresting photo and video ads.
Work With GIFs
Every business needs to learn more about GIFs for marketing purposes because more audiences wish to watch videos in less than 15seconds. GIfs are shared more than PNG or JPEG formats, and it is time and cost-effective than creating video content.
Related: How To Use Instagram Videos To Kickstart Your Business
Gain More Website traffic
Instagram traffic helps boost your website traffic with the availability of a single link in your Instagram bio section.
Create eagerness in your audience, providing some fantastic offers to click the link through. You should also give a strong CTA(Call To Action) in your clickable link on any video contents or images. So, you can easily convert your Instagram traffic to your website traffic.
Join Hands With Micro-Influencers
Influencer marketing on Instagram has become more practical these days. It helps the marketers to join hands with influencers and makes brand messages out to a vast audience.
But a significant thing is you need to select the right influencer. An influencer acquires a vast follower base than a celebrity has. Micro-influencers are affordable, and they have personal contacts with their fans too, and they shine as more authentic. Generally, micro-influencers have massive engagement rates than macro-influencers.
Related: 5 Ways Instagram influencers can help you grow your brand
Conduct a Contest On Instagram
Contests are Instagram’s dominant engagement tool, generating 65times more comments and 4 times more likes than ordinary posts.
It needs proper planning from outreaching other brands to the contest post creation. Analyzing every contest is also an essential thing. Use Google alerts, hashtags to analyze the performance of your contests. Once it is over, announce the results in your every social media channel, which leads to more engagements.
Related: 10 Ways to Successful Social Media Marketing
Add Links In Instagram Stories
With over 600 million active users, Instagram stories have become a prominent feature on the network. It’s one of the perfect ways to gain more engagement by providing a link to your story. Don’t forget that you can add it if you only have Instagram’s business account and over 10,000 followers.
To attach a link, share a photo or video content to your story, and then click the link option at the screen’s top. Adding CTA to your story is an added advantage, and it’s a meaningful way to bring more traffic to your landing page.
Related: How to use Instagram Stories to Drive Traffic to an Opt-in Form
Monitor Your Best Performing Posts
After covering up everything, you should monitor every post that you upload. Pick the best-performing post and analyze the strategies that you use behind it.
There are multiple ways to identify the best hashtags or find the perfect time to upload content. By seeing this, you can reap more engagement to your content within a short span.
Final Tip
Remember that your journey on Instagram never gets over. While it feels like a discouragement, your profile on Instagram is like a business – it has ups and downs.
You could maximize the potential of your Instagram channel in 2021 by having these 15 simple steps for Instagram best practices.
Author Bio
Mary Kyle is a content developer and marketing manager who works at Snaphappen. She has written more trending articles on social media and has a handful of experience in delivering engaging content.
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