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Instagram Tips to Improve Engagement

Instagram should be the #1 component of every business’s social media marketing strategy.

Research firm eMarketer recently published their forecast for worldwide Instagram users, projecting 593 million monthly users at the end of 2017, with that number rising to 928 million by 2021. According to that same eMarketer report, Instagram will account for one-third of all social media users by 2021

However, many businesses not using Instagram or they are doing it ineffectively. We have a few quick and easy Instagram hacks to turn your account from an anonymous page into a thriving marketing funnel driving traffic, impressions, and customers to your business.

Communication

Most people just post images to Instagram and hope that likes, comments, and followers will come rolling in. This is the wrong approach. Social media is about engaging with others, not passively posting content. If you simply upload content and wait, your account is going to produce very little engagement unless you already have a well know brand or following. This means that you need to step up your game to attract followers. Good news, the solution to this issue is simple!

  • Follow brands and accounts that line up with your business.
  • Spend 5-10 minutes a day to go through your feed and leave comments on pictures that align with your content and brand.

This method sounds simple and too good to be true, but it really works. By engaging with other accounts that align with your brand each day, you will see an increased amount of engagement in return.

Content

You need to post a minimum of once a day to do well on Instagram. Moreover, the more you post the better more reach you will have. This is going to take real effort. You cannot steal other people’s content to post, this must be your own unique and branded content. Each day you need to spend time drafting content online or with your smartphone camera. If you do not have time to do this try outsourcing to UpWork, Fivver, or hire a firm to manager you social media marketing for you.

Captions

You can post awesome and unique content, but if you don’t utilize your caption well, you will miss out on a plethora of engagement opportunities. Captions are a simple but extremely important aspect of creating an engaged community. The caption should not just be a descriptor of the post but should be a call to action for the community that is viewing the post.

Examples of some captions that work:

  • Ask a question: ask your followers a question related to the post. This will increase engagement and may even start a discussion among your followers.
  • “Tag a friend who ____”: ask your followers to tag a friend based on the post. For example, if the image is a picture of a cute puppy, your caption could be, “Tag a friend who needs puppy cuddles!”. When your followers tag friends, it brings new traffic to your page and is essentially free marketing for you.
  • Ask for a ‘like’: Be direct and honest. Captions with “double tap if you agree” or “Double tap if you want puppy cuddles!” will receive more likes just by from adding a simple line of text and asking for a like.

Instagram is not going away anytime soon and will soon become the most important platform in the social media space. Many businesses have resisted using Instagram because they don’t see the platform’s relevance or they don’t know how to utilize it or they think it is an overwhelming endeavor. Please don’t make this mistake; learn to take advantage of the marketing opportunities Instagram offers small businesses. And if you cannot do it yourself, outsource. We have a team that can help you navigate this and would love to talk to you about your business.

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