IMPROVE YOUR INSTAGRAM STRATEGY
Instagram is one of the fastest growing and most popular social media platforms on the planet.
In this post, Weʼll discuss a set of marketing tactics to help you be more successful on Instagram, whether youʼre brand new to the platform or have been using it for years. That includes tips on what and when to post to maximize engagement, how to use hashtags, how to think about your visual branding, and why you should get to know Instagram communities.
Iʼll also cover a set of essential metrics you should be monitoring to track your progress on Instagram and report on your impact. Finally, this post will discuss how to integrate Instagram into your larger multi-channel social media strategy and ensure consistency across your entire social media presence.
INSTAGRAM MARKETING TACTICS
Whether youʼre just getting started on Instagram or youʼve been using it for years, it never hurts to review the basics of a solid Instagram marketing strategy. There are a set of guidelines that can help anyone representing a brand or company on Instagram. Follow these to create better content, get more engagement and grow your reach on Instagram.
What To Post
Instagram Users have come to expect high-quality visuals on their feeds, so make sure the content youʼre sharing matches these expectations. Post only high-quality photos and videos. While video has been getting a lot of attention in social media marketing circles lately, photos actually tend to perform better than video on Instagram. However, donʼt be afraid to experiment by mixing video into your content plan because your particular experience might differ from what best practices suggest.
You donʼt have to use filters to create an impactful photo on Instagram, but you should spend time creating a beautiful image. Focus on high- contrast or colorful images that are artfully framed and highlight something visually appealing.
Instagram definitely has its own aesthetic that youʼll quick get to know on after spending some time with it. But also be sure you research your target audience to see how they embody the Instagram look and feel. Build out your own content plan for Instagram that matches the platformʼs preferences while still fitting in with your brand voice and values.
Be sure you keep track of whatʼs working and what isnʼt for your content. Take a step back and look at your top posts - the photos and videos that have received the most engagement recently. What do they have in common? Is there a common theme, color scheme, subject?
For example, we know outdoor scenes and nature photos tend to perform well on Instagram in general, but your content may follow a different pattern. See what you can identify as a common denominator and post more content like that.
When To Post
I recommend photography brands start by posting 1–2 times a day. Instagram isnʼt as fast-moving as other social media like Twitter, and you donʼt want to alienate your audience by flooding their feeds. Just be sure to stick to a regular posting schedule; if you stop posting for long periods of time, you will lose followers.
In general, most Instagram content lives around 3 days, but 90% of a postʼs likes and comments happen in the first 13 hours. This makes it crucial to know the best times for you to post to really get the most out of your content with your audience. Instagram is very active on nights and weekends, so consider posting content outside typical business hours to find your audience when they are more likely to be active. Your specific audience and experience will vary, so test a lot and figure out what works for your content and your audience.
And look for gaps - are there times when you never post? You could be missing out on potentially valuable interaction. Experiment by posting at different times and days for a few weeks to see if you find any new times your posts get more engagement.
Using Hashtags
Hashtags are the key to discovery on Instagram; with the right hashtags your content will reach new, relevant audiences and get far more engagement than it otherwise would have. It's recommended using 3–10 hashtags per post.
Experiment with posting some hashtags in your caption and adding more in the first comment below your photo (these are treated the same as the ones in the caption, but some users find it less cluttered to put them there). Note that it typically wonʼt work to add hashtags to a post later, so be sure you add all your hashtags when you originally post.
Itʼs essential to research any hashtag before using it. The Internet is a strange and wild place where even seemingly innocuous hashtags can have double (often NSFW) meanings. Avoid any costly PR mistakes by taking a few minutes to search potential hashtags to see how theyʼre used. And it never hurts to get to know a community before using a hashtag, even if it wonʼt end up in PR disaster.
In order to find the hashtags that work best for your content, try a variety of hashtags in your posts and pay attention to audience response to see which ones work and which ones donʼt. Use a mix of popular hashtags, as well as targeted hashtags to reach the right audience mix. Using more popular, general hashtags to contribute your posts to the larger conversation.
Depending on the community youʼre targeting, that could be anything from #travel to #sunset to #architecture or #love. And then to avoid getting lost in the noise of large and fast-moving hashtags, be sure to also use some unique and more targeted hashtags to reach a smaller, but more relevant audience. Those could be location- specific, like your town or neighborhood, related to a specific campaign, highlighting a particular food, anything. You might be surprised at the engagement you can get from niche hashtags.
Take a look at existing Instagram posts that use the hashtags youʼre interested in. What other hashtags do they use in those posts? What kinds of photos and videos use that hashtag? See what else is out there to see if your content will be a good fit. And see if you can find other hashtags you can use from your account. There are so many options, and probably a lot youʼve never thought of.
Also, remember you can use emojis in hashtags. Mix things up and get creative to find new hashtags and expand your audience on Instagram.
Visual Branding
One of the most important parts of a multi-channel social strategy is having a cohesive brand your customers, fans and followers can easily identify across social media. There are many ways you can do this, especially as it relates to your visual branding. Focus on consistency in the general tone of your images, including any branded overlays or watermarks, setting up shots to include recurring backgrounds or characters in them, and more. Aim for consistency across social media; your audience should be able to easily recognize that youʼre you no matter where they find you.
But be sure you tweak individual images before posting them on each social media platform. Consider different crops, formats and captions on one channel to the next. The same goes for video. Donʼt post the exact same image or video on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter; customize your content for each platform. They can be similar, but should not be identical.
Finding Instagram Communities
A good way to find new followers on Instagram is to get to know some of its communities. First, you need to spend some time identify the Instagram communities that are relevant to your brand. Start by searching big, obvious hashtags - like #beauty if youʼre a fashion photographer, for example - and then drill down into related and more niche hashtags. Pay attention to which accounts you see getting a lot of engagement and see how they interact with each other and with their fans and followers. See what you can learn from the leaders in a community.
Learn even more about a community by paying attention to how participants post. Do they use short or long captions, lots of hashtags or none, do they post once a day or several times a day, always at the same time each day? Does everyone share a similar sense of humor? Do they use a lot of emoji? Do they comment on each otherʼs photos? Consider putting together a sort of style guide around the community you can use to help target your own content in the future.
You should also pay attention to where else members of an Instagram community like to hang out online and see how similar and different their behavior is in those places. Interact with them there as well if you have a brand presence and an appropriate engagement plan. Is your audience on Snapchat too? Are they posting to Facebook or Twitter?
When you start interacting with a new Instagram community, use the same tone, hashtags, and style as the community already does in way thatʼs appropriate for your brand. You want to balance the language of the community with your own brand values and voice.
And never just sell; follow community members and interact with them as appropriate, liking photos, leaving comments, and even considering influencer partnerships, account takeovers and even giveaways where applicable.
You may also want to consider real-world events to strengthen your relationship with your community. Attend or host an InstaMeet, or collaborate on a photo project. Make it a point to meet up with influencers who will be at a relevant event or conference, and see if some cross-posting naturally comes out of it. Thatʼs always a boost for both audiences, when done right.
Donʼt forget the power of your audience for helping you find user generated content. Consider a feature on your account where you share relevant photos from the community (with explicit permission) or as part of a contest, or a way to boost your audience by drawing in that community memberʼs audience. Fans of your photography brand will love the exposure, and youʼll benefit by reaching their followers as well as your own.
Bottom line? Actually try to participate authentically in a community. They can always tell if youʼre faking it, and engagement with your account will reflect that.
THE METRICS THAT MATTER ON INSTAGRAM
When it comes time to measure your progress on Instagram, youʼve got tons of metrics to choose from. How can you decide which ones to pay attention to, which ones will help you and your stakeholders understand how your efforts are going? Read on.
Basic Instagram Metrics
The most basic form of engagement on Instagram comes in the form of likes and comments.
Likes are a good baseline metric to gauge audience interest in your content; any major change in likes is a big indicator that youʼre doing something very right or very wrong, which you should work to replicate or correct. And donʼt worry too much about tracking total likes per month. Instead, focus on likes per post. Figure out what content is resonating by seeing which posts get the most likes, and how quickly those likes accumulate.
Do you ever have one of those posts that gets tons of likes in the first five minutes? Pay attention to that - youʼve hit on a very good time to post, when your desired audience is paying attention.
Comments show a little more investment than likes, provided theyʼre not just of the “great pic!” variety. Be sure respond to relevant comments to keep fans and followers engaged. If you have followers who consistently interact with your content in comments, make a note of that. These followers are your biggest advocates and you should know who they are.
Comments are often the best way for an Instagram user to share your photo with someone else. Are most of your comments @mentions of other accounts? If so, those comments are almost like regrams or shares and are valuable for that reason.
And you should be tracking your follower growth. How quickly are you gaining new followers? Donʼt worry so much about the raw number of new followers you gain every day, but instead think about your percentage increase. And try not to look at it on a daily basis, but pay attention to it over a longer time period, like a month. If youʼre getting 4% or more new followers a month, thatʼs a healthy growth rate.
Intermediate Instagram Metrics
In addition to likes, comments and followers, there are several other useful, slightly more advanced metrics you can monitor for your Instagram account. These will help you better understand the kinds and quality of engagement youʼre receiving and help you quantify your impact on Instagram.
Monitor engagement with your top posts. How do your top posts perform relative to one of your more typical posts? Get to know which posts perform the best, especially those that get far more engagement than your average post. What did you do differently? Consider the subject of your post, whether it was a photo or video, the hashtags you used, the users and location you tagged, and the time and day you posted. Over time, youʼll start to identify patterns. Use those patterns to post more content like this.
The raw number of likes and comments are important, but whatʼs more important is the engagement rate your content receives. What percentage of your followers are engaging with your content? If you have 500 followers, and only 10 of them engage with your post, thatʼs low. A more ideal engagement rate would be 10% or higher, but you can typically expect something in the 5% range. So if you have 500 followers, a typical post would get 25 or so likes and comments, but a great post would get 50 or more. Does this fit with how youʼre doing? Your engagement rates may vary, so figure out what to expect for your content and look for variations outside that range.
Consider measuring the number of unique fans you have. How many different people are engaging with your content? Are you reaching a broad, diverse audience? If you get a lot of likes, but theyʼre consistently from the same set of dedicated fans, youʼre not reaching a very wide audience. The more unique fans you have, the better. You can use hashtags in your posts to spread your content to a wider audience.
MAKING INSTAGRAM WORK WITH THE REST OF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA
Most importantly, you need to be sure your Instagram presence fits in with the rest of your social media strategy. Your Instagram account doesnʼt live in a vacuum and needs to complement the rest of your social activities. Here are a few ways to be sure your entire multi-channel social media strategy is cohesive across channels.
Donʼt post identical content across platforms. Adapt content to fit each channel where youʼre posting it. You donʼt need to create brand new content for each channel - though you can if youʼre lucky enough to have the resources to do so - but customize each piece of content for each location youʼre sharing it.
Think through who your audience is in each place. The people who follow you on Instagram are probably different than the ones who follow you on Facebook and the ones who follow you on LinkedIn. Take these differences into consideration when youʼre thinking about what
to post and when to each place. Social content is not one size fits all, and while it takes a little extra time to speak specifically to a custom audience in each place, the extra effort will pay off through increased engagement and interaction.
Consider when you post to different channels. If you just shared a blog post link on Twitter a few minutes ago, you should wait before sharing something from that post to Instagram to maximize its reach across social media. Space your posts out, and youʼll likely reach more different people with the same message.
Plan, Plan, Plan.
Think carefully about what youʼre posting, when and where. Develop a content calendar that includes social posts to be sure youʼre getting the right balance of content across channels, and spreading posts out appropriately. A little planning now will save you a great deal of time later.
If you follow a few simple rules, itʼs not hard to find success for your brand on Instagram.
Remember These Tips.
Instagram content is a lot more evergreen than people give it credit for, so take the time to create and share high-quality content.
Keep up a steady cadence of new content to maximize engagement.
If you stop posting, you will lose followers.
Use hashtags to reach new audiences and boost content discovery.
If youʼre going to start an Instagram account, be prepared to commit to
it – donʼt let it stagnate. Keep trying new things and keep track of what works and what doesnʼt. With a little work, you can reach a larger, more engaged audience and make the most of Instagram for your photography brand.
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