Stephanie Donelson

Instagram is an important marketing channel for many brands and with over one billion monthly active users and 100 million photos and videos uploaded each day, it’s one that shouldn’t be ignored. 

Instagram is great for brand awareness, reaching new audiences, and sharing quality photos of your product, service, or experience you’re selling. But, to win on Instagram you have to have the right strategy and execution on the social media network. 

Want to finish 2019 strong or plan ahead for 2020 when it comes to your marketing on Instagram? Check out these 10 tips for Instagram success!

10 ways to improve your Instagram posts

1. Analyze your audience

Dive into Instagram insights to learn more about your followers, like where they’re from, their ages and genders, and when they’re online. You can also get information about your Instagram content’s impressions, reach, website clicks, and engagement. 

Learn how to tailor your content for your specific audience and post when they’re online.

If you’re just starting out and need some general guidelines for when to post on Instagram:

• Post early morning 6-9 a.m. or evening 7-10 p.m.
• Try to post outside of work hours
• Like Facebook, Wednesday-Saturday are optimal days to posts
• Like and comment on other brands’ and users’ accounts
• Share (with permission) others’ posts about your brand
• Use hashtags appropriately

2. Collaborate and partner with influencers 

This one is still valuable, even if Instagram is changing the game for influencers by hiding likes from personal accounts. Influencers are social media celebrities that can help introduce your brand to the right customers. 

How can you identify influencers? Some will straight up tell you in their Instagram profile, but anyone can throw the word “influencer” in their bio even if they only have seven followers. Real influencers should:

• Have a good following (Instagram identifies influencers as those with more than 10K followers)
• Are a good fit for your industry
• Have experience in influencing
• Produce quality Instagram posts and dedicate time to their account

Most influencers will promote content for your brand for pay, free swag, or a share for share model. Obviously the more influence they have, the more you’ll need to invest into this partnership. 

You’ll also want to make sure that your influencer partners play by Instagram’s rules and show that their posts are sponsored or paid for, otherwise they and you could take a hit in reputation. 

Another option is to partner with micro-influencers. They may not have the requisite 10K followers, but they have a lot of power within their communities and are very particular about who they work with, meaning their followers will have more trust off the bat with your brand. 

3. User-generated Content

Don’t feel like you have to come up with all the content you’re going to share on Instagram by yourself! User-generated Content (UGC) is a great opportunity to mix up your content and provide an authentic user experience with your followers, instead of the curated and cultivated photos you create for Instagram.

Regram others’ content (with permission) or share a review or quote from Google, Yelp, or TripAdvisor or whatever site your industry uses for online reviews. 

You can also go the route of selfie stations or cute backgrounds for people to take photos of your offering and share it organically with their audience. 

4. Use hashtags 

Twitter knew what it was doing when it created hashtags as ways to track conversations, categorize content, or to easily find topics you’re interested in. Both Facebook and Instagram adopted hashtags and hashtags work wonders on Instagram for getting the right eyes on your content. 

Why use hashtags on Instagram?

• Improves the reach of your posts
• Reaches the right people who follow or check out those hashtags
• Makes it easy to track your content and related pieces

You should use a healthy mix of branded hashtags and generic hashtags to improve your relevancy and reach. Try to limit yourself to 5-7 hashtags per post as the more you use, the less relevant they get and the more spammy you look.

Generic hashtags can be anything from #food to #travel to #wine and are broad terms. They can be useful if you don’t know what else to tag, but try to more specific if possible.

You can also learn what hashtags to use by studying your competition and seeing what hashtags your target audience uses when talking about your industry or brand.

Branded hashtags are very specific to your brand and can be anything from your company name with the pound sign in front of it, a product or service, or a branded hashtag for a current campaign. Encourage your followers or customers to use your hashtags in content about your company. 

5. Be human 

We know there are people running brands’ Instagram accounts, so be human when you post and interact with followers! Share memes, make jokes, have fun with your content, and be sure to devote time to engage with and respond to your followers. 

No one wants to be talked to on social media, we want to be asked to join a conversation, so be sure to provide the other side of the conversation. Respond to comments and even go further by commenting or liking others’ posts to drive up engagement and brand visibility. 

6. Go behind the scenes

We all want to see the finished project, but we also love the opportunity to peek behind the curtain or see the blooper reel. Share videos or photos that aren’t perfect or edited.

You could also tailor this to interview-style content and put the spotlight on your C-Suite executives, PR or marketing team, or even a sneak peek of working with influencers. 

7. Hold contests

Want to drum up some excitement and engagement, and reward your followers at the same time? Hold a contest or giveaway!

Most social media users will jump at the chance to win something, especially when you make it easy to join in on the fun.

I think the easiest contests to run are:

• Caption this: You share a photo and ask followers to write a caption or title the photo and the comment with the most likes wins. 
• Self-submissions: A little harder to track but provides you with a ton of UGC, self-submissions require users to post an entry on their Instagram account and tag your brand or use your required hashtag.
• Entry: You can never go wrong with the standard entry form on your website. Less creative but super easy to manage and make easy for followers to enter. 

Be sure to share what hashtags people should use and have a link to clear terms and conditions for entering the contest.

8. Vary up content types

Change up your content and share photos, videos, motivational quotes, UGC, boomerang clips, and teasers for Stories or long-form video content on IGTV. 

Vary up your hashtags with each post, too. No one wants to see the same thing over and over again, so provide your followers with a variety of content types to keep things exciting and different – giving them a reason to follow your brand or make sure they haven’t missed any posts from your brand. 

9. Produce Stories

Stories came about with the rise of Snapchat and Instagram adopted Stories as an alternative solution to sharing content that disappears in 24 hours – though now you can save it to your highlights reel on your profile page. 

It’s a great way to accomplish behind-the-scenes content or fun pieces you don’t want stored on your feed for all eternity. Stories can also be great to tease a product release with a countdown, or polling your followers. 

Stories show up at the top of the app and as each story flows from one to the next seamlessly, it’s easy to get people hooked into staying in Stories and watching a stream of content. 

10. Advertise

Finally, run some ads to reach new audiences, re-engage followers, or call attention to a new product, service, or experience. Instagram offers great targeting options as well as different layouts for your ad and calls to action. Ads can be an affordable way to give a boost to your content, improve conversions or online sales, and grow your following. 

These 10 tips for Instagram can set you up for success, but you should adapt each tip to your audience and do some testing to see what works best with your audience. 

What other Instagram tips do you follow or have to share with your fellow marketers? Tell me in the comments below or share on Twitter!