Today, Instagram has over a billion active users per month. Data also shows that 80% of all Instagram users follow 1 or more businesses and that 70% of Instagram users are likely to buy a product online. That said, you may find it hard to capture the audience’s attention as there are over 17 million businesses to compete with.
On the bright side, there are a few Instagram marketing tips you can make use of to get conversions, improve engagement and scale revenue. Here are 8 such hacks that will help you boost your Instagram marketing efforts.
Start with a business account
An Instagram business account gives you access to analytics. You can use this information to assess engagement and evaluate how well your posts have done. Moreover, you can leverage this data to understand what you can do differently the next time around to capture your audience’s attention. Additionally, an Instagram business profile allows for greater customisations to the bio, which is important for first-time visitors who are keen on finding out more about your business.
Make your bio interesting
Among the many Instagram marketing tips for business, sprucing up your bio is heavily underrated, but the most beneficial! When writing your bio, remember to make it attractive and readable. When people look at your bio for the first time, they should know how following you will benefit them. Apart from this, consider changing the URL from time to time to that of recent publications so that you can consistently drive traffic to your website.
Use relevant hashtags in your posts
Using at least one hashtag will boost engagement by 12.6%. For this reason, make use of hashtags to stay socially relevant and boost your engagement even further. Write them into your post copies, comments, and embed them into your stories to increase your reach.
Write evocative captions and use alt text to your advantage
Use compelling captions to earn likes and comments and turn your feed into a curated narrative. Some brands have found it useful to make use of long-form captions, and this may work for you too if you’re sharing information with your Instagram followers. Finally, use the alt text feature to further describe your image, and boost your business’ searchability.
Go behind the scenes and tell your brand’s story
An effective way of using Instagram for business is to make your customers part of the production process. Once individuals are part of your story, regular customers will turn into loyal ones and loyal customers will transform into brand ambassadors!
Schedule content and avoid posting erratically
Publishing multiple times a day can be detrimental as per Instagram’s algorithms, but you can bolster your engagement by publishing once a day. Additionally, it pays to schedule your posts. Data shows that timing certainly matters, as viewers are mostly online on weekdays, from 10am to 3pm.
Geo-tag your posts for better engagement
According to a study, your engagement increases by a whopping 79% when you tag your location. Geolocating draws more relevant followers, as it provides relevant, tailored content. Certain users are specifically looking for something happening in a particular area and your geo-tag can point them to it. This is an important feature to take advantage of in order to maintain a profitable business account in Instagram.
Find out ways to make Instagram’s algorithm work for you
Stay up to date with Instagram’s algorithm and build your strategy around it. Some brands find it useful to run contests to boost engagement in large numbers, and some prefer to utilise more video content as consumption of this format has increased by 80% since 2018. Also, certain brands make use of emojis, which data shows increases interactions by around 47.7%, while others will save their own posts to collections to increase the relevance of the publication. The approach you choose will depend on your individual goals and brand tonality.
Cracking the Instagram code does require some skill, so consulting with digital marketing agencies that are devoted to getting things right is the best way forward. To grow your business and give it the edge it needs on one of the world’s most used social media networks, contact us today!
