Instagram is one of the A-glass social media platforms to leverage your marketing strategy and win the hearts of your target audience in a short time. People love Instagram because its more visually appealing than any other social platform with an overall engagement rate of 4.21%, a figure that is ten per cent higher than Facebook – the number one ranking social media app. Engagement on Instagram is a combination of likes, comments and shares you get on a post, and new brands often don’t understand how their competitors are getting good engagement while they are stuck with just 10-15 supporters. If you are one of those and wish to learn how to drive better engagement, here’s the perfect guide to help you out.
Post Consistently
Consistency is the key to winning over your audience on Instagram. You must keep your feed fresh by posting relevant content regularly. Statistics show that updating 1-2 posts per day is sufficient to get a good engagement rate. Some marketers insist that you need to have a fixed time for posting too, but that is not entirely true. Yes, it would help if you find out the time your audience most engages on Instagram through page analytics, but there’s no certain fixed time to update a post.
Build A Strong Brand
Clarity and creativity are paramount are important in creating a strong and highly engaging presence on Instagram. Updating haphazard content with an unclear message, or simply ignoring the audience altogether and always pushing them to buy your product will lead you nowhere. Instead, try building a good reputation for your brand, converse with the audience, respond to any comments or messages as soon as possible, publish content that sells itself and most of all, consider exhibiting your brand’s core values to garner trust, and hence better engagement. Remember, Instagram is a visuals-driven platform that appreciates and rewards aesthetically pleasing content. Having good engagement on your profile means additional followers too so if you need help increasing your online presence and Instagram followers, there are platforms that you can use like Viral Race.
Choose the Right Hashtags
You might have noticed brands and people updating posts with certain keywords marked with a hashtag. Hashtags are an important feature in this social media app and a tool through which your target audience gets to you. Rather than using just generic hashtags with millions of posts, use a combination of trending and industry-specific keywords to connect with your target audience. For the most optimal results, you need to research each hashtag thoroughly and find which one matches the content on your post.
Branded Hashtag is a Must
A branded hashtag is yet another key to winning over people on Instagram. It should be short, simple, easy to remember and most of all, include your brand’s name. It helps make your content more discoverable, drives traffic to your profile, and builds a stronger community around your brand. Remember to add this branded hashtag in your bio so that people can find you easily. You can also launch branded hashtags on certain campaigns that are quirky and keep the audience engaged for short periods.
Add CTAs Everywhere
CTAs or Call To Action is important to let your audience know what all there is to your brand. Make use of the official Instagram CTA buttons to snare the audience’s attention. CTAs can be added to regular posts, as a link in your story, to video content and of course the Instagram ads. Adding them in your bio generates even more engagement to the page, and side by side gets more traffic to your website or landing page.
Make Every Feature Count
Instagram provides a host of features for users, and to drive engagement, you must try to make the most of these. Experiment with AR filters, publish videos, stories, and GIF and try out the different video ad formats. Learning to use emojis effectively in your posts can also help you get a high engagement rate. Wherever possible, try to include the audience directly into a conversation to benefit from user-generated content too.
Host a Contest or Poll
Instagrammers love some thrill and competition, and the best approach to follow here is conducting surveys, polls or giveaway contests. Recent survey stats show that contests drive 3.5 times more likes and 64 times more comments than regular posts. Although contests provide a great tool for engagement, you still need to plan it well. The things to include are, deciding on the winner’s selection process, announcing the contests and later the winner on all other social media channels, and even your website, and make sure to thank all participants in the end. Still can’t get enough engagement on your contest? LeoBoost can help you learn how to drive more people to your page, engage and attract the right audience.
Conclusion
If the platform is used effectively, it is a great tool for driving Instagram growth and marketing your brand for better outreach. You must know the right strategies for engaging your audience, getting more people to connect with you, and learn from the competitors’ experience. We hope these strategies help take your Instagram page to the next level.
