Instagram: The King of Engagement
If you haven’t joined Instagram yet, you are missing out on a major chunk of the social media craze. Everyone seems to be on the platform today. Whether it’s an individual or a brand, Instagram has emerged as a popular tool for sharing image-based content. As of September 2017, Instagram reached the mark of 800 million monthly users and 500 million daily active users. There are about 25 million businesses on the platform, which has become a popular tool for content marketing, lead generation, audience building and networking.
According to a study conducted by Forrester in 2014, Instagram was seen to have 58 times higher engagement rate than Facebook, making the platform the king of engagement. As such, no digital marketer can ignore the power of Instagram in promoting brands and building a wider audience base. But the real question facing brand marketers on Instagram is how to increase the number of followers. If you are also wondering how, here are four simple tips you should follow:
Optimize your profile
The first thing you should be doing is optimizing your Instagram profile to make it look appealing to users. You need to make your username searchable and recognizable so that users can find you easily. Your profile should clearly tell visitors who you are and what you do. You should also ensure that your Instagram profile is visible to the public. You can go to “Options” and turn off “Private Account” setting. Choose a proper profile picture and bio and add a link to your website. This will make your profile more attractive and useful.
Focus on your hashtags
Hashtags are the essence of Instagram campaigns because it makes you content visible to a large number of users. But it is important that you choose hashtags that are trending and relevant to your campaign. You should get as creative as you can while creating hashtags. There’s actually nothing wrong in being ironic, outrageous or funny at times, as long as you are not boring. After using hashtags, make sure you join the conversations so that your brand becomes visible to people. You also have to ensure that your post isn’t spammy with too many hashtags. Select one to three popular hashtags for each photo and share it on your profile.
Consider story-telling
Success on Instagram depends largely on how you tell your brand’s story to people. While short captions are easy to read, descriptive captions can actually tell your brand’s story in the right way. Storytelling is actually a good way to generate more engagement and shares for posts. Another good way of captioning your photos is asking questions. You can ask your users a question that relates to the problem they are facing. Not only does it increase the number of likes but also push users to comments. If your posts are engaging enough, you are sure to see an increase in the number of followers.
Follow others
Last but certainly not the least, you need to follow others if you want more followers. Instead of posting pictures and expecting people to engage, you need to reach out to them yourself. This is a simple rule of reciprocation that’s common to all social media platforms. Search for brands and users that share your comments and interests and then start following them. You can also consider influencer marketing with platforms like Ifluenz for gaining more followers by having top influencers mentioning your Instagram account. You can hold various contests on Instagram and share it on other social media profiles. You will definitely see a rise in the number of followers.