Top 5 Tips for Creating Engaging Instagram Content
According to an old English adage, a picture is worth a thousand words. This turn-of-phrase might be why there are more than 8 million business accounts who regularly use Instagram to get their brand noticed. With over 500 million Instagrammers logging in every day, the marketing potential makes optimizing your strategy worth your time and investment.
To get you started, we’ve put together our top 5 tips for creating engaging Instagram content below.
Get to know your audience
One of the most obvious and important tips is to learn what your target market likes. Search popular hashtags associated with your brand and check out your competition to see how other successful businesses have engaged their audiences, then come up with your own ideas so no one accuses you of plagiarism!
Creatively encourage likes and shares
What’s your unique selling point? Are there any puns associated with your brand? Can you encourage users to post images of themselves using your products in interesting and innovative ways? Popular hashtags are a great way to engage your followers. The #iweigh movement recently managed this by asking their followers to send them photos of what they weighed – which had to be a list of attributes and not what was written on the scales! Genius.
Use high quality images that show off your business
Instagram is a site that relies on images and pictures to promote a person or business. Quality is key. Having poorly lit, blurry or dull images that people scroll past without taking a second look will do you no favors. Think about showcasing your brand, products or business using eye-catching and relevant images that make your followers take notice.
Tell a unique story
People don’t buy the how or what. They buy the why. The why is what sells your brand. Your vision, your motivation, the reason you are where you are, doing what you’re doing is a story that sells all successful businesses. Make your story compelling and people will engage with you. Make your story interesting and people will want to learn more. You don’t have to be a non-profit with a worthy cause to make this work. Brands like Away – a suitcase retailer – uses Instagram to share the experiences a suitcase enables. Every post is beautifully shot and has a caption that engages their followers. It’s simple but effective!
Use competitions to encourage engagement
Once you’ve built up a modest following, one of the most effective ways to engage followers and attract others is to run a competition. Link it to your brand in some way and you’ll benefit from user-generated content too. For example, ask people to send a photo of themselves using your product for the chance of a free give-away; or if you offer a service, ask people to tag a friend for the chance to win a prize. These are just two ways a competition can boost your engagement and get your brand noticed.
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