Instagram is one of the best — if not the best — social media hubs for gaining visibility in the virtual world. However, for new businesses trying to carve a space for themselves on the gram, growing can be a struggle. Organizing a full-on Instagram campaign is not cheap. And even if it were, not everyone knows the way to do it effectively. We know, life’s tough.
If you’re struggling to grow your engagements, gain followers, and receive likes on Instagram despite all putting in efforts, you’re not alone. Many others are too. But how do you break the jinx, set yourselves apart, and take your engagement through the roof? That’s what we’ll be discussing today. Keep reading for 13 actionable Instagram tips that work like a charm for growing your profile and improving engagement.
1. Create a business account
On Instagram, you have the option to make your account either a personal account or a business account. Naturally, if you’re on Instagram to promote your business, creating a business account is the wise thing to do.
How so?
This account type affords you the opportunity to access lots of unique features, the kind you won’t get if you use a personal account. Some of these special features include:
- Instagram shopping.
- Instagram ads.
- Primary and secondary messaging inbox.
- Instagram insights.
- Contact information and a call-to-action button on your profile.
Recommended for you: 11 Innovative Ways to Make Your Next Instagram Marketing Campaign Dazzle.
2. Make your profile striking
Although Instagram bios contain only 150 characters, yours need to be captivating. It should give your visitors a great first impression and convey your brand personality immediately.
The bio must also give visitors reasons to follow your Instagram account instead of your competitors. Fortunately, the bio is surrounded by other things that make your bio message more impressive and locatable. They include:
- Name: This must be up to 30 characters. Insert a keyword here to increase your Instagram SEO.
- Username: This must also be memorable and easy to search out.
- Link: It should be a clickable URL that takes visitors to your desired site (website, WhatsApp etc.)
- Contact info: This informs users on where and how to find you.
- Call to action button: This gives users a way to chat with you directly from your profile page.
3. Choose a profile photo that suits your business
Most brands believe their Instagram profile photo must always be their logo. For you, it doesn’t have to be. The trick is to be professional, impressive, and qualitative. In other words, your profile photo should be a professional shot that’ll show users what your account is all about at first glance.
Also, make the shot as memorable as possible. This allows users to see it and be captivated. With this, it won’t be a problem for them to trust you. When uploading, make sure the file is of the highest quality possible. Instagram may decide to change how it is displayed, thus compressing the picture in the process.
4. Use effective hashtag
Hashtags help your target audience locate your business profile easily. They also help users engage with your post once because it is exactly what they’ve been searching for.
We recommend that you stick with only 3-5 hashtags per post, although you can use up to 30 hashtags in one post. Using anything more than the recommended amount might seem like hashtag stuffing. As such, it may stop followers from liking your post, even when they are active on Instagram.
Besides, if you use an irrelevant hashtag, users can decide to stop following your content. To get quick positive results, use hashtags that are:
- Specific to your niche.
- Relevant.
- Highly targeted.
- Do not encourage follow or like-swapping.
5. Write captivating captions
Instagram captions can add context to your images, posts, and videos. It also shows off your brand’s personality, entertains the audience, and compels users to take action.
Instagram captions are no more than 2,200 characters long. And captions can be effective for promoting, entertaining, informing, or even telling stories.
However, it is crucial to make your first few words as intriguing as possible. At first, these few words are the only ones that’ll appear followed by an option to click “more.”
If your beginning is interesting enough, your readers will click to read till the end.
6. Use Instagram stories
One of the ways to get results on Instagram as a brand is to use stories. Why? It presents the opportunity to connect with your audience and build effective relationships with them.
According to research, one-third of the most viewed stories are posted by businesses. If you’re not already maximizing stories, you should start ASAP.
Instagram stories last for 24 hours and disappear afterward.
The best way to use Instagram stories are:
- Tell a story: who doesn’t love a good story? Plus, stories are engaging.
- Post a Video: Use multiple short scenes to convey your message in your short videos.
- Provide value: Your Instagram story should provide value to your users. You could give them links to useful resources, books, etc.
- Use a call to action: Be bold and tell followers to swipe and take action immediately.
- Use a consistent brand identity:
Your stories must align with your brand voice just like your Instagram feed.
7. Go live on Instagram
Instagram live offers you the opportunity to connect with your followers in real-time. This strengthens your bond with your fans while helping you build a loyal community.
To make your IG live worthwhile, you should consider doing this before going live:
- Collaborate with an expert or influencer in a particular industry. use the ‘Add a Guest’ option to go live together.
- Organize a live behind-the-scenes look at an event so your fans can see how trust-worthy you are.
- Host a workshop or tutorial teaching your followers about something.
- Host a Q&A session.
- Interview a team member of your event.
- Talk to a client or consumer to hear what they feel about your services.
You may like: 5 Effortless Strategies to Raise Your Instagram eCommerce Store.
8. Set up an Instagram shop
If you’re using a business profile on Instagram, you get to create an Instagram virtual shop where your followers can go to buy your products
There’s a ‘View shop button’ on your Instagram profile page where your followers can search for new products.
According to reports, over 130 million Instagram users tap on shopping posts every month, so there is a large audience of people ready to buy from the brands they follow.
9. Start experimenting with Instagram reels
Though new, Instagram reels have gained ground in the platform. If you want to grow your business profile, you must maximize this feature.
Jump on reel trend quickly. Also, make your videos entertaining and unique. This way, people will find it easy to follow you.
10. Try to collaborate with an influencer
An influencer is someone who collaborates and works with a brand to promote products and services.
In today’s innovative era, social content creators with niche audiences are proven to offer more value to brands they work with. They often have loyal and dedicated groups of followers on social media whom they can easily influence to buy certain products.
One surefire way to get started with Influencer marketing is to invite an influencer to take over your profile for a set period of time.
11. Grow your audience using Instagram ads
Instagram is growing and also bringing in serious wealth revenue to businesses who know how to harness its powers.
The surest, and perhaps easiest, way to push your post to the feed of a new audience is by running an Instagram ad. Your Instagram ads can be placed anywhere— from people’s Instagram feeds and stories, to their explore page.
If you have not been using Instagram ads all this while to generate traffic to your website, feel free to try it out immediately.
12. Use Instagram analytics to redefine your strategy
If you want to enhance your results, learn from what you have done already.
“Instagram Insights is a feature that allows Instagram Business Account users to see analytics related to their profile and posts. From this data, you’ll be able to identify what your audience likes and engages with the most to improve your Instagram strategy.” – as mentioned by Amanda Zantal-Wiener, in one of her recent blog posts at HubSpot.
You can try this out by checking:
- Impressions: The amount of time your post has been seen during a specific time frame
- Interactions: This is number of actions taken on your account.
- Reach: The number of accounts that saw your Instagram post or story.
- Profile views: The cumulative number of people that viewed your profile over the week.
Once you’ve checked the information listed above on your Instagram page, then you can learn more about how effective your current strategy is. If it’s not so effective, you can change your strategy to yield the results you desire for your brand.
13. Engage consistently with your audience
Posting content is good. However, when you don’t respond to your followers’ engagements, they’ll stop engaging with your brand.
Apart from responding to comments followers post on your feed, it’s vital you find popular accounts that have high authority in your industry. Then, follow these accounts, like their posts, and leave a comment as well.
If anyone tags your profile in a post, check it out and find creative ways to engage back with the person. This gives you an opportunity to win their heart and perhaps know more about them personally.
You may also like: 25 Must-Have Instagram Apps for Producing Content.
Conclusion
As you advance in your business, it’s important that you learn about digital marketing techniques often. Through this, you will pivot your brand, making it an authority in your industry.
Finally, keep creating eye-catching content. Ensure that your captions are Value-Packed. It’ll help increase your following. While at it, follow all the steps listed above. They are your keys to standing out among the pack.
Web developer and SEO specialist with 20+ years of experience in open-source web development, digital marketing, and search engine optimization. He is also the moderator of this blog "RS Web Solutions (RSWEBSOLS)".
