Jumpstart your Instagram marketing with these powerful Instagram marketing strategy from top digital strategist around the globe.
Instagram has more than 300 million daily users and out of this world user engagement levels. Over 60% of users log in daily, making it the second most engaged network after Facebook. If you haven’t started using these Instagram statistics to your advantage, then you’re missing a lot. My Instagram marketing strategy checklist is arguably the best and they’ve been confirmed working because they are coming from the top online marketers.
Business owners use Instagram as a tool to grow their brand visibility and awareness, while some have seen it as a total mystery, this is because a vast majority believes, “If you’re not a celebrity or a public figure, it’s very hard to be famous on Instagram”. While this may be true, I ant to you to look at it not just as a social media platform but see it as an avenue you want to use to build a solid presence on your platform in order to engage and connect with your target market.
Aside from growing your Instagram community, a successful Instagram marketing strategy depends solely on many things and I am going to share with you everything I’ve scrapped off the internet. The list you are about to read contains Instagram marketing strategy from top influencers in the digital world.
[bctt tweet=”Instagram should be used to build a solid presence on your platform in order to engage and connect with your target market.” username=”vibewebsolution”]
8 Instagram Marketing Strategy By Top Digital Strategist Around The Globe
1. Develop a Content Strategy
– by Alicia Johnston (Brand Marketing Specialist at Sprout Social)
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Content is the foundation of your Instagram presence. Many B2C businesses use Instagram to make their product the star of the show, while B2B companies often focus on company culture and team recruitment—the right approach is one that best showcases your brand. Based on your target audience and objectives, develop a plan to deliver eye-catching content to your community on a consistent basis.
[bctt tweet=”Curating content from your fans allows you to foster audience engagement. #digitalmarketing #InstagramMarketing” username=”vibewebsolution”]
- Build Content Themes: Review your objectives and determine what aspects of your brand to showcase your Instagram content. Products, services, team members and culture all offer rich potential for subject matter over time. Once you have a list of specific content themes, brainstorm possible subjects for your images and videos.
- Determine Types of Content & Ratio: Instagram started as a photo-sharing app, but its wide base of creative users publish everything from videos to graphics to animated GIFs. As you plan out your content, consider a balance of content types that will work best for the resources you have and the engagement you want from your audience.
- Set a Content Calendar, But Be Flexible: To establish and maintain an active presence on Instagram, determine the frequency with which you will post. Then you should develop a content calendar that cycles through your themes and integrates key dates and campaigns.
- Consider Curating User-Generated Content: If your Instagram community members are sharing their own content featuring your brand, you have access to a repository of potential content gold. Curating content from your fans allows you to foster audience engagement and create an incentive for your audience to share their own creative ways of interacting with your products, services or company.
– by Jayson DeMers (Founder & CEO of AudienceBloom)
Apart from your image, your hashtags are the most important element of your post. While captions help you tell the story behind your image, hashtags allow you to get your image (and caption) seen by those outside your current sphere of followers.
When users search for relevant industry-related hashtags, you want your posts to show up. If not, there’s a good chance your competitors’ posts will…increasing their influence and helping them grow their followers.
There are three main strategies you can use for choosing hashtags:
- Use popular hashtags that have the best chance of getting searched for (e.g., #love, #tbt, etc.)
- Use less popular hashtags yet highly-relevant hashtags. These may drive fewer users to your posts, but the ones who do find you will be more targeted.
- Use hashtags commonly thought to attract new followers. Some of the most commonly used are #followme, #follow4follow and #follow.
Whichever strategy you use, try to use at least one hashtag on each post. Don’t worry about using too many hashtags; some research even suggests that engagement is highest on posts that have 11+ hashtags!
3. Use The Right Filters
– by Richard Lazazzera (e-commerce entrepreneur and Content Strategist at Shopify)
Keyword hashtags aren’t the only thing you should pay attention to. The Instagram community respond to certain photo filters more favourably than others. Using these preferred filters can have an impact on your engagement.
Here are the 10 current most popular filters on Instagram according to Populagram:
- Normal (No Filter)
- Valencia
- Earlybird
- X-Pro II
- Amaro
- Rise
- Hudson
- Lo-fi
- Hefe
- Sierra
TrackMaven recently did a study on Instagram accounts to see how filters affected engagement and found that Mayfair, no filter and Inkwell drove the most interaction.
4. Integrate Instagram Content with Email
– by Miles Williams (CMO of Movable Ink)
Instagram and email marketing can be a really powerful combination.
If you embed live Instagram content around a brand hashtag, you can streamline that process by offering photos taken by customers to people who are considering a product or service. This makes the email more engaging and the product more appealing.
Hyatt, for example, has used Instagram in email campaigns to feature the latest Instagram photos from its properties to give new guests a glimpse into what they can do during their stay.
5. Hold Instagram Contest & Giveaways
– by Tobi Asehinde (Founder & Digital Marketer at Digital Marketing Skill Institute)
It’s a well-known fact that everyone cherishes free things. In spite of the fact that you may abhor the possibility of giving something without end, actually, the forthright cost of the prize will be more than justified, despite all the trouble on the off chance that you consider the publicising or promoting costs connected with producing a similar measure of buzz a contest can create.
Wishpond clarifies: “One challenge can create an indistinguishable engagement and increment in followers from several bits of content, sparing you hours of work and vitality.”
Running a challenge on Instagram is an extraordinary approach to compensate your present followers, and in addition pull in new followers to your Instagram’s page, particularly if your challenge obliges members to tag a companion in the comments section of your pictures. Some different thoughts for Instagram contests include:
- “Like” to win contests – members enter by liking your photographs
- “Follow or tag” to win contest – members need to follow or tag a friend to win
- Commenting contests – members need to comment to enter
The embedded Instagram post above shows how “hightimesmagazine” is trying to increase Instagram followers for @suitleaf.
Also, user-generated content contests are an awesome way of engaging your community and growing your following. Request that your followers post an important photograph to Instagram and have them utilise your custom contest hashtag. With this technique, you’re holding a challenge, as well as building a group through those engaged with the hashtag.
In case you’re searching for a basic approach to run an Instagram contest, Hootsuite Campaigns permits you to:
- Show entries on a contest page, your own Instagram page.
- Acknowledge entries through a hashtag or by a required mention.
- Enable voting and commenting on entries to boost engagement.
Contests are an extraordinary Instagram marketing strategy to acquiring more followers on Instagram, so set aside some time to reward your followers for their commitment to your brand.
6. Turn into a two-way communication portal
– by Josh Brown (Marketer at Soldsie.com)
Instead of just posting photos or videos and letting your followers interact with you, start interacting with them.
It’s an opportunity to market your brand as whatever you want it to be. Your audience is going to be reading your comments, and the people to whom you respond will have a clear memory of that time when your brand talked to them on social media.
Your comments are your personality. Make sure to pay close attention to what you’re saying, down to the last word – all your followers could read what you write, so your writing must have mass appeal to be perceived overall as positive. When you relate to your target audience members through words, they will be more likely to trust you and buy from you.
Example: Groupon’s Banana Bunker
This publicity stunt interacted with viewers. While it was done on Facebook, the same principles hold true for Instagram.
After turning down a $6 billion purchase offer and battling negative press, Groupon sought some positive attention. It posted a promotion for a real product – the Banana Bunker, a plastic holder for a single banana, which some thought looked similar to a s∈x toy. Groupon deliberately replied to all comments (about 200) that incorporated the s∈x-toy viewpoint with clever comments.
Groupon certainly got attention. Almost every major media outlet picked up on it. The post earned 12,000 comments, 18,000 “likes,” and 43,000 shares. And Groupon was able to transform its image – viewers who saw or learned about the banana holder post now think of Groupon as more of a “fun” company than a “strictly business” discount provider.
You don’t need to constantly sit next to your computer and watch for new comments on your Instagram photos. Just check every couple of hours – or delegate the task to an employee.
Consistently posting with a personality that your audience vibes with is huge on Instagram. Don’t underestimate it – remember, if your replies are good, you can help your followers see you as a friend, not just a brand.
7. Instagram via Flipagram
– Neil Patel (Founder & Digital Strategist at Neilpatel.com)
It’s easy to get stuck in an “Instagram rut.” You know what I mean. You take a photo, add it to your account and repeat.
Unless you have a large following, this routine can soon become stale. It can also lead you to waste a lot of time.
Flipagram helps protect against this, by providing the ability to create a slideshow video for Instagram. This gives your page a bit of flair, as opposed to the “same old, same old.”
You may not find yourself creating a photo video story on a daily basis, but it’s a great way to break up your day-to-day activity.
Flipagram helps you to put your products in front of your audience, without asking them to manually move from one photo to the next. This improves the likelihood of sharing all of your content with your audience.
It’s a common misconception that Flipagram is only useful for companies in the retail industry. By thinking outside the box, it’s a tool that any company can use to market their products or services.
For example, a restaurant could create a Flipagram that displays all of their best dishes or most popular drinks.
If you want your Instagram account to stand out, you need to make it unique. With the help of Flipagram, you can do so with ease.
(via Flipagram)
8. Make Content “Snackable”
– by Lesya Liu (blogger at The Social Media Current)
Disclaimer: Skip this section if you haven’t had lunch yet. Even then, the author is not responsible for drooling all over your computer.
On Instagram, you have an instant to impress. You have one image and one caption to catch your audience’s attention before they move on. It’s crucial, then, to ensure your content is “bite-sized” and fun.
It would be easy for any retailer to grab an image of their products, slap a huge sale sign on it, and upload the resulting graphic to their feed. However, Whole Foods Market has found a way to make their photo collection incredibly appealing both visually and contextually. Delicious imagery is paired up with quick and easy recipes (who doesn’t love those?), making their content not only pretty but actionable as well.
To wrap it up:
It’s important you closely track your progress after implementing these useful Instagram marketing strategy from top digital strategists and influencers in the digital world. Hopefully, these tips I’ve compiled will guide you in running a successful Instagram community.