Instagram is one of the social media platforms that gained popularity overnight and it is here to stay. If you are one of the aspiring bloggers or a brand, you know how hard it is to compete with all kinds of content posted these days. You would have to be top of your game and attractive enough to gain popularity. Serious blogging or retailing requires intensive social media marketing. One of those marketing tools includes Instagram. It is one of the best platforms to promote your blog or your product.
Everyone these days is using Instagram to stay active on social media. It is my favorite platform till now. As it is easy to stay updated and follow people with the same interests. It is also very secure if you want to private and interacts with certain chosen followers. However, most people who want to showcase their work, content, interests, lifestyle, and other stuff tend to go public.
You can post pictures and stay updated with your friend’s activities on Instagram. It is not just restricted to that; you can also follow accounts that you spark your interest. Talented young artists, singers, photographers, and dancers all use Instagram as their main social media platform to increase their following. The accounts with the most followers are beneficial in way that they can be sold to celebrities and other influencers, who don’t have time to build their fan following from the start.
6 Powerful Ways to Get the Most Out of Instagram
Researchers say that there are over 300 million monthly Instagram users. It is the perfect platform to boost your sales and engage your audience. Following are the 6 powerful posts to get the most from Instagram –
1. Engage the Audience with Attractive Pictures
Instagram is all about powerful and creative pictures. Followers tend to be attracted to the pictures of a product if they are taken in an innovative way. You need to find an appropriate angle to bring out the best in your shot and add a few other complimentary items with the product.
Play with colors and ideas. Think big and new as there are many talented photographers out there showing their work on Instagram. You can ramp up a simple picture like of laptop by adding a few other things for instance coffee mug, fresh flowers or books, etc. But, don’t add too many unnecessary items so that you don’t overshadow the actual product. The product should be the main focus and highlighted throughout. It all depends on the product you are selling and how you want people to relate to it.
Be sure to make your own identity by sticking to the same outlook of the pictures as you are representing your brand, thus you need to be consistent. Try to take good quality images as Instagramers tend to be attracted more towards quality and focus. Make sure there is good lighting where ever you are capturing the moment.
2. Add Appropriate Filters And Adjust Effects
Your picture won’t be complete if you don’t add the final touches to it by applying filters that go with your theme. Be artistic yet simple when it comes to applying the filters. Don’t overdo it. Adjust the lighting and effects with the built-in controls in Instagram. Adjust contrast, brightness, shadows or highlights, etc. until you achieve perfection. You can also add borders to complete the look if you want but then again be careful while choosing the border as you would want to be consistent with your overall theme of the profile.
Consistency will make your brand image more distinctive from other competitive brands. It will give you an edge in the competitive market. Your followers will be able to recognize and relate to your picture more easily. Thus, making them instantly like your product naturally.
3. Captivating caption
After you have taken an attractive picture of your product, your next step is to tell the audience what you really are offering. Captions help you do that. Be sure to describe your product to make it sound unique and edgy. This will help you attract the masses as people generally are most likely to be engaged by reading a story or an interesting description.
You need to target the audience that may buy your product with a captivating caption. Keep it interesting and comprehensive because people who are interested in buying your product will need to know the specifics like material, colors, pricing, or anything relative. Learn to communicate through your captions with your followers. Make a connection with them and this will help you promote your brand more.
Captions are a soul to the picture on Instagram. Use it in a useful way and don’t waste that space by writing something that doesn’t impact your brand in a positive way. Nike’s audience is involved in the brand as their captions are like reading a short story. There is a story behind every image they post.
This is one of the strategies you can keep in mind. Don’t follow the crowd, come up with something new. Invent new methods to wow your audience every time. This will attract the product more and new customers will also be engaged.
4. Pay Attention to Hashtags
Hashtags are a free and easy way to promote your product on Instagram. Using certain hashtags will help make your profile more discoverable and increase the engagement of the audience on your posts. Hence, it is very important to choose hashtags that are related to your product. You can create your own brand’s hashtag and use it in every post as Nike does. It creates an image of your brand and exclusiveness.
Stay updated on the trending hashtags as they will help you get out there and may increase your viewers. Don’t go overboard with the hashtags as they can crowd up the pictures, stick to five or six constantly.
You can also gain followers by starting a hashtag campaign. Ask your followers to post their pictures using your product and a specific hashtag to make the interaction between you and your customers easy. This will also help you get discovered. More people using your hashtags means more popularity for your brand.
You can also repost your client pictures reviewing your product to enhance your brand image in a positive way. People are more attracted to a brand if it has positive reviews and a following.
5. Partner With Promoters And Influencers
There are numerous people on Instagram with a huge fan following. Their opinions are taken seriously and the reviews they give on the products increase or decrease the brand’s sales directly. As people rely on them to review about different products and give their honest opinions, it is necessary to choose an influencer with the same taste as yours.
Get in touch with one of these influencers and collaborate with them to give your brand a shout-out or thumbs up on their profile. You can send them goodies from your brand or pay them for this. They will let you know all the details. This is a great way to increase followers and promote your brand.
For instance, Birchbox has collaborated with an influencer on Instagram to promote its products and services. Once you think you have enough active audience, you can work on your own. You can promote your brand yourself, as you have gained loyal followers now, they will do the marketing for you. Someone famous said once that word of mouth is the most important form of marketing.
6. Include a Link to Your Posts or Bio
In order to gain new followers, you need to include a website link in your posts or bio. In this way, customers have somewhere to go and browse through your products. However, there is only one place where the link is clickable on Instagram and that is your bio. You can direct your audience from your captions saying that SHOP NOW by clicking on the link in our bio. This is a direct way to deal with customers and involve them in the process.
Your bio should also be interesting enough to hook new followers. Something that represents you and your brand in a unique way. Bio represents what you’re selling thus choose your words carefully. It has a word limit so you need to keep that in mind while writing your bio.
Conclusion
By getting yourself acquainted with the right tools and strategies you can gain a number of followers and increase your Instagram presence. These are some of the ways you can increase your audience engagement. There are various other tools and new ways you can learn to make your Instagram business flourish.
Don’t follow what everyone else is doing, be unique. You will engage more audience by giving them something new. But the most important rule of all, follow your heart and have fun while being creative. You never know what will attract the customers. Create a brand image in a way that you can maintain easily. Don’t complicate things more than they need to be. Simplicity always wins and it is more attractive.
