Instagram Tips You Need to Know

Instagram can fit a wide range of business and personal brands, from sharing photos to promoting brand awareness or products. The profile itself can make a first impression right away to users who will be potential followers and customers. And now, new features are adding up on Instagram to upgrade interactions and content generation. That is why it is time to take the best from the app! There may be some Instagram secrets that you knew already, but still, its best to know all the options available and be wise in using it.

Here are the top Instagram tips you should be aware of…

Scheduling

You’re probably in a routine of posting photos and creating captions on your Instagram, then scheduling your posts in advance is very helpful. Doing so saves time, increases your productivity, and helps you to stay connected with your followers. When you schedule your content, it results in consistent – consistent color palettes, hashtags, and captions. You will not be stressed out on how to fill your feed with fresh content since scheduling has helped you a lot.

There are scheduling tools such as Later, Buffer, and Hootsuite that help you to put up a content calendar for Instagram marketing. The advantage of using these tools, it enables you to manage direct posting and scheduling from your desktop browser to Instagram.

Hashtags

Instagram hashtags are an effective way to get more eyes and engagement on your posts. Instead of using random hashtags, the best way to get discovered by new audiences is by using relevant and targeted hashtags on your posts and Stories as well. Hashtags help you to grow your reach, get more engagement and attract more followers.

There may be popular hashtags on Instagram that has been used million times, but the reach of this hashtag won’t grow your target audience. It’s better to find and use hashtags that are smaller, niche specific, and hashtags that your target audience on a specific industry would most likely to look for. To apply this, do some research and find what local businesses and companies in your industry are using.

Drafts On Hand

There’s is another way aside from having a scheduling a tool, you can save your posts as drafts on Instagram. After you have added a photo and caption, you can choose not to publish yet but save your post as drafts. In saving it into drafts, you have to complete the posts first from editing the posts, to tagging people and adding a caption or location. If you’re ready to publish it, you can just pull it up from your Library or Gallery.

Editing Apps

Instagram is one of the most popular photo-based social networks, that is why many bloggers, influencers and entrepreneurs value so much the Instagram feed that they are displaying on their profile. One of the things that a potential follower would check on your profile is the aesthetic of your content. Therefore, it’s so essential to invest in an editing app whether the purpose of your account is for personal or business use.

There are many editing apps that you can use before posting a photo on Instagram, but we will give you the top two that are commonly used by users.

VSCO Cam (Android, iOS)

VSCO isn’t just a photo editing app but is also a kind of social network. This app has more of a minimalist vibe which means its actual editing capabilities are tad limited. It offers adjustments for brightness, contrast, clarity, sharpness, saturation, highlights, shadows, temperature, skin tone, and as well as options to tint your photo with different colors. VSCO Cam has several free filters and also offer filter packs for purchase.

Snapseed (Android, iOS)

Snapseed is Google’s photo-editing app which has nine editing tools for tweaking your photos which includes a brush tool that lets you adjusts exposure, saturation and color temperature; and a healing tool that lets you remove the blemishes. Snapseed also has its own set of filters sorted into 11 different categories.

Seamless Feeds

Creating a seamless Instagram may not for everyone, but doing this will stand out since other users will most likely be curious about what kind of content you are making. A seamless feed is editing your photos in a way that makes your feed look like a giant image.

Behind The Scene Contest

Adding behind the scenes on your content adds a genuine touch and making your account more personal to your followers. Rather than showing the result, people also want to know the process or preparations done to make it happen. You can also include photos of your employees or company culture or anything that contributes to where are you or your business now. These type of posts are engaging and it builds a stronger connection with your fans, followers, and potential customers.

Share Testimonials Aand Reviews

When it comes to business, whether based on service or products, testimonials and reviews from customers have more weight since people now want to hear the opinions of others before trying out new things. You can either post a series of images or a video that shows the reviews from customers. Other brands maximize Instagram Stories and Highlights to showcase testimonials and reviews. Adding this on your content can generate more followers and even drive more sales to your business.

Discounts Aand Promotions

Anyone would love to see discounts and promos! Thus, you can include this as part of your content planning since this method easily captures the attention of your audience. Through discounts and promotions, it increases the potential of your engagement to your followers and customers and even to new audiences. Adding this will stir up excitement, that is why it should be well planned out before executing it.

Broadcast Live

Live streaming offers followers something they cannot experience on other outlets and that is to experience a brand in real-time. Depending on your business goals, you can use Live in many different ways. If you want to strengthen a personal connection with your followers, you can invite followers to ask questions as you do live stream. Live Stories can be used for different purposes, you just have to know on which way do you want to use it to engage your audience.

Partner With Influencers

In order to boost your engagement, the best way is to engage with like-minded businesses and influencers. Consumers would most likely to trust an advertisement from a person that is influential or is an expert on a specific field. In partnering with influencers, you are also widening your engagement to other potential customers as well.

You won’t have a hard time finding them since you can search for them using relevant keywords and locations that are relevant within your industry. Follow their accounts and engage in their posts. Reach out to them to create a partnered post and they’ll know what to do.

Use Carousel Feature

Instagram carousel allows you to create a new post with multiple items to upload, whether that’s a series of images or videos. In using this new feature, you can format the series of images in telling a story on just one single posts. It is perfect for showing a collection of images that may describe an event, a step by step How To’s, and others that can create a narrative for viewers.

Maintain Story

Instagram Stories enables you to share temporary video clips and images that all followers can see within 24 hours. But the benefit of it can last much longer since it pushes the chances that you can gain new followers in the process. You can use Stories to run contests or highlight promotions, feature a testimonial from customers, create Call-to-Action (CTA) messages to invite them on your website, and other options to drive engagement.

Run Ads

Ads can make your brand relevant to your target audience. As you follow an account, ads pop up in between Instagram Stories and can make a large impact on potential customers. You can create a video or a photo as an Instagram ad in your Stories and add CTAs so you can send ad viewers to landing pages within your website.

Ask A Question In Your Caption Or Requesting Information

It will drive more engagement as you add questions on your captions from time to time. Take time to construct an easy to answer questions and you will definitely see an increase in comments. Through it, you’re initiating an interaction with your followers, thereby, higher chances that your post will be seen by potential followers as well.

Drive Traffic To An External Website

The link in your account profile is very important. The URL link will land to the webpage of your product/brand. One sneaky way to get users to visit your Instagram profile, which is where that one clickable URL is allowed, is to use photo captions to encourage people to check out the link in your Bio. Then, update the URL frequently to point them to your latest blog content, Youtube video, products, and offers.

So, these are some of the Instagram secrets out of the many other recommendations. With these secrets, you can use Instagram to the full extent! Plus, these features will help you to enhance your brand presence on Instagram.