Are you new to Instagram and trying to grow your business account but have no idea how to do that? Have you had an Instagram account for your business for a while now but just can’t seem to get the kind of engagement you need from your followers?
These days, everyone and their mother is using Instagram so it is nothing new. However, if you are using it for marketing and content engagement purposes you may not have the clearest idea on how to do this. Instagram has become incredibly popular among both individuals and businesses alike, reaching approximately 1 billion active monthly users. This makes it an incredible place to market your businesses/personal brand because of the sheer number of people Instagram provides access to.
However, one thing that is more important than getting followers as a business on Instagram is the amount and kind of engagement you receive. This is a very important thing to keep note of as it affects the algorithm. If you need help with engagement, here are a few tips you can follow.
Use hashtags
By far, one of the most misused and underrated tools on Instagram is hashtags. By now everyone is aware that hashtags are those little key words that you put in the caption of your content, and people can look them up and find your post among others using that same hashtag. However, what most people don’t know, is how to use hashtags effectively to increase both the growth and engagement of their account.
Most people, when trying to get their content noticed, will just try to use the most popular hashtags they can find, but this won’t work if the hashtags don’t relate to your content – no one will engage with it. The best way to go about receiving more engagement using hashtags is to try and find the most popular ones that actually relate to your content, or use a tool like TaskAnt which will generate the top hashtags to increase engagement. This way you will be reaching both a much wider audience and targeting your specific target audience at the same time.
Post often
Many people will just post content whenever they have something new to post or just whenever they feel like it, but this won’t get you anywhere if you are trying to increase your engagement. If you want more engagement, you need to be posting more often. You don’t need to be stuck in the thought that you can only post once a day or a few times a week.
There are various different features on Instagram that you should take advantage of in order to reach the largest number of people from your target audience and to ensure that they see your content.
Use stories
One of the newer features added to Instagram is stories. These are very similar to that of Snap Chat, but even better. Here you can post short video clips or photos, use a variety of different filters, and even make use of interactive content (that allow you to make polls, ask questions, and even do quizzes).
This is a brilliant way to increase your engagement with your follower base as it encourages them to engage more with your content, especially if you give them an incentive.
Engage with people
Following on from the previous thought of engagement, it is important to note that engagement goes both ways and that you should not just be using Instagram as a one-way communication channel to hard sell your products. Instagram is a place for socialisation and this means that you need to engage with your followers, too.
You can do this by replying to comments on your content, liking and sharing others content, following users back, and even responding to direct messages that are sent to you, to reach more people on Instagram. This is a great way to increase engagement with your followers as it encourages them to engage more.
Use analytics
Last but not least, once you have had your account up and running for a little while, you should start checking your analytics to see how your account is growing. Within the analytics you will be able to discover what kind of content your audience like the best, where you get the most engagement from, and even what the most suitable posting time is based on how much engagement you get from various posting times. Using analytics is a great way to directly cater towards your target audience by using information from them.
