Instagram reported more than 1 billion monthly active users worldwide and the social media network’s daily active users stood at 500 million.
We all know it’s a fast-growing and ever-evolving platform, so it is imperative that businesses adopt, adapt and implement a strategy for success.
Three key takeaways for Instagram strategy; understand what you want to achieve on social media by knowing your audience, scrutinise your insights and statistics and accept that there is no right or wrong to social media, what counts is how you pivot and enhance from your key findings.
How do you plan an Instagram strategy?
#1 Know your audience
First things first, you need to define your audience and know your customer. Why is it that you want to be on Instagram? Ask yourself why that competitor has 11,000 followers. They know what the audience wants and what is working for them.
Start thinking about what your audience wants to see vs what you actually want to show them. By putting Instagram insights to use, you will understand your audience more effectively and this will help you accelerate on Instagram. By defining your target market, you can create content that will specifically speak to that target audience and away you go.
#2 Clearly define your goals
What is it that you want to achieve? Whether that be creating brand awareness and gaining an online presence, getting more leads or selling products directly from the app. What matters most to your business? Knowing these foundations will set up your strategy for success.
Set specific, measurable and relevant goals so you have an anchor on hitting your goals. Once you have hit your start goals, these will then evolve over time.
#3 Content is king
Creating visually compelling, evergreen content. Photos and captions need to be punchy, and you need to aim for stylish snapshots that visually represent what your brands stand for.
Centering your content around people can be a real winner, highlight people who are supporting your business and what you stand for. This can be through influencer marketing or by using user-generated content, snapshots of people embracing and engaging with your product/brand. Going behind the scenes as well, showing the faces behind the brand as ultimately people buy from people.
Make certain to utilise the varied areas of showcasing content on Instagram such as reels, stories and grid posts. Even by using infographics and CTA’s within your captions and chipping away at Instagram features holistically. By doing this you are boosting your chances of traffic to your page, this also keeps it diverse.
#4 Plan out your hashtag usage
Hashtags increase your discoverability and your visibility, they are an important way to expand your reach and your audience. So, always make sure to put time into your hashtag strategy. Each post needs to have hashtags specifically tailored and thought out.
Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as hashtag anything and everything! Tap into what your existing followers use for their hashtag strategy, and always ensure you are planning ahead!
#5 Take time to engage with your following
If you have an audience through to your page, engaging with your potential customers and creating a community is vital! When customers and potential customers show an interest in your brand, nurturing them over your channels is key to success.
Ultimately this will build trust, increase your brand loyalty, it will boost engagement and lastly will help you stay connected with your customers!
#6 Instagram engagement metrics and moving forward
Likes on Instagram are widely known as the most common feature of measuring engagement and success with posting. Well, that is very 2020. There is a new form of engagement, which is proving to be king and that is how many saves a post gets.
Fundamentally, the more saves a post gets, the more likely the Instagram algorithm will position that post on the explore page and higher within people’s feeds. So basically increasing the exposure level for your posts and your brand.
Instagram has been testing for some time removing likes as a form of engagement, the experiment started in Canada and it is still continuing. So during this time, the focus is now on engagement within posts overall, specifically on the number of comments and saves a post has.
#7 Saving content on Instagram
Instagram has followed suit from one of the most forward-thinking social channels, Pinterest. Where saving pins and creating collections are shaking up the way we interact, we now look for inspiration, we look for search not social.
Make sure to tailor your Instagram strategy and social media strategy in concordance with this shift with Instagram engagement metrics. An Instagram save proves this content is of value to the user and is an indicator that they will come back again to revisit this post.
The saves mean you are delivering what your audience wants to see. Take the steps highlighted above to build your social media content strategy.
If you need support with Instagram strategy and social media execution, get in touch and a member of the CEEK team will get back to you.
