12 Jul 6 Fundamental Principles to Succeed in Instagram
Instagram was founded in October 2010, and since then it hasn’t stopped growing, being one nowadays one of the most popular social networks, and one of the most important too.
Brands and people have not missed the chance to use this tool as an important business driver. The numbers say it all: in 2015 40% of the top 1,000 most popular Instagram videos were from brands.
Since then, not only brands have taken over Instagram to grow their business and popularity. Also people, like you and me, is using Instagram to show their talents and qualities, making themselves social media celebrities, or as we also call them now, Influencers.
Of course, your brand cannot be left out. I’m pretty sure that by now you are already in Instagram, but let’s make sure that you are following the basic principles to grow your brand in Instagram, and make the most of it.
- Create content your community will love. You need to start by knowing your strategy: who do you want to reach? Who is your target? Answering these basic questions will lead you to create the appropriate content that you actually reach your target and make them love you. Always keep in touch with your customers and what are they looking for at the moment. One way to find out this, is looking at the feed of your direct competitors.
- Quality sometimes makes the difference. Nowadays people are getting more and more demanding. They demand quality, they demand good service, they demand the best of us. And as a good brand, you have to give your best to please them. You may have the best strategy ever, and really good content to share, but if the quality of your posts is poor…you are probably not going to go very far. Not in Instagram at least.
Let’s put it this way: your Instagram feed needs to look “pretty”. By pretty I mean high quality pictures, quality designs that go with your brand personality, images that will excel and caught people’s attention, and so on and so for.
It’s not as hard as it sounds. Now we have many tools that will allow us to make great designs, play with our pictures, and create really great content without actually being design experts or having to hire someone else to do it. For example, Canva.
- 3…2…1…action! Make strong calls to action. You need to do more just than posting to Instagram, people are actually waiting for you to tell where to go or what to do. This is why you need to constantly include a CTA in your strategies and contents. Invite them to click on your website, ask them questions, ask them to do this or do that. It doesn’t actually have to be hard selling, just play with them and engage, and it will eventually pay off.
- #use #hashtags #wisely. Hashtags are a powerful tool that not everyone knows actually how to use. Do it this way: Post your picture with your caption, then –and only then- post in the comment section your hashtags. You can use as much as 30 hashtags per post, but I’m the one who thinks that using the hashtags on your caption area doesn’t look very good. If you post them on the comment section, after 5 comments your hashtags will go hidden.
Another tip: spend some time researching the most popular hashtags on your niche, so you can be more accurate and reach the right people. For example, fashion hashtags, or food related hashtags, or sports, fitness, make up, etc.
- Tagging the right people. There a lot of cool Instagram profiles with a large amount of followers that are 100% dedicated to repost other people’s posts. If the account is dedicated to fashion, then they’ll repost a nice fashion related post they have been tagged, and their thousands of followers will see it. If you manage to one of these accounts to notice you and repost you, you will gain a lot of followers and brand awareness in a very short period of time.
The challenge is to actually make them see you. You have to be patient, keep tagging them and wait for your moment.
- Never stop posting. Okay you can rest of posting at some point. But you need to be consistent on your posting times, and be as constant as possible. The only way to always be present on your followers timeline is to never disappear for more than a day, and that is already too much. Try to post at least once a day, and the more your account grows, you’ll have reconsider doing it even more often.
Understanding that small business doesn’t always have the budget to do big advertisement, the reality is that nowadays you don’t really need it to make a presence on your niche.
Using Instagram will allow you to grow your audience, make more money, engage with current and potential customers, and in general increase your brand awareness. Take it seriously and you’ll see some good results.
See you next time, at the same time on the same channel.
Cheers!
Knowledge is Power
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