If you don’t have a social media account, do you really exist?
Just kidding 😉
But seriously, social media is king.
To stay relevant and reach more people, you need to have an active, up to date social media presence on today’s top platforms.
Instagram is one of today’s top social platforms.
Instagram may seem like the simplest social media tool to use since it’s just full of pretty pictures, but in order to create a following, you’ll need to roll up the sleeves, and do some work.
Below are our top 7 Easy Steps to Improving Your Instagram Profile.
1. Hashtags
Hashtags are the threads that connect similar posts on Instagram to each other. When you add a hashtag to your post, it now also shows up on that hashtag’s public page. This gets your posts out in front of more people #winning. Keep in mind this only works if your profile is not set to private.
But you may wonder, how do you choose the right hashtag? Here are a few tips:
- Keep it relevant to your post, brand, audience, and industry
- Try popular, but specific tags – popular generic tags get used too often and your post could get lost in the shuffle
- Check out similar brands or industry influencers to see what they are using
- Use Instagram’s search function to get ideas for your hashtags
- Avoid using “banned” hashtags
2. Engagement
This may seem like an obvious one, but it’s something that can get overlooked. Engagement is more than getting a ton of likes on a post. Getting people to engage in conversation with you in a way that is relevant to your brand is the real goal. You want quality engagement from quality followers – your target audience.
This is essentially a two step process. First, you need to make sure your posts are attracting the right type of people. Second, you need to create a post that encourages others to get involved by either liking, sharing, tagging a friend or commenting on it. You can do this directly by asking a question for them to answer in the comments or asking them to like and share the post for a certain reason – like a contest, tagging someone the post reminds them of etc.
Every time one of your followers interacts your posts, they are growing a deeper connection to you and your brand. Growing this relationship is key for every business and every brand as it not only improves your reach on social networks but also will help improve sales.
3. Style and Theme
Instagram may seem like a casual place to post pictures of your food and vacation destinations, but for a personal brand, it is important to stay within the style and theme of your brand – just like you do with all of your other sites. Don’t just share any image you happen to take, make sure it is relevant to your brand and your audience. Variety is great! But if you’ve never shared a picture of your dinner with your followers, this might not be the time to do so 😉
4. Consistency
This goes along with Style and Theme – staying consistent with the look and feel of your posts is very important. This can include using similar colors and the same filter for each post. A good thing to remember is, when you view your profile, with all of your posts lined up next to each other, you want it to look like your posts fit together, like they all belong together.
Consistency also means sharing similar types of posts. Maybe you’re a travel blogger who LOVES brunch. Mixing in a variety of travel images and the best brunch places you’ve been to around the world could make for a very interesting but consistent feed for your followers.
5. Plan Your Posts
Besides color and filter schemes, you can create a schedule of consistency for your posts as well. Obviously making sure that you are actively posting on your sites is very important, but you can go a step further here as well by sharing certain types of posts in a scheduled way. For example, maybe you share something inspirational every Monday and something fun or relaxing every Friday. Whatever you do, keep it consistent with your brand and the message you are trying to share.
6. Link to Your Website
This is an easy one to miss, but it is so so important. Since Instagram doesn’t let you include a clickable link in the description of your posts, it is important to have a link to your website in your profile. Then you can simply direct people to that link should they want to learn more.
7. Insta Stories and Instagram Live
Instagram Stories are still somewhat “new” for the Instagram feed. The stories sit on the top of your feed in the little circles and are only available to be viewed for 24 hours. Top brands use stories to boost a special promo, share current events of the day, or just a quick bit of valuable content.
Instagram Live is also a newer feature to the platform and is a great way to share real time value with your followers. Instagram does share with your followers that you are live if they are on the app and will also keep the recording of the live video up with the other stories so that it isn’t missed by anyone. Since this live feature has you in front of the camera, it is a great way to deepen your relationship with your followers.
There you have it! 7 easy steps to improving your Instagram account. If you can follow the above suggestions, you should see your Instagram following start to grow and each post begin receiving more engagement. Have anything you think we missed? Comment below and give us your Instagram hacks! 🙂
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