Before we delve into our article’s topic, we need to debunk a notion that seems to be on everybody’s minds. You don’t need to be famous on Instagram to have your brand experience successful results.
Instagram success isn’t as easy as your follower count. To the contrary, success isn’t determined by engaged audiences but by great forms of content. Creating great campaigns should be essential for all marketing strategies for Instagram and this should be well-thought-out before you begin anywhere else.
So, how can you put together a highly effective marketing plan for Instagram? Well, all you need to do is follow these tips for Instagram success.
1. Prepare Your Content Strategy Thoroughly
All too often we see brands believing that all they need to do is post a few videos and photos to have the audience rush in themselves. This isn’t the path you should follow and building successful content strategies are quite like building the content strategies of other marketing platforms.
You can start by researching the best posts of the industry and this can also be done by tracking your competition. Note all the commonalities among 5 to 10 similar brands and then see what you need to do to make it work. Also, this doesn’t mean that you are a copycat – all you got from this exercise was a template.
Next, you should build content around similar ideas and themes and you should have at least a month or two’s worth of content planned out. Once you adjust these to a social media calendar, you will be able to make sure that it sticks to a consistent vibe.
2. Use Branded Hashtags
As your brand is based on social media, you will have to form some kind of marketability. This means that, when it comes to content, you will be maintaining a balance between resourcefulness and promotional activities. It was found in a 2017 report that 57% of the users on Instagram tend to unfollow those brands that seem too promotional.
To avoid your brand from being perceived in such a manner, you will have to teach yourself about Instagram hashtags. One important stat we can teach you here is that at least 7 out of 10 hashtags found on Instagram are branded. This means that you have a 30% chance of formulating an engaging, memorable, and unique hashtag for your brand.
Additionally, you can measure the success of your hashtags and keywords with the help of some analytical tools – but we might get off topic if we dig into it.
3. Have Effective Call to Actions
A question every brand should ask themselves about their Instagram strategy should be – ‘What drives visitors to follow my brand’s account?’ As we mentioned before, you need to have the most gorgeous content to engage users. Even if this was the case, without an appropriate call to action, visitors will be left wondering what you’re trying to tell them.
For Instagram success, we recommend the use of Instagram captions because these give users the reason for your content. An example of this can be shoe retailers use their Instagram captions to highlight their collaborations, styles, and new designs.
These captions can also be made a little more unique by featuring links that are associated with your company’s bio. Without these, there will be very little incentive for users to follow your promotional content.
4. Engaging With Instagram Users
If this is your first Instagram campaign, then you need to take the small steps that build your brand towards engagement. If you have been following the Instagram accounts of brands like Nike, you will see that they don’t follow you back. In the case of smaller brands, however, you will find that they follow their fans or ‘power users’ to engage with them and make them feel special.
At the same time, you can also use the space to engage with users by creating content that is preferred by them. There are a lot of clothing brands out there that engage with their users by posting pictures that are user-generated such as content from photographers, influencers, collaborating designers, and artists. However, always seek permission before picking up another creator’s work and give credit in the captions when posting.
5. Connect With Influencers
While we are on the topic of brands using user-generated content, you should know that this works best for people who already have a million followers and are much like celebrities. To experience similar results, brands will have to dig up niche social media influences that increase discussion and engagement of your brand.
Here, a pro tip would be to start small. This is because most successful influencers will already have been approached by top tier brands.
There may be a lot of formulas out there for Instagram success but if you do it right, your Instagram account may just turn out to be a source for information and entertainment for your target audiences.
