Whether your aim is to create an online portfolio or to grow your audience, consistent and eye-catching Instagram content is essential.
Having grown exponentially over the last decade, Instagram is now the ‘go-to’ place for millions of people to share photos, videos, and stories of their life, every minute of the day. With such an extensive audience, Instagram is a fantastic asset to your business – the biggest challenge is getting your target market to engage.
People have to choose to follow your page and so your business’ task is to give them a reason to stick around. Whether it’s an insight into your industry, great pictures or an exclusive look at new products, there are many ways to entice followers and expand your business’ audience.
Here are EI’s top 10 tips for creating the best Instagram content and engagement:
- Keep Your Objectives in Mind – what are you hoping to achieve? Who are you hoping to reach?
- Use High Quality Images – The better the quality, the better you look. Whether you are buying photos or taking them on your smartphone, it’s worth the extra effort to choose the highest quality image.
- Make Sure It’s the Right Size – When creating and editing your images, making them the right size for your feed or story always looks more professional and allows them to sit right on the page too.
- Use The Right Hashtags – Research which hashtags are relevant to your business and how many post there. Whist you can add up to 30 hashtags, conflicting data can limit the reach of your post. We’d recommend saving good hashtags that you find and then copying in the ones relevant to your post. Additionally, using less popular hashtags means there’s less competition for your post – using a popular one can mean your post gets lost. Try using a mixture of hashtags: some popular, some less so, tag locations and any specific to your business too.
- Post Consistently – Posting a picture or video everyday means your posts are more likely to be seen. The Instagram algorithm loves consistency too – this means the app is more likely to promote regular content providers.
- Encourage Comments – Use the caption of your post to ask a question and encourage engagement with the content you are providing.
- Like Other Posts – Spend time every day liking others people’s posts. Liking the posts and viewing the stories of other businesses and your followers shows that you are also engaged with the content they provide and so, they are more likely to reciprocate the behaviour.
- Actively Follow Potential Customers – If you notice someone you don’t follow liking your posts or popping up in your suggested friends, follow them! They’ll appreciate that your business has noticed their interest.
- Vary Your Content – Posting a mixture of photos, videos, projects and products keeps your followers interested; too much of the same content can mean people just scroll past.
- Make It Eye Catching – from the quality of the imagery to the colours used, there are many ways to make your posts eye catching, whilst keeping aligned with your business’ identity.
Whilst it’s always best to use your own images and material for your Instagram posts, sometimes you need a better option. Here are a few of our favourite tools for creating Instagram content:
- Editing – Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Filmm App, Template App.
- Free Photos – Unsplash, Pixabay
- Paid Photos and Video Clips – Getty Images, Shutterstock
With all of our tips, you’ll be on your way to creating top-quality Instagram content for your business.