1 – Enhance Your Bio As If It Were A Tinder Profile!
We knew that heading would catch your eye! But, don’t underestimate the great ROIs you get from having an attractive feed and Bio. These elements are crucial in setting you apart from the rest.
To begin, take a look at some of the accounts you are most impressed by, how have they organized their Bio? Do they use a single chunky paragraph or plenty of spaces?
What about Emojis do you see any of those? But, of course you do!
So, here are some top tips from us…
There have been some changes in Instagram that allow you to ad spaces with your return key. If this is not working on your iPhone than just type out your message in a Note app and copy paste.
Make sure your messages are always short and to the point. No one wants to sit through a half page reading –– just the bullet point and a brief but epigrammatic comment.
Absolutely include appropriate visual aids in your message. This catches attention and allows you to say much with few symbols.
Hashtags are king in Instagram and now they can be searched.
Your names is very important but it can also allude to your location if you cater to a specific area. For example, if you have a coffee shop, serve the Plettenberg Bay area and are named Dave, then “Dave’s Coffee Shop – Plett” would be a good choice for you.
Mentions can now be seen in the Bios so be sure you are using the @ symbol with their proper handle. Visit our website for more tips for your Instagram profile.
Don’t forget to post the website!
2 – Keep those Hashtags on Point
It has been noted by the experts that posts with just one hashtag will gain as much as 12.6% more attention that those without. What does that say about the importance of hashtagging everything?
This is why hashtags need to be included wherever they can be. This doesn’t meant to flood each message with everything imaginable but the selection of hashtags for your posts will ultimately make or break your website.
The first thing to do is your proper research. Begin by looking over the hashtags used by your competition and borrow as you can. You can also take the time to research the kind of content that is being used with specific tags at the Explore function provided by Instagram. For example, you may have a really good hashtag, but if it only has one image associated with it you will condemn your post to obscurity.
If you are looking for a great place to go for some vital information on hashtags, visit Hashtag Research.
Were you aware that 70 out of 10 hashtags found on Instagram have been branded? This means that creating hashtags for the sole purpose of promoting your posts, brand or business is of fundamental importance.
One more point of posting effective hashtags that don’t look too spammy. Place these in your first comment on Instagram, that way you can post another comment and not make the hashtags too visual but still has plenty of opportunity to be seen.
3 – Get Your Geek On With Analytics
You may think that getting into the analysis is going to be a long and tedious task best left to thinking machines, you may be absolutely right. But, if you really want to see some exciting results in the long term, you will take full advantage of the opportunities afforded you here.
One note that may interest you is that 80% of Instagram’s user actually follow a business. This is just another prime example of why businesses should be on Instagram. It is all just great to have a business up and running, but if you aren’t making a splash on social media pages, you are could be left picking up whatever crumbs your competition leaves behind.
Businesses on Instagram is an absolute must. In addition to all the things a regular account could do, an Instagram business can use Insights which allows you to see:
Activity – all interactions you have received over a set time frame
Reach – Who you reached and what their actions were
Content – To see which were your most popular posts.
Audience – To show the attention you are getting from what age ranges, locations and other demographics.
You will even see a very special feature that we absolutely love called “Day of the Week”, this feature will show you which the best days of the week for posting are. One major clue to help you on your way is that Instagrammers Engage more during the week than on the weekend.
Then you will find plenty of other tools and special ways to use them but you really should maximize your benefits by activating business account from the very beginning.
4 – Grow Your Profile Engagement with Insta Stories
Increased engagement is an important aspect of growing on Instagram. Even though Instagram would never admit it, the truth is the posts that are most popular will always gather more attention.
This is why it is not uncommon to see an Instagram or Facebook page with thousands of fans but only a few likes. Some of these are those accounts that will use a paid followers service and others are simply like this because they didn’t keep up with the latest tools when the new algorithms went into effect.
This is where Insta Stories comes in with a dynamic new approach to increasing engagement. This is like Instagram’s take on Snapchat. The idea is that you will take some clips of your day and make some posts that will resonate with your visitors. This is very effective because these stories are placed at the top of the feed right where anyone can see them. It is only natural to click on them to see what is happening and the engagement train can begin rolling.
As time progresses and your stature as a website increases you will get other features like the swipe up to load option that will be unlocked at 10K followers.
Another helpful tip will be to make use of any key stories. These stories will last longer than the usual 24 hours and end up in your profile.
Finally, don’t forget the use of those hashtags when describing your story you can make them smaller and less visually distracting and they will still benefit your search results.
5 – Interact With Your Supporters And Other Businesses
Another important metric to keep in mind is that those posts with mentions can expect as much as 56% more engagement than those without with this in mind, don’t hesitate to mention anyone that is relevant to your post. For example, if you go to eat at a nice restaurant and you meet a nice couple, mention them in your post.
Image credit: Smartphone with Instagram via AngieYeoh/Shutterstock