Whether you are developing a personal brand or want to market your business, the best social media platform to use is Instagram. The visual content you create can easily be seen by thousands of people and Instagram lacks the volatility that other social channels have.
In this article, we’ll cover different ways that you can boost engagement with your target audience. This includes hard work like creating engaging content as well as the ability to pay for Instagram followers for faster results.
Above all, the more aware you are of the type of Instagram posts that attract new followers, the more interest you will create, which will translate to more success for your business or brand.
Easiest Ways to Plan Instagram Content
Before we get into the types of Instagram posts that get the most engagement, let’s look at how to use Instagram to work within your schedule. Instagram is the most downloaded app around the world, so understanding how it works and how it can benefit your brand, will be incredibly beneficial.
Schedule Instagram Posts
Behind the scenes of Instagram influencers and businesses is a lot of planning. Instagram marketing doesn’t happen overnight; instead, you need to be diligent and organized to make the most out of the social media platform.
To begin with, be sure you schedule Instagram posts. You can do so up to one month in advance, which allows you to map out your content and ensure you are including different types of posts. This feature also means you can spend just a few hours each month on your Instagram marketing efforts, freeing up time in your very busy schedule for other tasks.
Understand Current Followers
Even if you only have a handful of current followers, take a look at their habits. What posts do they like and what posts do they avoid? Is there content that is shared more often than other types?
The people who currently follow you on Instagram are the most likely to be interested in your business. They might be friends or people in your local community. They may even have interacted with your business already.
While your goal is to get more Instagram followers, you want to ensure they are Instagram users who are interested in your brand or business. Attracting new followers is always the goal, but your new audiences should be those who want to engage with your content and hopefully support your brand.
Instead of mindlessly looking for any new people to follow your account, learn from your existing followers and try to find more like-minded people.
Instagram Insights
While you can track this data yourself, it is much easier to use Instagram insights. These analytical tools will tell you what time of the day your post is most likely to be viewed, how many people click on your post, and how large your total reach is.
From these valuable insights, you can learn a lot more about your current Instagram base as well as your new followers.
Remember that Instagram wants you to use its platform. They want to make things as easy as possible for you, and that includes telling you what is working and what isn’t.
Great Instagram Post Ideas
Generating creative Instagram posts every day can seem incredibly overwhelming. What’s more, is that Instagram users expect this new content and if you can’t deliver it, they will look elsewhere.
Share User Generated Content
Sometimes it’s fun to share memes. But those memes go around the world pretty quickly and if you see the same image popping up over and over again, you won’t pay attention for much longer.
When you’re first starting with your Instagram account, sharing content that other people have created is just fine. But the more original content you can create, the more your social media page will be noticed.
Sharing user generated content can come in the form of pictures, videos, and blog links. Ideally, you want a mixture of all these ideas to show that you are fresh and interesting.
You don’t have to do all the heavy lifting yourself. Rather, you can share what your followers have created to help engage your social media community.
Keep up with new Features
Instagram is always changing. While some of these are great, some of them might miss the mark. However, it’s important to keep up with new features to see what will work best for your brand.
For example, Instagram, in an attempt to compete with the rising behemoth that is TikTok, now has features for you to share videos. Instagram Reels can only be a maximum of 90 seconds long.
You can also post Instagram Stories, which can be a maximum of 60 seconds. These can be videos or a series of posts. However, do note that Stories disappear after 24 hours, so they are not good if you want to archive the information or have it available for a long period of time.
Instagram carousel posts are another feature that can be fun to play with. With this feature, you string together a series of posts or photos. Then, you can use music, which ties everything together.
Use Popular Hashtags
Hashtags are how posts are found. If you aren’t using hashtags in your Instagram posts, then new, potential followers, won’t be able to find you.
When using hashtags, do a bit of research. Find out what are popular phrases, especially if you are posting about a viral challenge or trending topic.
You can also create hashtags that belong to your business. For example, the name of your brand or a catchphrase.
Hashtags are used across social media platforms, so if something is popular on Twitter, it will be popular on Instagram. This is helpful if you plan on cross-promoting your post on various platforms. Instagram is owned by Meta, which also owns Facebook, so it is easy to post the same content on both platforms. This means you can get double the exposure without working twice as hard.
Hashtags also help Instagram know which posts to promote with other users. For example, if somebody repeatedly searches for the latest dance craze under its assigned hashtag, then if you have a post with that same hashtag, there is a better chance of Instagram promoting your post.
Interact with your Instagram Followers
To create engaging Instagram content, be sure you engage with that content. This can come in many different forms.
To begin with, posing a question is an easy way to get your Instagram followers to pause in their scrolling, think about your post, and then answer it.
Asking questions on Monday is a common practice among business accounts. Make the question interesting and not too general for the most amount of engagement. For example, you could ask what movie people saw on the weekend, what book they read, or even what time they went to bed the night before.
You can even create a poll that asks your followers what they want to see more of. If it appears like you care about your followers, they will be far more interested in your account.
Another way to interact with your Instagram followers is to reply to their comments. This creates an online dialogue that makes it seem like you are not just an anonymous company.
Don’t worry about responding to every comment; nobody expects this to happen. Instead, make it a practice to respond to the first five comments. This is a normal practice and can provide an incentive for people to comment right away.
Whenever somebody comments on an Instagram post, that response is shown to the person’s followers. It also increases the engagement rate, which means Instagram as a company takes notice and the path to becoming viral begins.
Use Templates
If you’re scrolling through Instagram and are amazed at the graphics, here’s a little secret: Most people don’t design these on their own. Instead, otherInstagram users can use Instagram post templates and then share them with their followers.
You can definitely use these templates. In fact, it is a great time-saving technique. They are perfect if you are posting about a book review or want to start a discussion.
Instagram is a useful tool, used by millions of people trying to do the same thing as you are. If you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, this is a good thing. A simple search will lead you to tons of free resources.
Post Regularly
Instagram users access their accounts multiple times a day. In the morning while eating breakfast, at work while taking a break, and at night while lying in bed. When those users open their apps, they expect to see new content.
This can be seen as a positive, not a negative. It means that the more often you post, the more often somebody will see your content.
When first starting, stick to once a day. Then, as you become more accustomed to the app, you can start to post multiple times a day.
If you have a lot of interesting posts, don’t be afraid to repost your content later in the day. You can try to rephrase it or add a disclaimer to show that you are aware of the double posting. This is a common practice among many business accounts, so your followers won’t be thrown by it.
Go Viral
The ultimate goal of our Instagram content is to be shared with other accounts. Instagram does this automatically when posts get a lot of views or shares.
Going viral is a two-step process. First, you need to have engaging content that your followers enjoy. They need to show their engagement by liking and sharing your posts.
The more your original post is shared, the more other people will interact with it. Sometimes you will be able to see how many people interact with your posts, but sometimes this information is hidden if the accounts are set to private.
The second step is when Instagram takes over. Remember: Instagram wants to share content that is popular. The more engagement your post gets, the likelier Instagram will share that content with other people who are not part of your network.
If you’re not sure about how this works, simply open your Instagram app and scroll through your feed. While the majority of posts will be from accounts you follow, some will not be. This is a mixture of ads, where accounts pay to promote their posts, and popular content.
The hope is that once you go viral, more people will click on your profile and decide to follow you. Then, the next time you post something, you will automatically have a much larger audience.
Conclusion
In order to make your Instagram account work for your business, you need to have plenty of followers. Unfortunately, with all the Instagram options out there, new followers can be hard to come by. Regularly post engaging content so that people take notice and then share that content with other people. It can take a bit of hard work at first but with a bit of practice will become much easier.
