How to Make Instagram Works for your Business

With more than a billion monthly active users, Instagram can be a valuable marketing platform for businesses of all sizes. It can be great for connecting with customers, raising brand awareness and for showcasing products. Since it was acquired by Facebook, it’s targeting has grown sharper. You should plan for your Instagram strategy along with your Facebook strategy. After all, it was acquired by Facebook in 2012.

If you are going to have success with Instagram marketing, you must focus on audience engagement. That means creating the content your audience wants and finding ways to increase interactions with your posts. With the following tips, you can boost engagement on this platform and get more from the effort you put into marketing on this platform.

Post at the Right Time

Instagram favors content that receives engagement quickly. For that reason, you want to post your content at times that offer the best chance for engagement. With Instagram Insights, you can gain valuable information about your audience, and that includes the times when they are most likely to be on the platform. When you are scheduling your posts, you want to aim for the times when more of your audience is on Instagram.

Create the Content They Want

You should do everything you can to create content that is going to inspire engagement. One way to do that is to review your old posts to see which have the highest engagement rate. Once you know which ones get the most engagement, you should be able to identify trends that will tell you which types of content to create to increase engagement.

Increase View Time

When Instagram sees users spending more time viewing a piece of content, it tells the platform that the post is interesting and engaging. This can give your content a boost in the algorithm and possibly get it shown to more people. To increase the view time of your posts, consider posting more videos instead of photos. You could also use carousel posts to highlight several pictures.

Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories offer one of the best ways to increase engagement and keep your audience interested. Since the content is discoverable, Instagram Stories also increase the chance of engagement with new users. Also, if you have more than 10,000 followers, you will be able to include outbound links in your Instagram Stories.

Increase Your Engagement

Instagram is a social platform, so you should try to engage with your users and engage with content from other creators. When someone from your audience asks a question or makes a comment, you should respond. Along with that, you should take the time to like and engage with photos and posts from other people. This will not only help to demonstrate to Instagram that you are an active user, but it will also show a more personal and engaging side to your audience.

Are you taking the most from Instagram? Share your experience in the comments box below.