USE THESE 9 TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR INSTAGRAM FOR BUSINESS

Instagram is the second most logged-in social media site for daily use after Facebook. Do you want to know the best research-backed Instagram business tips to improve your marketing?

On the Blueprint Film blog, we’ve been advising businesses on how to boost their presence on different social media platforms (read our article on LinkedIn here). From our team’s experience in optimising our profile and our clients’, here are 9 quick tips for creating and improving your Instagram for business.

TIP 1: OPTIMISE YOUR INSTAGRAM BUSINESS PROFILE PAGE

200 million+ people visit at least one Instagram business profile daily. So it’s important your Instagram business profile is completed and optimised. Fill in all five editable profile sections – name, website, bio, profile category, and contact info. To improve your Instagram profile’s SEO, add or edit relevant keywords into your name/headline and bio.

Also, ensure your contact information is accurate and up-to-date. You can provide an email address, phone number and/or physical address to allow people to get in touch.  

Bonus tip: you can only add one website link to your Instagram profile – and Instagram doesn’t allow clickable links in posts. One way to get around this is to create a landing page (e.g. through Linktree or LinkInBio) that directs people to your most recent and relevant content as well as other social profiles.

TIP 2: PICK THE RIGHT INSTAGRAM POST TYPE

PHOTO: Go for high resolution images – Instagram recommends 1080px by 1080px in size. The Instagram profile grid automatically crops all content to a 1:1 ratio (square). However, you can also post horizontal images (up to 16:9) and vertical images (4:5).

VIDEO: On the Instagram feed, videos get over 2 times more engagement than photos. And it’s popular with brands. Video content made up 18% of brand posts on Instagram in 2020 (up 6% from 2019).

CAROUSEL: Carousel posts can contain up to 10 images and/or videos. And when it comes to engagement, carousel posts consistently outperform both image and video.

TIP 3: CHOOSE WHAT CONTENT TO POST TO THE FEED

Instagram is primarily a content sharing network. Therefore, it is vital that you focus on providing content that is relevant to your industry and serves to entertain and/or educate your audience.

One tip is to not post too much sales-y content, as this will drive people away. Neither should you go overboard with selfies or team photos. While they can help you add a human face to your business, your content should ultimately focus on the audience, not you. Also, you want to maintain a level of professionalism. Leave the more informal content to Instagram Stories and Reels.

And one more tip. Don’t keep re-posting content. Duplicate posts suggest you don’t have new or exciting things to say, and ultimately will drive away followers

TIP 4: STRIVE FOR CONSISTENCY IN TONE & AESTHETIC

Variety is important. But make sure you stick to a cohesive feel for your profile and content. Otherwise, your Instagram page will start to look messy and uncoordinated, and any branding will get lost.

One important aspect of visual consistency is to use your brand image/logo as your profile image. You can also aim for a consistent colour scheme across posts. Achieve this using similarly coloured backdrops or using a select few Instagram filters across all of your photos and videos. Stick to a specific font in any content that includes text. 

TIP 5: WRITE CAPTIONS THAT WORK FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Here are some quick tips for crafting captions:

• Match your tone to your brand’s personality. If you want to come across as friendly and fun, play with using emojis.
• Insert a few keywords or phrases into the caption in a way that sounds natural.
• Add a relevant story that adds context/is relevant to the subject of your post.
• Ask simple but exciting questions to invite comments (and then respond to them).
• Include a CTA in every post – you can direct users to specific URLs with a CTA to click the link in your bio.

TIP 6: MAKE THE MOST OF INSTAGRAM STORIES

According to Instagram, over 500 million accounts use Instagram Stories every day. That’s a large potential audience to tap into. And 58% of surveyed users say that they have become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories.

Stories disappear after 24 hours and are known for having more informal and playful content. Use them to humanise your company, take followers behind the scenes and show what you’re working on.

Again, video is a great option here. Story content that uses motion outperforms static images the majority of the time for view content, add to cart and purchase objectives.

Also, experiment with engagement-boosting sticker features such as polls, emoji sliders, question boxes and quizzes.

TIP 7: DON'T IGNORE INSTAGRAM REELS

Instagram Reels are 15 to 30-second video clips displayed on the feed. And recently, they have become central to the social media platform. Reels now has its own dedicated tab on the Instagram Home Screen. Given the growing popularity of short-form video content, this is unsurprising.

So how can you make use of this feature? Similar to Stories, users expect Reels to provide authentic content with personality. But as Reels have a longer shelf-life, they need to also provide value to users. Instagram Reels are great for tutorials, educational ‘how-to’s or explainer content, and FAQs.

TIP 8: DECIDE A POSTING STRATEGY - AND STICK TO IT

An easy way to lose followers is by posting too much. This will come across as spammy and clog up people’s feeds.

At the same time, going for large periods without posting could leave users thinking your company is no longer active. So space out your content, and play around with different posting frequencies.

 Consider using scheduling tools like Hootsuite and Later to do this. On the Blueprint Film Instagram page, we schedule our posts to go out a few times a week.

TIP 9: TRACK, MEASURE & REFINE YOUR APPROACH

Head to your profile and click on the ‘Insights’ button. This will give you an overview of your account’s reach, content interactions, total follower count and best-performing content. You can also monitor changes to your follower count and provide audience demographics such as location, age and gender. You can even find the days and times when your audience is most active. Use this information to refine your content and posting strategy.

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We hope you learnt something new from our tips on using Instagram for Business. While you’re here, we’d love to connect with you on Instagram!

If you want to improve your Instagram presence, but need help with creating and sharing content, then why not check out our social media services and come chat with us!

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This article was originally posted on the Blueprint Film blog.