It is not a secret that Instagram is one of the most powerful advertising tools in the world. Believe it or not, it has around 1 billion monthly active users. The studies predict that this number is going to reach 112.5 million monthly active users until the end of next year.
These numbers sound amazing. However, the popularity of Instagram also means that this social media network is competitive. It doesn’t matter if you want to promote your brand or you want to work on self-promotion. Both things are complex and you need to know which steps are necessary to achieve your goal.
It is not enough to publish a post and wait for results to come. There are many different Instagram strategies that businesses use. If you want to educate yourself about this topic more, it would be useful to visit True North Social and find out more.
Anyway, you will need time and patience to understand how the entire world of Instagram advertising works. For now, it is enough to hear some basic tips that will improve your promoting results. After you hear them, you will be able to develop a unique marketing campaign.
Let’s get started.
Contents
Write Longer Captions
Source: Business Insider
Instagram is a social media network focused on visual content. Still, check the posts of any successful Instagram influencer. You will see that they all have longer captions. There are several different reasons why they do that. First of all, longer captions will grab the attention of the user. If you write only a couple of words, he will eventually like the post and scroll to the next one.
Another reason is even more important. They develop longer captions because they want to share valuable pieces of advice with their audience. For example, let’s imagine that you are selling dresses. Most of the people would hire a professional photographer to take a picture of a girl/woman that is wearing the dress you are selling. The description of the picture would probably be something like “New model has arrived” with a couple of emojis. Well, this is not going to be enough. Caption serves to convince people that your product is valuable for some reason. You can say when people should wear that dress, how you come to an idea to design it, etc. Anything that would educate people is going to be fine.
Of course, people are not on Instagram because they want to read a lot. If your caption is not engaging and interesting, they will read the first two sentences and quit. It is important that you have high-quality writing skills.
Use Videos Posts
Source: Project RAWcast
Did you know that 25% of Instagram ads come in the form of a video? Well, there is a good reason for that. As we said, people do not like to read a lot and it is easier to turn on a video and see what the brand/influencer wants to say. More precisely, the video turns on itself; the user just needs to turn on the sound with one click.
However, that is the crucial moment. When he sees a video, why would he turn on the sound if the video does not look interesting to him? Because of that, the first few seconds need to be somehow attractive to the human eye. It is like writing an attractive title of the article. The potential visitor will not click if the topic is unclear or if it looks boring.
Besides that, do not use long-form videos in posts. Let’s use the dresses as an example. Publishing 5 minute long video where the actress will walk in the dress or poses in front of the camera is not going to help. It is enough less than a minute to say everything that a potential buyer would want to see. Of course, in the end, you should include the “call-to-action” part. The message should be “Visit our Instagram Page” or “Visit our shop”. If you plan to promote your webshop, it is necessary to add the link in the caption.
IGTV
Source: instagram longer captions
IGTV is some sort of replacement for YouTube that you can find on Instagram. Well, here you can add some longer videos. Actually, the combination of the video posts and IGTV is perfect for measuring of success of your videos.
For instance, Instagram superstars usually publish a video that lasts 1 minute. After that minute pass, they give an option to the audience to continue watching video on their IGTV. You can compare the number of views on posts and IGTV. If the numbers have a huge difference, it means that your video post was not engaging enough. This is a good sign that you need to change something.
Instagram Lives
Source: wired
Everyone can advertise on Google which is a great benefit. Yet, this also means that different scammers and low-quality brands can do that as well. Because of that, people appreciate when everything about some brand it transparent. They want to know who you are, why you started the business, which qualities you have, etc. More precisely, they want to be sure that you deserve their attention.
Instagram lives are a great place to make a trusty relationship between you and your followers. You can directly answer their questions in real-time. Besides that, their impression is going to be that you are “one of them”. Even kids go live on this social media and you will show that you have the same habits as they.
Don’t Just Talk about Products
Source: Gramboard Ai
Logically, everyone knows why you are trying to reach your customers. Still, talking only about the quality of your products is boring and it won’t become viral among IG users. Instead, you should be more focused on sharing valuable content full of emotions. People like to see when someone has an honest desire to somehow improve their lives. You can talk about various topics and in some moments you can mention your product as the potential solution to the current problem.
Source: Avasam
About a year ago, Instagram added an option that people can follow a current hashtag. You can use different tools that will help you to find relevant hashtags. Still, you can do that without any help. Check which hashtags your competitors use. You do not have to copy them completely, but it can serve you as an inspiration. When you make some success, you can make your unique hashtag that would be recognizable among people.
