As you know, content is king. Content marketing can help you increase sales, generate leads, and drive high-quality traffic to your website. It can also help you increase your engagement rate and raise brand awareness.
But did you know, you can leverage Instagram to strengthen your content marketing even further?
The popularity of Instagram is increasing. As of 2018, the number of monthly active users on Instagram was more than 1 billion. Also, 80% of Instagrammers follow a business on Instagram.
So, to stand out from your competitors, it’s not just enough for you to create an Instagram profile. You need to up your game and improve your content marketing with Instagram.
Your Instagram content needs to be appealing, engaging, and strong. As it will help you create a strong presence on Instagram. It will also help you get the attention of your target audience.
Here are four effective and easy to implement tips to enhance your content marketing strategy with Instagram.
1. Leverage Hashtags
Hashtags are an important component in the Instagram post. It’s vital that you caption your images and videos, but it’s equally crucial that you use relevant hashtags for your posts. When done correctly, the hashtags will help users discover your content quickly.
Hashtags are basically keywords for your Instagram posts. However, ensure that the hashtags you use are relevant to your business and are easily relatable to your target audience. Just like searching for keywords, you also need to invest your time and energy into identifying suitable hashtags.
Let’s see how you can identify the most suitable hashtags for your brand. First, you need to do research and list all of the hashtags which are related to your brand’s products or services.
Then, you need to conduct some research on Instagram. Find out if any of your competitors are using those hashtags or if their pages show up when you search for those hashtags. This will help you understand which hashtags to use and which ones not to use.
You need to use both generic and unique hashtags for your brand. The unique hashtags may not be popular, but they are directly related to your brand, so add them to your list too. The unique hashtags will help you target more accurately and drive high-quality traffic to your website.
For instance, to launch and promote their new product, Walkers Crisps created a unique hashtag called “#WalkersPoppables.” If you notice, they used a combination of unique and generic hashtags. They used some generic hashtags like #snacks and #yummy. The mix of hashtags helped the brand to generate a high engagement rate. More than 4K Instagrammers viewed the post.
2. Maintain the Right Frequency
There isn’t any rule book that you can follow to learn the right frequency to post on Instagram. It’s more of a trial and error method. However, you always need to ensure that you are active on Instagram when your target audience is most active.
This will help you connect with your target audience and increase your engagement rate. As a result, you can successfully drive high-quality traffic to your website. The following tips will help you decide the best times and days to post your content.
You can start by posting your content on Instagram at regular intervals for a week. Then you need to check your engagement rate. In addition to this, you also need to consider other parameters like likes, shares, visibility, etc. All of these parameters will help you understand which of your posts performed the best.
This small exercise will help you understand the best times to post your content on Instagram. Once you figure that out, start posting your content at those times to generate high-quality traffic to your website.
3. Avoid Overly Salesy or Promotional Content
The primary goal of your brand is to drive traffic and increase sales. However, you don’t have to always post about your products. You need to make sure that the content is not too promotional or overly salesy.
If you always post promotional content, then it may annoy your target audience and may drive your audience away from your brand. 46% of users report that they will unfollow a brand if they continuously post promotional content.
So, you need to mix up your content, and keep your promotions casual to get the attention of your target audience.
Occasionally, you can create funny content or post pictures of your employees on Instagram. However, remember to create content in line with your brand image. Also, make sure that you don’t create content around sensitive topics such as religion and politics. It may attract negative attention to your brand, which you don’t want.
4. Leverage Instagram Live Videos
Live videos are a new, powerful addition to the features of Instagram. When compared to other tools, videos are a much easier way to drive high-quality traffic, engage with your target audience, and generate leads.
Wondering why?
People love videos. They are fun to watch. Videos help your target audience easily understand your products or services and your brand’s value. 85% of people from the U.S. prefer to watch online video content on all devices. Also, 54% of consumers would prefer to watch more video content from a business or brand.
By using video content, you can easily establish strong connections with and get the attention of your target audience. Compelling and engaging video content will leave a long-lasting impact on the minds of your audience. As a result, you can drive high-quality traffic and increase brand awareness.
You can take advantage of live videos to communicate your brand’s value and establish emotional connections with your audience. You can invite experts or collaborate with influencers from your niche and conduct an interactive Q&A session.
You can also share some behind-the-scenes videos of your brand or introduce new products or services. This will help you generate more leads and increase your sales.
However, identifying a relevant influencer for your brand can be one of the most challenging jobs. Thankfully, there are platforms like influence.co which you can use to discover the most suitable influencer for your brand. One of the best features of this platform is you can filter influencers based on categories. This makes your job much easier.
For example, Reebok uses Instagram videos to promote their brand. Their videos are part of a larger campaign. However, as you can see, the video below doesn’t look promotional; instead, it’s very inspirational. This video managed to gain more than 35K views.
Final Thoughts
Brands cannot afford to ignore the power of social media platforms such as Instagram. Instagram can help you build a strong image of your brand, increase sales, and thus boost revenue.
However, brands need to strengthen their content marketing strategies for this audio-visual platform. Instagram allows you to present your content creatively and generate high engagement rates. You can implement the tips mentioned above to improve your content marketing strategy with Instagram.
