It’s no secret that business opportunities are quickly growing on Instagram. Approximately 80% of Instagram’s 1 billion active monthly consumers now follow a business account on the platform. While Instagram hasn’t reported its current number of business users, the platform reportedly hosted more than 25 million of these reports in late 2017.
As the platform continues to grow and develop more interactive aspects, such as Instagram Stories, jobs are regularly utilizing it as an instrument to humanize brands, recruit future employees, showcase products and corporation culture, delight patrons, and produce new business.
But here’s the bargain: Unless you’re famous, it’s really hard to amass a huge following on Instagram without some hard work.
For the average person or business, developing your obeying takes time and attention on a daily basis.Luckily, there are a few things you can do right away to collect at least 1,000 quality adherents for your personal or professional Instagram account. It’s all about knowing where to invest your time and endeavor. Let’s discuss a few strategies that will help you gain those followers, from creating a follow-worthy Instagram profile, to using games, to staying true-blue to your brand.
1. Create and optimize your profile.
First things firstly: customize your Instagram profile to make it look good, tell your potential adherents who “you il be”, and give them a reason to follow you.
How? Start by making sure your username is recognizable and easily searchable — like your business name. If your business identify is already taken, try preventing your business name as the first part of your username so that people searching for your business are more likely to come across you. For lesson, the Australian activewear line Lorna Jane uses the username @lornajaneactive.
Lay Up Your Account
Step 1. Make sure to add your full business call to the “Name” field in the “Options” section. To find “Options, ” tap the three pipelines in the top right corner of the IOS app, followed by “Settings” which will appear at the bottom of the screen next to a gear. If you’re on Android, tap the three dots in the corner. Your business or epithet will appear under your profile video and under your username in search.
Step 2. Make sure your profile is public. To stimulate your profile public, open Instagram, open “Options, ” and make sure “Private Account” is turned off.
Step 3. Choose a profile illustration that’s on-brand with your other social networks, like your company logo.
Step 4. Fill your bio with delightful, actionable, and informative information about your label. Info like this lets people know what you’re about and affords them a reason to follow you. Include who you are and what you do, and be sure to add a clue of personality. Here are a few lessons for inspiration π TAGEND
@WeWork: “Make “peoples lives” , not just a living.”
@Oreo: “See the world through our OREO Wonderfilled lens.”
@CalifiaFarms: “Crafting, concocting and cold-brewing up a yummy, plant-based future.”
@Staples: “We make it easy to #MakeMoreHappen”
Step 5. Add a link to your bio to make it easy for people to go straight from Instagram to your website if they want to. The room allotted for URLs is precious real estate properties. When you receive 10,000 adherents, you can add swipe up links to your Instagram Stories. Until then, your bio is the only place within Instagram where you can place a clickable connect, so use it wisely. We recommend utilizing a shortened, customized Bitly link to make it more clickable.
Step 6. Finally, enable notifications so you can see when people share or provide comments on your photos. This’ll let you engage with them more rapidly — just like a lot of companies do on Twitter. To enable notifications, go to “Options” and then “Push Notification Settings.” Select “From Everyone” for every category.
A word to the wise: We don’t recommend you connect your Instagram account to Twitter and Facebook so your Instagram posts are automatically published on those other accounts. Post kinds are different.
2. Designate a content founder.
Just like there should be one( maybe two) people controlling your other social media reports, there should only be one or two people overseeing your Instagram account. If possible, elect someone who has experience applying a personal Instagram account, and therefore “gets” the platform — and be sure they know all the handy aspects Instagram has to offer.
If you work for a large organization, you might find that a lot of people want to have a say in what’s posted. That’s when an organized petition or guidelines document comes in hand. This document should inform people how to request a post on your Instagram account, when, the best interest of the the post, and why.
3. Follow photography and editing best rules.
On Instagram, post character problems. A lot. Your Twitter adherents might forgive a few cases bad tweets, but a bad photo on Instagram is a big no-no. By no necessitates do you have to take a photography course to be a good Instagram poster — nor do you have to practice for weeks before you start. But you should get familiar with basic photography tips-off and photo editing apps.
Photography Best Practices
Since Instagram is a mobile app, fortunes are, most of the photos you post to Instagram will be taken on your mobile device. That’s not just okay; it’s believed. While some brands use professional photography for their Instagram photos, most utilize smartphones — and that’s the vibe that Instagram is meant for, anyway.
Here are some highlightings π TAGEND
Focus on one subject at a time.
Embrace negative space.
Find interesting perspectives.
Look for symmetry.
Capture small details.
Make your adherents laugh.
Edit photos before you post.
Instagram has some basic editing capabilities, but oftentimes, they aren’t adequate to make a picture genuinely, really great. Most of your photos should go through at least one or two other photo editing apps on your mobile phone before you open them in Instagram for the first time.
4. Set a regular post planned.
Once you’ve created and optimized your profile, have person manning it, and know a thing or two about telephone photography and photo editing, it’s time to start posting.
It’s a good suggestion to have a solid number of great posts up — maybe 15 or so — before “youre starting” really committing people and working down this list. That direction, when people visit your profile, they’ll encounter a full screen of photos instead of merely a handful, so they know you’ll be posting great content regularly.
To start posting on Instagram, first download this social media content docket template and start strategy out your Instagram posts. Over time, you’ll want to build up a backlog of photos for times of need, like the weekends or when you go on vacation.
Keep your target persona in mind when you first start design out your post planned, as that can drastically change your posting day and frequency — specially if you’re targeting an audience in another hour zone.( Download this free template for creating buyer personas if you don’t have a few already .)
Optimizing your schedule for your specific audience might take time and experimentation.
Here are a few of our best practises π TAGEND
The very best times to post on Instagram seem to be Mondays and Thursdays at any time except between 3:00 -4:00 p.m. in the time zone of your target persona.( For a United State audience, your best bet is to combine Eastern and Central time zones, For audiences pinpointed outside the U.S ., employ whichever period zones your target audience applications .)
Posting at 5:00 a.m. CDT from Tuesday to Friday produces some of the highest engagement. This is because people tend to check their phones when they wake up.
If you post on weekends, try to do so around 11:00 a.m, CDT on Saturday.
Because Instagram is primarily an app for use on mobile machines, users tend to use the network all the time, any time. According to a recent Pew Research study, a majority of U.S. Instagram users are on the app daily, although many users engage with content more during off-work hours than during the workday.
Some business has furthermore seen success with posting at 2:00 a.m ., 5:00 p.m ., and Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m. Experiment with these to see if they work with your audience.
5. Curate some of your content.
Although it’s best to have only one or two people manning your report, one or two people can’t be everywhere at once taking photos. What about that merriment sushi night the engineers had last night? Or the occurrence your head of sales speaking at earlier this week?
There’s a whole breadth of content you’ll want to post to Instagram, and more often than not, one person won’t be able to keep track of it all.
One solution? Create a system where you can curate photos and content from members of your team. There are a few ways to do this. One is to create a specific email address for employees to send their photos, short videos, memes, hyperlapses, and so on.
Just encourage people to set a topic cable on these emails so you can more easily sort through the photos they’re send. While this doesn’t seem like the smoothest path to curate photos, it’s actually the most wonderful for the people sending you photos — and the easier you can make it for them to send content, the more content you’ll get.
If your crew shares a Box or Dropbox account, you could also create a shared folder where people can automatically fell their photographs and videos. This just makes a few more stairs for the people sending you the contents, and not everyone might have that app downloaded on their phones.
6. Use a consistent, platform-specific brand voice.
Photos and videos might be the most important part of your Instagram posts, but captions, remarks, and other text should never be an afterthought. If you’re managing a channel for a label or have more than one Instagram manager, consider developing a consistent voice that humanizes your brand.
This presents potential followers that you are credible and relatable, rather than formal or frightening.
When developing a voice, you should keep the platform and your audience in brain. For instance, many influencers and prominent accounts on Instagram have a very casual voice and mode, but still remain professional and on-brand. Once you’ve got your voice down, make sure it stays coherent and natural in your captions, statements, contents and your bio.
7. Write engaging, shareable captions.
Captions are part and parcel of your post — the icing on the cake, if you will. Consistently great captions can do wonders for humanizing your label, winning over followers, and stirring your content more shareable — thereby giving you more exposure.
Here are a few things you might see in a win Instagram caption π TAGEND
Clever or Witty Comments
Calls to Action
Relevant Emojis
Hashtags
Clever or Witty Comments
Some labels and influencers have employed clever or witty captions, or even audience-appropriate jokes to further humanize themselves on Instagram.
My colleague Kelly Hendrickson, HubSpot’s Social Media Manager, said here today she adores Netflix’s account and sub-accounts, specially because of the post captions: “They have such a clear brand voice, and you laugh along with them. They’re in on the joke, just like one of your friends.”
Here’s one example she rendered where Netflix makes a pun out of the term “ghosting” π TAGEND
View this post on Instagram
Netflix’s voice is casual, trendy, and humorous while still staying on label. In the post above, the caption cleverly connects a new commonly used phrase to an older film that’s streaming on the platform.
Call to Action
Another way to increase the shareability of your caption and involve your adherents is to ask questions or have some sort of call-to-action in the captions of your photos. For lesson, you might say, “Double-tap if you find this funny, ” or “Share your story in the comments.” In the example below, we asked adherents of the @HubSpot Instagram account to like the image if they agreed with its advice.
Relevant Emojis
According to a recent study, certain emojis are now able to spike involvement such as likes, remarks, and shares on platforms including Instagram.
Adding only a few relevant emojis can add even more personality to your posts. It could also make them even more noticeable on an Instagram feed. In the post below, HubSpot includes the combination of a call to action and relevant emojis to induce the post popping.
Along with the three pieces stated above, you’ll likewise want to include hashtags.
8. Optimize posts with relevant hashtags.
On Instagram, a hashtag ties those discussions of various types of customers who wouldn’t already be connected into a single torrent. If you use relevant hashtags, your posts will get exposure to a wider audience than the people who already espouse you or know about your brand.
The key to using hashtags effectively is to use them smartly and sparingly. Try to limit the number of hashtags per caption to around three. Similarly, don’t use “like for like” hashtags, like #like4like or #like4likes. This is a dirty tactic that’ll leave you with a whole cluster of low-quality followers.
To find the hashtags your audience might be using, do a little research on relevant hashtags in your niche or industry. The easiest course to do this research is in the Instagram app itself, in the “explore” tab( i.e. the magnifying glass icon ).
When you search for one hashtag, it’ll show you a roll of related hashtags at the top of your screen. For example, when I sought for #inboundmarketing on Instagram, it testifies me relevant hashtags like #marketingdigital, #marketingtips, and so on.
To help relate to your adherents on a personal level, you might consider hopping on hashtag tendencies like #tbt( “Throwback Thursday” ), #MotivationMonday, #TransformationTuesday, or hashtags that are trending at any given time.
Here’s a post from @HubSpot’s report employing the #InternationalWomensDay hashtag: Once you build up a bit of a following, you can try creating your own hashtags — like your corporation epithet or a motto that applies to a lot of your photos. This is a great way to build up your label on the platform and build a more cohesive presence.
9. Interact with consumers through espouses, likes, and notes.
Instagram is very much a community, and one great course to get involved in that community is to find people who post paintings that concern you, and obey their reports and interact with their content. It’s the most natural style to draw attention to your own Instagram account. It may also get your foot in the door in the platform’s community.
That does two things for you: for one, when they get the notification that you’ve espoused them, they might check out your report and decide whether or not to follow you.( This is why it’s important to have some great content on there before you start reaching out to others .)
Secondly, it means you’ll be seeing their recent posts in your feed, so you can Like and treated with them if you choose to.
As you build a espousing, celebrate your adherents and indicate you appreciate them by responding to their comments, and even following them and engaging with their posts.
10. Cross-promote with users who have audiences similar to your own.
Once you build a solid relationship with some of the tribes behind these reports that have a similar audience to your own, you might ask to do some co-promotion on each others’ accounts.
The more natural and less spammy you are able to build the content of these cross-promotions — specially the captions — the most wonderful. It likewise helps to be picky about them, and don’t do them very often.
Below, @flow, an alkaline water company, and @completelymomblog, the account of a blogger called Cortney Lynn, cross-promoted each other at about the same time π TAGEND
11. Run Instagram games to encourage engagement.
Another great route to expand your reaching while increasing engagement on your photos is to publish a post promoting a race, and then ask people to follow your report and Like or comment on the photo in order to enter.
You might add a UGC( User-Generated Content) ingredient to the race, too, where people post a photo of their own and use a specific hashtag along with obeying your account. Here’s an example of a post from Starbucks promoting a UGC contest on their Instagram account.
12. Use Instagram Stories and explore its interactive features.
Instagram has always offered the opportunity to post beautiful, curated photos to represent your brand. However, with the introduction of ephemeral Instagram Stories, brands can also share on-the-fly, behind-the-scenes looks for 24 hours that may not be as smoothed as a published photo, but give your brand more personality on the platform.
One look at Snapchat’s explosion in popularity demonstrates that social media consumers are clearly answering positively to ephemeral photo and video sharing. Instagram Stories let labels engage with consumers in different ways to cultivate brand loyalty and appeal.
Although Snapchat pioneered this feature, Instagram Stories now has over 400 million daily consumers, which is double the amount of Snap’s customer base.
Along with sharing video clips and static images through Instagram Stories, users can also use interactive aspects like polls to gain more engagement and learn more about their Instagram audiences. Once a customer is verified or has over 10,000 adherents, they can even include a link to a webpage within a story.
How Brands Can Use Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories disappear after 24 hours, unless they are differentiated as a “Featured Story.” Featured tales will show up at the top of your profile between the photo feed and your bio. We can’t embed Instagram Stories just yet, but you can view HubSpot’s Instagram page to see what we’ve featured.
Here are a few other brands we recommend following to see what they’re sharing π TAGEND
Rachel Brathen( @yoga_girl) is a yoga teacher and entrepreneur in Aruba who uses Instagram Stories to document the behind-the-scenes action of house a yoga studio. While her Instagram portfolio aspects beautiful, professional photos and videos of her in yoga poses, her Stories feature her dog sitting in on staff meets, her squad unwrapping amethyst crystals to embellish her studio, and artists painting the walls.
She uses Narrative to showcase the other side of her brand to her two million adherents in an authentic and unpolished way, and to keep her adherents be informed of what she does every day( besides yoga, of course ).
Dana Shultz( @miniamlistbaker) writes easy vegan and gluten-free recipes on her blog. Her Stories feature neat how-to videos of her create breakfast and testing out brand-new recipes in her kitchen. The behind-the-scenes aspect of her Stories provide a lot of human context for her blog’s brand, and everybody adorations a good how-to video.
Casper( @casper) publishes quirky Instagram content to advertise their mattresses — without overtly doing so. The main theme of their content? Staying in is better than going out( because you can stay in and lay on a cozy Casper mattress, naturally ).
They’ve even created a gallery for adherents to use as backdrops for their Snapchat and Instagram narratives to make it look like they’re out at “states parties “, when they’re truly laying in bed. One of their latest Instagram Stories featured person watching “The Sopranos” in bunked, with the caption: “Who needs plans when you have five more seasons? ” This video supports Casper’s campaign to stay in bunked with a very real look at what millions of people do when they’re hanging out at home.
Here are our tips for the utilization of Instagram Stories for your brand π TAGEND
Whether it’s funny, sad, or unique, be authentic. Your photo gallery is where content can be perfect and polished. Instagram Stories are for the raw, unscripted, and un-retouched. Use Stories to share the other side of your brand that followers might not be able to glean elsewhere. Do you have a dog-friendly office? Is your team trying out the Mannequin Challenge? Start filming to showcase the more human side of your brand.
Go behind-the-scenes. These are far and away our favorite type of content for ephemeral video sharing. Show followers what goes into the planning of an event or the launching of a product, and make it fun. Your adherents want to feel included and in-the-know, and you could use Stories to cultivate a label allegiance program that only rewards people who check out your content.
Embrace interactivity. As mentioned above, Instagram allows you to add interactive stickers to your stories. For lesson, you are able to ask your audience to vote in an opinion poll , rate something on a slither magnitude, or send you burning questions. These aspects might help you learn about your audience while also engaging with them.
13. Use the Live Video feature.
Instagram also lets users record and share live videos, another content format that’s proven to be hugely popular on other social networks. What’s unique about live videos on Instagram? They disappear when users stop filming.
This authentic, bi-directional experience lets brands share unscripted, raw times with their audience to incorporate human elements into a social media platform that’s highly edited and polished in its traditional use.
Since the Live feature launched, Instagram has added even more aspects that may enable more engagement or interactions from observers. For instance, users can now launch live video Q& As or add music to live flows.
Live video is a growing trend across a range of social media platforms, so if something interesting is happening, start rolling. Whether it’s a team birthday party, a staff meet, or a cute animal, your dedicated adherents want to see what you’re up to every day.
14. Share your profile link on your website and social media channels.
Place a follow button on your homepage, your “About Us” page, and various other places on your website. Consider adding an Instagram badge to your website that hyperlinks to your report. Here’s what the badge could look like π TAGEND
If your label has brick-and-mortar spots, put out a good ol’ print call-to-action letting people know you have an Instagram account and encouraging them to follow you.
Also, be sure to promote your Instagram account on your other social media accounts. Probabilities are, the tribes who already espouse you on Facebook and Twitter will also follow you on Instagram without much prodding. Let those followers know you’re on Instagram and encourage them to follow you there by including a link to your Instagram account in the bios and posts of those other social media accounts.
So give it a shot: Make a profile and start posting, testing, tweaking , and promoting your account. Garnering a following on Instagram won’t happen overnight, but the stronger of a foundation you generate on your account in in your niche Instagram community, the higher quality your adherents will be.
15. Apply for a verification badge.
When an account on Instagram is verified, it has a blue dot, called a badge, next to the username. When another user comes across this profile or detects the verified username in pursuit, the blue dot confirms to them that the report is the business, individual, or label that it’s claiming to be.
While Instagram has a list of eligibility requirements for the badge, the platform does allow users to apply for one. You can learn more about that process in Instagram’s help center.
Read more: blog.hubspot.com