Instagram Tips for Beginners
When placing posts:
-It’s all about the photo. Use high quality images. 90% of information transmitted to the brain on Instagram is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text.
-Color is key: 93% of buyers cited ‘visual appearance’ as the main reason for their purchasing decisions. In addition, nearly 85% of buyers said color was the main reason for purchasing a specific product.
-Go for authentic photos and ones that have a feeling of being “in the moment”.
-Try to capture your subject (person or thing) in a context that portrays your brand image. Ask yourself, “Is this on-brand or not?”
-For your profile photo: make sure your logo can work on the platform in a very small size: 150 x 150 pixels and cropped into a circle.
-When using photos from anywhere other than your phone, dimensions must be considered or send to your phone and then upload to Instagram.
-Keep captions short and interesting.
-Use 4-8 hashtags tops to get your posts more exposure but still keep them looking clean and beautiful.
-Use Instagram tools to enhance your photos. This technique is especially relevant on this platform.
-Also post the same posts to Facebook to get the most bang for your buck. Sometimes you will need to alter the post to fit Facebook best practices.
-Monitor your communications while they are running.
-Use Bitly to help track results.
-Use repost to share user generated content (with proper attribution)
When to post:
– Post consistently during optimal times
– Early on the weekdays tends to be the best time for user engagement
– The highest engagement rates occur on:
- Wednesday at 3 p.m.
- Thursday at 5 a.m., 11 a.m., and 3 to 4 p.m.
- Friday at 5 a.m.
– The lowest engagement rates happen on Sundays.
When networking:
-Use hashtags, location and Photos of You to find mentions of your brand on social media, then engage with them.
-Tag whenever possible. Use locations if it makes sense and tag people in your photos with the ‘Add People’ feature.
-Set aside time to like and comment on other pages of strategic interest. Also follow them and engage on other platforms.
When using Instagram Stories:
– Allow Instagram users to share photos and videos to their “Story” — which is visible to followers of the user’s Instagram account — and to specific users the Story’s sender follows.
– Allows publishers to increase brand awareness, grow traffic to videos or newsletters outside of Instagram, or share sponsored content.
– Give publishers a place for casual photos and videos that will disappear after 24 hours. The bar is less high for will appear in a story.
-Highlighting of posts is available for story favorites. Click highlight and then choose a name for the highlight reel where the post will save. The reels will always be available underneath your profile unless you delete them.
When reviewing results:
-Once a week, set aside some time to learn more about your results.
-Have your passwords ready for both the platform and Google Analytics for easy access.
-Think simple. Start with platform analytics that go with particular posts or communication pieces and build from there to looking at Google Analytics.
-Follow your competitors’ hashtags and check out the available stats on your competitors from time to time.
-Once a week, record metrics in a simple spreadsheet to create order out of ongoing sets of numbers and percentages.
-Think about what these numbers are telling you. Record any insights on your Knowledge Spreadsheet. Which posts are getting the most engagement?
-Think about devising a test for gather more information about unclear results.
Cited from:
Sprout Social – 7 Best Instagram Practices to Build Your Audience
Lyfe Marketing – 15 Instagram Best Practices for More Sales and Engagement
Hubspot – Instagram Stories: What They Are and How to Make One Like a Pro
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At Small Biz Brands, we enjoy helping business owners put their best foot forward with sound marketing strategy and captivating content. Speaking of posting, we included lots of tips to help you be a better marketer in our app we built for small business owners doing their own social media posting. Try it for free for 30 days and learn to post in half the time for twice the results. Reach out to hello@smallbizbrands.com if we can help or find more content on our website here.
