Instagram is one of the hottest social media platforms, and you definitely want to be marketing your business on there. According to Instagram strategist, Alex Tooby, your content on Instagram is what makes people ultimately want to buy from you, and there are three important factors to look at when implementing a marketing strategy on Instagram. These factors include your caption wording, your content itself (imagery), and your post frequency.
Use Captivating Instagram Captions
Your Instagram captions are important as this helps promote whatever it is you’re selling. Captions can help your audience connect to you and invest in the product or service you’re offering.
You want to focus on either conversation and/or conversion-focused captions for best results. Conversation-focused captions are focused on storytelling and generating conversations. These types of captions will help your followers relate to you, reply to you, or share your post with others. Conversion-focused captions are meant to provide knowledge to your audience in hopes to get them to purchase from you or take the next step in your sales funnel. It is best practice to use both conversation and conversion-focused captions, but the ratio depends on your target market. However, there is no set rule, if you prefer to use one type of caption over the other go ahead and do so.
Start your caption with a strong headline.
Instagram only shows a short preview of your caption, about 1.5 lines. Therefore, you want to grab the attention of whoever is viewing your post in order to get them to click “Read More”. You can start with a question or a cliffhanger. For example, “This one ingredient in our new skincare line, makes our products better than others.” or “I made a lot of money last year working for myself, want to know how you can as well?” You can also use emojis in your captioning to further grab the attention of the reader, and be sure you are spacing out your captions as this will make them more readable. If people are scrolling through their feed and just see a big block of text, they are likely to ignore it.
Next, expand on your headline.
Next, you want to deliver on your headline. This is where you’ll deliver on either a conversation or conversion focused caption. Further explain the statement you made at the beginning of your caption by sharing a story or educating your viewers about your product or service. It’s also best practice to use a beginning, middle, and end at this part of your captioning.
Lastly, close with a call-to-action.
The very end of your caption should include a call-to-action. Think about the next step you want your viewer to take, then encourage them to do so. For example, if you want them to go to the link in bio, write: “I want you to click the link in my bio to view all the different products we offer.” Or if you want them to share your post with others, write “Tag a friend who can relate.”
Provide Great Imagery
The most important factor to consider when choosing which imagery to post to your Instagram is quality. Be sure you are posting clear, good quality content as this will be most appealing to your viewers. You also want to try and post in portrait form as this takes up more space on the feed. Another tip is to think of your captions first. Captions don’t have to match your photos exactly, and this makes it easier to find images to then go with your captions. Images which feature people also tend to perform really well. This could be an image of yourself, a team member, or a customer showing off the product they purchased from you. You also want to get creative with the content you post based on your niche market. For example, if you sell lipsticks, take closeup shots of the lipstick swatches, so you can show off the quality and consistency of your products. Or if you sell food products, post pictures of the dishes you can make with your products. With the quality of cameras on phones these days, it’s not too difficult take beautiful photos on your own.
Consider Your Post Frequency
When considering your post frequency, be sure you are always focusing on quality rather than quantity. Instagram’s algorithm favors new content, therefore if you post twice close in time together, the lifespan of your first post is cut down. Try putting 48 hours in between your posting times in order to increase your reach and engagement for your posts. Focus on posting 2 – 3 times a week of quality, visual content, rather than every day with less quality content. Deciding on what times to post depends on your target market. Therefore, do your research to see at what times your target audience will most likely be on Instagram. This is easy to do with the analytics provided with an Instagram Business account. Once you have a plan in set for your post frequency, remember to stay consistent in your posting! You can do so by scheduling out posts for the week from the Content Planner on your Multibrain platform every Sunday or whichever day works best for you.
Some other tips to increase engagement on your Instagram posts is to cross-promote and repost your content to your story and on Facebook, use hashtags, and interact with your target market’s content to better get your name out there. We hope all these tips and tricks helps when thinking of your Instagram marketing strategy!
Source: Stelzner, Michael. “Instagram Content Strategy: Creating Content That Draws Customers to You.” SocialMediaToday, 6 November 2020, www.socialmediaexaminer.com/instagram-content-strategy-creating-content-that-draws-customers-to-you-alex-tooby.