Use Creative Hashtags
Popular hashtags on Instagram may be the best for maximizing impressions, but creative impressions are ideal for highlighting your brand and standing out. This can attract new followers because you won’t have to compete as much with more niche hashtags that focus on a specific industry, audience, set of interests, etc. Get ideas by exploring different pieces of content and experiment with different hashtags to see which are earning more engagements for your posts.
Conduct Hashtag Research
Some hashtags are incredibly competitive so you’ll have to pick and choose which you implement. Since you’re given a maximum of 30 hashtags to use for each post, you want to make each one count and not be overshadowed when your hashtags don’t make the “Top Tags” can cost you a lot of impressions. Collaborate with your team and other brands to gain insight as to which hashtags are gaining the most traction.
Cross Promote
Cross promote your Instagram profile with other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and more. The more exposure you can get for your profile, the more likely you are to grow your follower count over time. While this can vary, you will want to test how often you should post about each profile. Learn this by testing posts consistent to determine what is working most effectively.
Stick to No More Than 3 Topics
The best way for your content to be relevant and for your page to be recommended to other prospected followers, is to keep your themes related so your followers know what they’re going to get from your page. Being confident in the content they’re subscribing to will make people less hesitant to follow a new Instagram page. The more confident people are in your content and how it might entertain them, the more likely they will be to follow you. It’s also ideal to have topics that go together, so you can generate roughly three times the followers.
Follow People in Your Industry
Following other pages in your industry is a great way to get noticed and increase followers. There’s also a culture on Instagram where people are much more likely to follow people after they follow them first. Target pages that are following a similar number of pages as the amount of followers they have themselves. Following pages with social media tools can make this easier for your Instagram marketing strategy.
Refer to Trending Topics
People are more likely to search trending keywords in the news on social media. Using these trending keywords, hashtags, and overall topics helps you insert your brand and content in front of these people looking for the latest news. This is an excellent opportunity to utilize current events for your engagement and followers. Hot topics are key for maximizing impressions, but it’s important to integrate your content with the type of stories that are in the news, or your potential followers will quickly lose interest.
Work with Influencers
People on social media are becoming more skeptical with every year, due to the oversaturation of content. Arguably the best way to gain user trust is to work with thought leaders that they already trust. Say you’re trying to reach people in the financial industry. Doing a collaborative piece with a popular financial blogger is a great way to reach his or her readers that already trust them, and will be more likely to trust you by association. Depending on your marketing objectives, you’ll want to structure how often you’ll want to work with influencers. Some brands prefer once per year, while others will be more aggressive at once per month.
Drive Traffic to Your Profile
This is a two-step tip which helps you increase loyal followers that will be more likely to engage with your posts and bring you new followers of their own via the “Suggested Pages” option. Generate interest by commenting on popular posts from profiles with large followings. It also helps to start a conversation or add substance to existing conversations, in order to gain impressions and express interest in your content. The more traffic you drive to your profile, the more likely someone will be to follow your page after they have learned more about what your brand is about.
Drive Traffic to Your Website
Now it’s time to direct that profile traffic to your website! For this, consider that your bio is comprised of a short description, location, and website URL. You want to optimize your bio by including a very brief description of what your company/brand is and encourage them to click the link in your bio. The goal is to inform them of what your company is but leave them interested enough to want to learn more. With this, you should encourage them to click the link to maximize website traffic from your profile. Continue to optimize your bio and test the percentage of your profile traffic that you’re able to convert over to your website.
Target by Location
Try to use hashtags based on user location, other than the obvious “#NewYork” for someone in New York. Try to research the types of hashtags people from these areas as more likely to use to promote their areas. Using more niche hashtags relating to specific areas within New York like #Queens can help you reach a more specific audience. This is also helpful because #Queens will have less competition than #NewYork, helping your posts reach the “Top Tags” page.
Engage in Brand Marketing
Other than your content, your brand will be your number one selling point; it will be how your audience decides if your page is worth following. The way you market and position your brand is how you set your Instagram profile apart from other pages in your industry.
Wrap Up
These tips can propel your Instagram profile from one with little following, to a major influencer. Just make sure to allocate enough time to implement these practices every week.
Good luck and go generate those followers!
