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All about Instagram
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Since its launch in 2010, Instagram has taken the world by storm.
You may have noticed the increase in brands who've developed a presence on the platform. But is Instagram worth their time, and should your business also be on the platform? The answer is yes.
Here's why
- Instagram sees over one billion active monthly users and 500 million daily Instagram Stories.
- 60% of adults online use Instagram
- There are 25 million business profiles on Instagram.
- 80% of Instagram users follow at least one business, and 72% of users say they've purchased a product they've see on the platform.
- 200M+ accounts take a look at a business profile each day
- 2 in 3 business profile visits are from non-followers
- One third of the most viewed Stories on Instagram come from businesses.
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Instagram boasts millions of success stories every season. From major brands to local, family-run shops, businesses around the world are driving proven results with Instagram.
For advertisers
Instagram can help:
- Drive awareness, interest and sales for your business with ads through a captivating, visual medium in the Instagram Feed or Stories.
- Maximize reach and efficiency by combining Facebook and Instagram ad placements in the same ad set, allowing both the systems to optimize your budget across platforms. This means delivering the right impression to the right audience at the right time, at the cheapest price.
- Reach people who matter to your business with targeting capabilities that include location, demographics and interests in addition to Custom and Lookalike Audiences.
- Create immersive visual experiences by running Instagram Stories ads or using an Instant Experience (supported in both Stories and Feed) to give people more information about your business.
If you want to get results on Instagram, you need to know what types of posts perform best.
In terms of the types of posts users want to see, they’re pretty open. They’re happy to see promotional posts, motivational quotes, product photos, DIY or tutorial content, and user-generated content. Diversity is key; they’ll get bored or annoyed if you just use one type of post for too long. You should also change up the different camera effects, because you don’t want to give users a headache by using Boomerang for every single post.
Videos can share more information with users, making them valuable. But keep it short, even on IGTV. Instagram users are predominantly mobile users, and they aren’t likely to stick around for more than ten to fifteen seconds at a time.
In many ways, the aesthetic of the images and videos are a lot more important. Instagram is, after all, a visual-centric platform, so you will need to get resources required to obtain highly appealing content.
- Lighter images performed better than darker ones
- More background or white space is preferred
- Images with bluer dominant colors performed over red dominant colors, and images
with a single dominant color did better than those with multiple dominant colors
- Images that feature contrasting textures tend to generate more likes
The right content
- Video ad format
- Carousel ad format
- Stories ad format
- Photo ad format
Specifics
Lets get started!
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- Set up
- Switch to a business account
- Optimize!
- Create visually compelling content
- Write great captions
- Hashtags
- Instagram stories and highlights
- Instagram Shopping
How do you optimize your account?
Toolkit
- Profile picture - logo - branding
- Name - username- 30 characters max - searchable
- Bio - min 150 characters - unsearchable - elements - emojis
- Category
- Contact info - CTA buttons
- Verified badge
- Settings
- Post types - images - BTS - user generated content - tutorials - influencer posts - videos - motivational/text based posts - newsjacking
Unlike other social media platforms, Instagram’s simple profile layout forces you to focus on the quality of content … not the quantity. While this is great for engagement, it also means that you can’t hide mediocre content. Do your very best to use high-resolution images on your Instagram feed.
Square images should be 1080 x 1080px. Landscape images should be 1080 x 566px, and profile images should be 1350 x 1080px. Regardless of what
size you upload, every image will be shown as a square in your profile feed.
How to take great pictures
1. Follow the rule of thirds
2. Focus on a single subject
3. Take advantage of negative space
4. Look for interesting perspectives
5. Leverage symmetry and patterns
6. Lighting!
Editing photos only takes a few minutes and can massively impact the quality. Thanks to Instagram’s built-in tools and filters, editing photos is very simple. You can also use other apps like Snapseed and VSCO to improve pictures.
When you upload your edited photo to Instagram, it’ll automatically crop your photo into a square. To change it back to the original width, press the icon the two outward facing arrows.
Next, try adjusting your photo lux. According to Instagram, “Lux balances the exposure and provides much needed brightness” to photos.
Press Edit to adjust your photo’s alignment, brightness, contrast, structure, and more. Press Next when you’re done to add final details and publish.
Editing Pictures
- Video
Instagram also lets you upload videos — as long as they’re a minute
or less in length. Instagram videos default to playing without sound.
Because of this, make sure at least the first few seconds of your videos don’t
need sound to be understood. You can use your caption or prompt viewers to turn
on the sound.
- Boomerang
Open your Instagram and tap the camera icon in the top left-hand corner of the home screen.
Notice the settings on the bottom. You’ll see that the first setting to the right is Boomerang, which takes three-second, looping videos that play forwards and backwards.
- Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories allow users to post at a higher frequency without overposting
and clogging up your main feed.
Stories usually feature less-polished, more organic images and videos.
Like Snapchat Stories, your Instagram Story disappears after 24 hours.
Stories are all about authenticity. While your Instagram feed should feature
polished photos, Stories can be a little more raw.
Other Formats
Stories
Instagram offers three options for posting to your Story. You can
tap the camera in the upper left corner, tap Your Story above your
feed, or just swipe right to access the camera. Your camera will default to
Normal, but there's other settings too:
- Type: Creates a text post
- Music: Pairs a music clip of your choice to an image or video
- Live: Captures and publishes live content to your Instagram for your followers to watch
- Superzoom: Adds an animated zoom to a video
- Focus: Focuses on a subject and blurs the background
- Hands-Free: Allows you to capture video without having to hold the record button
The thunderbolt icon controls the flash and the arrow icon switches the camera view between front and forward-facing. Instagram has added filters that you can access by tapping the smiling face next to the arrow icon. Swipe to the left or right to access the
filters. Select the pen icon to choose a color and add a doodle. Press the Aa icon add text
with your keyboard. The smile icon allows you to add a location, GIF, music, poll, and many more fun features.
Instagram also allows you to tag another account in your Story, which is a great way to connect with other businesses and your followers. To tag someone, type the “@” followed by the username you’d like to mention. This makes the tag clickable so that viewers can visit the tagging profile. You’ll receive a notification if you’ve been mentioned in someone’s story.
Highlights
Instagram Story Highlights are Instagram Stories that have been preserved past their 24-hour limit and posted to an Instagram profile. You can find them in the small circles under an Instagram bio. Story Highlights are a fantastic way to showcase your best stories and post them semi-permanently to your account for your followers to see. They're also useful ways to showcase products, services, promotions, and more as your Highlights can include links to external sites.
Instagram Story Highlights can also serve as a menu of sorts. Many Instagram businesses use Story Highlights to post their business hours, current promotions or sales, team member or shop location information, behind-the-scenes video, and more. You can't add images or video directly to your Story Highlights.
You can either add a current story to your highlighst, or you can add one from your Archive. From your Archive, you can choose old Instagram Stories to add to Story Highlights. Simply open an archived Story, click Highlight at the bottom menu, and choose which Highlight to add it to.
Instagram Live
Live
Instagram has a live video option that allows you to share content real time. To start a live video stream, open the Instagram camera, swipe to the Live setting, and click the button to Start Live Video.
Once you start the live video, any followers currently on the app will receive a notification that you’re live. Live viewers can also comment on the the live video using the built-in chat feature. Live video should be used to showcase exciting, real-time content or engaging moments like Q&As or reveals.
Instagram TV
IGTV
IGTV, is Instagram’s newest video offering in which users can view long-form, vertical video from Instagram creators. Think: Cooking videos, interviews with celebrities, product reviews and tutorials.
From the Instagram app tap the plus sign at the bottom and choose the video you want to upload. Tap and slide the image at the bottom of the screen to select a cover image or upload your own. Add a title and description. If you’d like to add your video to an IGTV series, tap Add to Series. Note that if this is your first time creating a series, you’ll need to create a series name.
You can choose to post a preview of your video to Instagram feed and your profile or share your video to a Facebook Page.
If you’ve chosen to post a preview, you can tap Edit Profile Cover to adjust how your IGTV cover photo shows up on your profile grid.
You can also tap Edit Preview to adjust how your IGTV video will be previewed in feed (you’ll only have this option if your video is 9:16. If 16:9, your video will show in full). Tap Post to publish.
Captions
Captions
A good Instagram captions explains what the photo is about, tells your followers to take action, or cracks a joke that makes your content all the more delightful and shareable.
Here are some tips to help you write better Instagram captions:
- Write several drafts first.
- Front-load the important stuff.
- Include a call-to-action.
- Limit yourself to four hashtags.
- Meld your brand voice with Instagram's lighthearted tone.
- Use emojis.
- Cross-promote your other social channels.
- When in doubt, keep it brief.
Appropriate hashtagging that’s relevant to your goals, content, and brand will help aggregate your images and will also associate them with trending topics.
When you use a hashtag that you’ve created for
your brand you can follow its evolution and start
answering important questions such as:
- ● Is the hashtag gaining popularity?
- ● Do your followers use the hashtag?
- ● Is that hashtag gaining you followers?
You can always use a tool to make tracking easier.
Tip: keep your hashtags limited to 5 - 8 per post. Instgram's algorithm does not favor too many!
Hashtags
How-to
Marketing strategy
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Many businesses feel pressured to be present on every social media platform … and they forget about strategy. Don’t make this mistake.
Since Instagram is very different from other popular social sites, it requires a distinct marketing strategy. Start here to develop your brand’s own unique style.
Steps you need to take to set strategy
The essentials
- Set your goals for Instagram
- Determine your Instagram target audience
- Conduct a competitive analysis
- Configure an editorial calendar
- Build a consistent brand on Instagram
- Grow your Instagram follower base
- Convert your Instagram followers into customers
- Travel and tourism: Friday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Media and entertainment: Tuesday and Thursday, 12 to 3 p.m.
- Food and beverage: Friday, 12 p.m.
- Retail: Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, 12 p.m.
- Professional services: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, 9 or 10 a.m.
- Non-profit: Tuesday, 10 a.m. or 4 p.m.
- Non-retail e-commerce: Thursday, 4 or 9 p.m.
- Pharma and healthcare: Wednesday and Sunday, 9 a.m.
- Personal care: Thursday and Friday, 1, 2, or 3 p.m.
- Technology: Monday and Tuesday, 2 p.m.
- Education: Thursday, 4 or 5 p.m.
Tips and hacks
1- Post at the right times
2- Link Instagram to your Facebook page.
3- Reorder Instagram filters.
4- Insert line breaks in your captions.
5- Hide posts you’ve been tagged in.
6- Save photos and build collections.
7- Try an influencer partnership
Instagram business tools and analytics
Tools for business and analytics
No matter what the social network, there will
always be people out there posting negative
or inappropriate comments.
Not sure how to respond when different types of
comments start rolling in on one of your posts?
Follow these guidelines
Etiquette
If you’ve ever set up a Facebook ad,
you know the drill — setting up Instagram
ads is done through Facebook’s ad platform.
Just push the blue promote button and it will redirect you to ads manager. Make sure you have linked your Instagram with your Facebook.
To claim your Instagram account, go to your Business Manager and, on the left side of the page, hover over the menu to click Instagram Accounts. Then click on Claim Instagram Account. Add your account information and click Next.
Pick an objective and name your campaign. While Facebook offers many different choices, only a few include Instagram advertising as an option. To ensure you’re on the right track, pick from any of the following options:
- Brand Awareness
- Reach
- Traffic
- App Installs
- Engagement
- Video Views
- Conversions