Instagram is a powerful audience-building and content-marketing machine. It has built brands and established many successful influencers, allowing people to become self-made social stars.
Celebrities, entrepreneurs, models and other professionals make a living on Instagram thanks to their sponsored posts. Instagram also has the second-highest social media engagement rate at 0.60% (behind TikTok’s whopping 4.24% but well ahead of Facebook’s 0.15%).
If you want to promote yourself or your brand on Instagram and build loyal followers, here are 8 useful and effective tips to get noticed on Instagram.
1. Choose an attractive aesthetic
When it comes to Instagram, aesthetics are crucial. At its core, it is a platform for sharing images and videos, so the idea is everything.
First, you should adopt an overall brand aesthetic in your account and stick to it. If you have a fashion brand, you want clean and elegant images. If you are trying to promote a lifestyle brand, you should use brighter, bolder photos.
Ensure your chosen aesthetic is directly and authentically linked to your brand. Avoid changing your filters too frequently to establish a consistent style and theme that people can follow.
2. Find your niche
To effectively increase your followers, you must know your target demographic. Discover who your ideal followers are and how you want them to interact with your social networks and your brand.
It’s good to be multifaceted, but if you have a travel blog, you must adapt your content to attract other travelers. If you focus on fitness, you’ll seek out fitness and sports enthusiasts with your fitness videos and diet tips.
People will unfollow you once they see content that doesn’t relate to them or don’t see consistency in your approach. Keep these things in mind before you start uploading content.
Also, keep your business page professional and leave your personal or random photos for your private account.
3. Use attractive subtitles
Looking at photos without knowing what you’re looking at can be frustrating when browsing Instagram, especially when you see something interesting and want to learn more. So why would you leave your followers in the dark?
Keep your followers engaged with clever, sharp captions explaining what they’re watching. Captions are a great way to show off your brand’s personality because people like to feel connected to those they follow. Think of Nike’s famous slogan “Just Do It” as a short, sharp way of saying a lot in a few words.
Talk to them through subtitles. Keep your subtitles informative and descriptive but not too wordy. People like simple, short, intriguing snippets of text to read on social media; captions should embody that spirit.
4. Be smart with your hashtags
To speed up likes, views, and shares for your posts, hashtags on social media are a smart way to do it. Instagram limits the number of hashtags you can use in a single command to 30. Still, you can use as many as possible that are relevant to the post.
Remember that the more popular and generic a hashtag is, the harder it is to get the attention of the people you want to interact with your posts.
Choose hashtags that are relevant to your interests and industry. You can also create your own hashtags or put a spin on a trending topic. You can write a hashtag inside or below the title, and Instagram will suggest others to use.
Customize your hashtags with the theme of each post to help the right users see more of your posts.
5. Post at the right time
The best way to attract followers on Instagram is to post at the right time when you get the most impressions and interactions. Although Instagram uses an algorithmic timeline, optimal posting times are still relevant.
You can check Instagram stats to find out when most of your followers are online by clicking on your profile and then the bar graph icon. If you know that your followers are online more in the morning, post something to brighten their day. Save your content for the hours after work if they’re on the move at night.
You should also space out your posts as much as you can. Posting several things simultaneously will not attract more attention, and you should not swamp people.
6. Be interactive
Followers will want to visit your profile more if they know you’re interested in talking to them in the comments, through direct messages, or even on a live stream.
Respond to comments you receive on your posts and tag people and places in your posts, as long as those tags are relevant to the image or video you’re posting.
You should also interact with some of your followers who share similar content by commenting on their posts, as that could spark a conversation and exchange of ideas. You can also follow Instagram hashtags relevant to your niche. This feature lets you filter, like and comment on related posts and gain new followers.
7. Use Instagram Stories
Another way to be interactive is by using Instagram Stories. You can post videos and photos your followers can see, allowing them to send messages if they like them.
It’s spontaneous, raw content that lets people know what you’re promoting and the personality behind it. You can also post links to your website.
The best way to use Stories is to go live. Instagram Live allows followers to comment and join the conversation in real-time. Don’t use your live sessions just to sell your products, services, or anything you’re promoting. Make it fun and something people want to watch from start to finish for the 24 hours that the video is available.
8. Look at your competition
Like many other industries, the social media space is super competitive. Studying other Instagram users who specialize in things you focus on is a good strategy. Look at their engagement metrics to see what hashtags they use, when they post, and what they publish.
Examine the type of content they use to attract followers and generate the best interactions. It’s even helpful to see which posts fail when it comes to making a good impression. This information will help you optimize your own content to help you stay ahead of your closest rivals. You can also benefit from curating your posts and videos as cohesively as possible.
