Social media is evolving and changing constantly. What is relevant today is obsolete tomorrow and what is predicted rarely ever occurs exactly as said. Gone are the days where managing your internet presence and profile was all about basic interaction and copy and pasted myspace themes. Needless to say, social media is a phenomenon that is here to stay.
Social media is as much of a business tool as it is a recreational sharing platform.
Social media is where we advertise but it’s also where we learn about, interact with, and understand consumers and our audience. It is important.
There are countless social media applications. And it can be difficult to understand everything about every one of them. We’re going to try to help you out bit by bit and today, we’re focusing on Instagram.
First, let’s cover a few Instagram stats.
According to Hootsuite’s Instagram User Statistics,
- “1 billion people use instagram every month.
- 71% of global users are under the age of 35.
- 500 million people use Stories every day.
- 80% of users follow at lease on business.
- Instagram has a 2.2% interaction rate.”
So a 2.2% interaction rate may not seem like much but it’s actually an astounding figure. Facebook, which is second to instagram in engagement has a 0.22% interaction rate.
Based on these figures and many more, we don’t find it off base to assert that Instagram is important to be able to master. It is important to have sharp, relevant content that is visually appealing and doesn’t seem generic. Often, differentiating a post can be as easy as a targeted color scheme and cleaning up an existing business profile is as simple as archiving.
Trisha Patel, our Team PG Marketing Specialist, shares some of her favorite tricks and tips to help you up your Instagram savvy.
INSTAGRAM STORY TIPS
- Choose colors specific to your brand by holding down on the color bubbles in the story. A spectrum of colors will appear and you will be able to pick a more exact match to your brand.
- Add a poll, question, or slider! This is a subtle call to action for story interaction. This is a great opportunity to get feedback from your audience and even gauge what you should consider posting next. In order to add one of these interactive elements, click the drop down menu in the top right corner and choose your element. These elements can be moved, size adjusted, and color selected to integrate into the story better as well.
- Change the background color on your story!. The generic fade or the fade associating with the uploaded image is nice, but you can set yourself apart by making these subtle design decisions on your story. Simply choose the pen tool and choose the color you would like your background to be. Then, press and hold the background of the picture and it will change to the color you have selected.
When creating a story, the ultimate goal for a business is conversion. You want to draw your audience to your call to action whether that is to click a link that navigates to your desired landing page or straight to your instagram profile.
INSTAGRAM POST TIPS
- This may seem redundant but it is important to know so i dont mind mentioning it again – promote your new instagram posts on your story. Make sure you are being clear in ushering your story audience to your page.
- Don’t neglect hashtags. Hashtags are one of the simplest ways on Instagram to increase your visibility. Make sure you are using an array of hashtags that are catered to reaching your intended audience. Mix hashtags that are very specific and may only have 2,000-10,000 previous posts with hashtags that are popular and extremely common such as the day of the week. These hashtags can be associated with millions of posts
- Tag accounts that are related to what you’re posting. Instagram has communities and tagging players in whatever community you’re aiming to participate in is a great way to increase visibility and potential interaction too.
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