Insights into Instagram

Social media marketing can be a minefield.

When should you post?

How many followers should you have?

Sometimes these questions can put you off getting your brand out there.

The benefits of using Instagram for your business are tenfold, so allow us to share our expertise and offer a little insight….

With the ever-growing influence that social media has on our clients, we thought it would be a great idea to brush up on the ins and outs of the platform’s ever-changing landscape.

Not only can you learn about your audience, but you can also actually generate business and add value to your brand.

The Instagram algorithm

Plain and simple, Instagram has an algorithm that many people will try and fail to out-smart.

Don’t bother trying!

The reason is that this algorithm is constantly changing to offer a better user experience.

Rather than becoming frustrated by the platform’s inner workings, we recommend having confidence in what you post.

Instagram is a business in their own right and their objective is to keep users on their platform for as long as possible – this means weeding out content that they think will be meaningless or unsuitable for certain users.

They love to optimise content they think will be better received, so it makes sense then that when you make a post that doesn’t have a great response rate, Instagram will automatically let that one fall to the bottom of the pile.

Similarly, if you have a well-performing post they will make sure that this appears higher up in user’s feeds.

The lesson?

Post relevant content with appropriate keywords and your audience (and potential audiences) are more likely to see your feed.

Your aim is not to beat Instagram but to add value to Instagram by creating posts that your audience really wants to see.

If you have a business account, you can time your posts based on data in the Insights console to help increase your chances of your feed being seen.

All in all, it’s not about beating the system, but understanding it.

Engagement

When was the last time you calculated your engagement rate?

Never?

Stop reading and do it now.

Take your average engagement (likes and comments on a post) add them together then divide by the number of followers you have.

Times it by 100 (engagement / number of followers x 100).

Now you have your engagement rate.

If you get a low figure it may seem pretty demotivating, but this is where social media experts can help.

Effective digital marketing requires a bespoke strategy that many agencies will promise, but not all can deliver.

Here at Wired Media, we work with each of our clients to develop a strategy that will benefit their business and polish their feed.

One of the first questions we will ask you is, what is your brand in your own words – what do you want to share and showcase through your feed?

By really knowing who you are as an Instagram account, and by having confidence in what you should post, your experience and engagement rates on the platform will become a lot easier and higher.

What do you have that other accounts don’t?

This follows on from our earlier point – do you know who you are, and what you want to showcase?

There is no point changing styles consistently, posting about things that aren’t relevant to your business or property.

You want to make sure that you have a consistent style as this can really help to create a quality following for your account.

By using specific colour palettes, tones, filters, hashtags, captions and topics people will begin to know who is posting (your brand!) without looking at your handle or username.

Posting regularly

We get asked this a lot by clients – when and how often should I post? On and off posting is likely to harm your following (think sporadic with long gaps and months between posts) because Instagram will think that you aren’t a regular supplier of content and information.

Try to ensure you are posting frequently but maintain fresh, relevant content – this doesn’t need to be every day.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Instagram – think hashtags and geotags, quality and quantity of followers – the questions you have may seem endless but we are here to help.

Do you want to create an effective social presence but you’re not quite sure where to start? We are experts in social media marketing. Contact us today to find out what we can do for you.