Instagram has a number of features that allow us to have an experience in social networks, ever closer to buy instagram comments.
If you already know how to use all those wonderful functions, you should have noticed that despite this, it has some limitations in terms of its tools to improve our performance.
Knowing what to offer your audience, when, how or why, not something that you will find precisely is explained in this application, but if you are someone who wants to go beyond just using their functions; it is something you must master.
Therefore, in this opportunity we bring you some tips that will allow you to be a professional in this matter and make Instagram your best tool in social networks.
1. Prepare a content calendar
Surely you have heard many times that of planning your content, but when you get down to work you do not know where to start.
The first things you need to know are the characteristics of your audience, so you can know what you like and what you do not.
This will save you a few inconveniences related to the acceptance of your content and it will give you direction when establishing the objectives you want to achieve.
Once you know the interests of your audience, which should be aligned with yours, and set your goals , begin to prepare that content you want to get, always remembering that it is not just what you want to show about yourself or your product, but what that audience expects or needs.
Therefore, try to answer questions such as what content I want to publish? Does it bring any value to my audience? What need does my audience have that I can satisfy?
By following these guidelines you will be able to better define the contents you will publish.
Now, but what kind of content can you promote on Instagram?
Starting from the fact that on Instagram the visual prevails, try the following:
Provide information that adds value
Tips, tricks, tips or any other information that allows your community to learn, answer a question or take it out of any inconvenience; Of course they will know how to thank you, because in the end, they are with you for what you add to their lives and if you go beyond your product or service, much better to prolong your relationship of loyalty.
Show your product, service or quality
Whether you’re a brand of product or service or a staff, Instagram works very well as a showcase.
Here you can show off the best photographs of what you want to promote ; yes, very careful not to do it every day, because as you read before, it’s not just about what you want to show about yourself.
Make demonstrations
Explain how it is used, what it is for, shows you or your qualities. These are things that will be valued in your gallery, because who better than you to explain what you offer.
Behind the scenes
No one can resist a behind the scenes camera. That is the opportunity for your audience to see your most human face.
Tell your story
Knowing who you are, how you got where you are, who inspired you, the journey traveled, your evolution, are contents that will certainly inspire more than one of your followers.
Create special events
Make sweepstakes, give samples of gifts, offer some exclusive promotion and make your followers feel special, because who does not like to feel this way?
Excited
This is something that you should try in each content that you take out. The perfect union will always be a brand content linked to something that inspires or excites. Make use of phrases, famous quotes, old photos (throwbacks adapt very well to this), images with high inspirational content. Take that audience to want to see you always.
2. Program your content
When what you have left is not exactly time, you know that you cannot spend all day every day taking publications on Instagram.
The optimization in the use of time is something that all that professional of this tool should try.
So, once you have defined what you are going to publish, you only have to program your content, so that they are automatically published in the hours of your preference or in which your audience is active.
This process will definitely save you a lot of time and allow you to organize yourself better.
Therefore, it is important to use content programming tools such as Socialgest, which allow you, among other things, to successfully carry out this activity, especially when it comes to programming on Instagram without having to wait for a notification on your device.
To carry out this task successfully you should consider the following:
Try not to overprogram
The excess content that you deliver to your audience generates a spam effect and the result you will get for it will be rejection.
Since we want to gain followers instead of losing them, it is best to program in moderation, since the Instagram algorithm does not show the posts chronologically, but because they are relevant to your audience.
This means that, if your first publication did not have a “cool” effect on your audience and you are scheduled to leave with 4 more, it is possible that for those who ignored the first one, the rest will not be shown either. So always the middle term will be better
Consider trends and events
Creating content and programming is a fundamental part of good planning, but it is also important to know when to withdraw or postpone, because currently unexpected events in terms of news, current events and viral trends are part of the communications expected by our audience
These factors must be well analyzed so that, according to our type of content or brand philosophy, they can be exploited or avoided; so in some cases, it will be necessary to modify our scheduled publications to adapt them to something new.
Study the days when your audience is present
Although Instagram is a social network of continuous use, there are studies that offer a guide as to specific hours and days.
In this sense, the Later Company noted in its study that the best publication schedule is Wednesday at 5 pm; however, he noted that times vary slightly depending on the day.
On the other hand, the study of the company Trackmave locates the highest engagement on Mondays between 2 pm and 3 pm. And although this study points to Monday as the best time to post, it also indicates that it is Thursday when there is a rebound in publications.
In one of its sections, Trackmave also explains that the best time to post videos is from 9 pm to 8 am.
This leads us to presume that, during working hours, Instagram followers prefer photos to videos.
When observing the above, the most advisable thing is that according to your objectives, brand values and type of audience; Follow up on publications and notes on the days when you observe the most activity.
You can also make use of the internal tool that Instagram for companies offers. There exists a section that indicates the days and hours of greatest activity. Although its accuracy is still under test, it is worth using it to start our own study.
Make proper use of hashtags
The hashtags or labels should be part of your strategy, that is, if you prepared a calendar of contents aligned with the objectives you want to achieve, you must also include the use of these.
Instagram tags work for your publications to have greater diffusion and interaction. In addition, they allow you to discover contents, link them or categorize them
Labeled photographs receive higher ratings than those that lack hashtags. And despite the fact that those who return a greater number of interactions are, at this moment, #followforfollow, #likeforlike and #tagsforlikes; it is recommended not to use them if what you pursue is a well-defined goal and not simply accumulate “I like”.
Instagram allows a maximum number of hashtags, with 30 being the limit. However, a professional publication should not be cluttered with labels, so select previously those that fit your image, values and objectives; they will be the most effective.
Check whenever the content has come out
There are times when the Internet service or the publishing tools have flaws, so it is never too long to spend at least 5 minutes checking that the programmed has actually come out, or that what came out has been done without errors.
3. Keep the statistics
Knowing how people interact with your publications is a practice that you should never neglect.
The data offered by these interactions are those that indicate the effectiveness of your content in front of your followers and the objectives set.
It is in this section where you will also know the level of engagement you are getting with your audience.
But what should we measure in Instagram to know our performance?
Number of followers
Although as in other social networks, the number of followers is not indicative of success, it is important to find a relationship between your posting frequency, the number of interactions in your photos / videos and the growth that these activities provide you.
Total Engagement Rate
The Engagement Rate is a very useful percentage, which will allow you to know the effectiveness of your Instagram activity.
With this data you can:
Rate the reception of your content and find the best formats, hours, days and even copies.
Compare with competitors.
Know if the growth of your community is profitable, that is, if you win fans that interact or are just filling.
To know this number we can use a simple formula, with which you can evaluate your own performance.
However, the “simple” does not mean easy, because it seeks some work to get some data. However, well worth the effort compared to the benefits it gives us.
TE = (Interactions / Scope or Impressions) x 100
Engagement rate per publication
This will allow you to know which contents are more effective. However, this will also depend on the frequency and rhythm of publication as well as the hours and days in which it is performed.
For this, we can use the previous formula, but individually or by group of images.
CTR in the links
The only complexity in obtaining this data is that to get more precision when evaluating the performance of the only link that Instagram allows us to place, it is recommended that you use a Bit.ly URL shortener.
In this way, the traffic generated from this social network will be quickly identified, whether you use google analytics or the url customizer of bit.ly, for example.
Best day and time to post
As explained in the previous section, knowing the best days and hours to publish will depend on your objective and audience, so keeping a record of the activity that is presented in Instagram, will be of great benefit to define your personal scheme of publication.
If you are the one who uses Instagram for companies, in the place where you place the statistics you can find a record of user activity, classified by days and hours.
Hashtags performance
Knowing the performance of one or several hashtags will not only help you to evaluate the evolution of the publications that are under the same label, but you will be able to monitor your own promotions and in the case that you have created your own, know its acceptance and growth.
The latter will also help you to know what is said about you through this network, as well as help you collect all the content that your followers have created about you or your brand, which will promote a better interaction with them in the case of that you decide to publish them.
Likewise, keeping track of the performance of the hashtags will allow you to measure the participation of the audience in cases of events or campaigns.
4. Download Images
In the case that you have decided to improve the interaction with your followers using the content they generate about you or your brand, you can find that from Instagram you can not download images.
In this sense, we can always use web tools such as https://downloadgram.com/ or http://www.dinsta.com/photos/ that, in a simple way, allow you to download images to your pc.
Now, if you need to download images from Instagram to an Android phone, you can go to the play store and download one of the hundreds of applications available for it.
There is another option to republish images on Instagram that are in tune with you, and is using apps like Repost or Regrann , which in just a couple of taps will allow you to republish a specific image or video, including mention, copy and hashtags.
It is important to note that all good Instagram users must mention the author of the image they want to repost.
5. Monitor
You’ve already planned your content, you know your audience, you know what the goals you want to achieve when using Instagram as a tool to let you know and interact.
You also made a good programming of those contents, you know what time and what days you should schedule and you made a selection of hashtags that will allow you to evaluate your performance. Now it’s time to monitor all your effort.
Observe, measure, evaluate and analyze are the components that help detect possible errors that may affect the performance of planned actions.
The success of everything you decided to implement to use Instagram in a professional manner will depend on the follow-up you perform to each action you will execute.
Collecting the information that will allow you to obtain the statistics results in Instagram, will also depend on the monitoring process that you carry.
With this you can know the opinion of your followers, what they want, what they like or simply extract a volume of information relevant to you or your brand. All this without leaving aside that in some cases the opinions of users is not always going to be positive.
Monitor what is happening on Instagram, allows you to evaluate situations and analyze the information obtained to extract both quantitative and qualitative results. With this you can get an overview of the behavior of your audience in real time.
Monitor will allow you to be present and make you feel. Your audience will appreciate this, because in the end, we are all in social networks to interact and share, and an absent user is like a fill-in follower: it does not add value to your newsfeed.
To successfully carry out this action, it is convenient to use a tool such as Socialgest, which allows you to customize your own “monitor” and add to it what you want to follow up on.
In this way you can only have the elements that you consider important to evaluate.
Following all these recommendations, surely you can stand out in your performance in this social network, because carry out a set of previously planned actions that pursue an objective, bring strength to the personal or brand image.
It also provides opportunities for development in the world of social media, knowing how to direct strategies that allow you to achieve measurable actions for the benefit of companies and personalities.