Instagram’s user base is increasing faster than that of other social channels in the United States, mainly due to its popularity among individuals aged 18 to 24. Instagram’s ever-increasing popularity hasn’t escaped the notice of digital marketers. However, with nearly every brand now on Instagram, competition is tight. The one and the only way to cut through all of this noise is to develop a strong Instagram content strategy.
Schedule Your Content
Instagram is so crowded that brands publish at an average of 27.9 times each month. In other words, you must post virtually daily to maintain your brand’s reach and engagement. As a result, you should schedule your content feed 2-3 weeks in advance. Although time-consuming and challenging, this preparation will help you learn how to develop a unified content feed that continues to captivate your target audience.
Your content is the initial point of contact for users with your brand. Thus, maintaining consistent aesthetics and style can work towards developing a brand image. You can generate content that is themed monthly or weekly. Whatever your topic is, keep any photographs, other content, and videos associated with it readily available. With that said, you’ll want to leave some room for unanticipated changes in your specialty or in general. Scheduling your content to reach your target audience at the right time can yield more automatic Instagram likes thus gaining tons of engagement.
Make Use of Appropriate Hashtags
To optimize the impact of your content, it must be noticed by your target audience in a reasonable time. The most effective technique to increase your content’s discoverability is to employ the most appropriate and accurate hashtags. Additionally, hashtags can help your content go famous on Instagram and can be used to evaluate your efforts. You may optimize your content by using the following kinds of hashtags.
Trending Hashtags: These hashtags are the ones that are currently trending on Instagram. Fitness hashtags such as #fitinspiration, #fitstagram, and #gymspiration, for example, are trendy in 2019.
General Hashtags: #love, #instagood are the most often used and popular hashtags throughout the year.
Niche-Specific Hashtags: These are industry-specific. Additionally, they incorporate hashtags for your brand name. While #adidas is a brand-related hashtag, #streetwear, #sports, and #football are all industry-related hashtags. However, opting to use all 30 hashtags may appear spammy. On average, five to six hashtags should suffice. A recent study indicates that posts with nine hashtags receive the most attention.
Conduct Hashtag Research
Maintain a list of essential and popular hashtags at all times.
Post at right Times
Timing is another essential factor in ensuring that your good content reaches the right audience. You must publish content when your intended audience is online.
- Wednesday is the best day.
- Wednesday at 11 a.m. and Friday between 10 and 11 a.m. are the best times for brands to publish on Instagram.
- Tuesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Sunday is the worst day to post.
- The lowest level of engagement: Late at night and early in the morning, between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m.
These times, however, may vary significantly according to your industry, target audience (age range), and geographic location. Instagram analytics can help you understand when your target market is most engaged on the platform. To access Instagram Insights,
- Tap the bar-chart symbol in the top right corner of your business account’s profile page.
- Navigate to the Audience section.
- Under the Followers area, you’ll be able to view the audience’s activities.
You could use this data to optimize your content scheduling.
Assess the Outcomes
Measuring is the final part of your content strategy. You must track individual posts’ performance to optimize your content development, time, and hashtag optimization.
Final Thoughts
It’s easier said than done to create an effective content strategy for a fast-paced, visually-rich social media network like Instagram. Following these four suggestions could help you develop a content strategy to expand your brand reach and increase conversions on Instagram. Adjust your content strategy as necessary to stay current with evolving social media trends.
Julia Frank is a Social Media Strategist and a Content Writer at Instalikes who has great passion to write on latest trends and technology. When she is not busy with work, she reads lot of books and travels long distances.
