Neworld, Great relationships build great brands

Instagram has more than 1 billion active users, it boasts higher engagement rates than any other social media platform. With the right strategy you can make Instagram work for your brand.

Using hashtags

Using hashtags on Instagram can increase user engagement – one hashtag averages 12% more engagement than a post without one. It’s a great way to attract more followers to your account and potentially bring more customers to your business.

With Instagram Insights you can now check how effective your hashtags are, it’s also a great way to see if you have chosen the right hashtag. To help you decide which hashtag to use, you could look at the influencers within your brand’s category to see what they are using. You can also take a look at your competitors posts and take note of the hashtags that pop up the most. Still stuck, you can use a tool like Hashtagify.me to offer you some help and inspiration.

Use your own style

It’s very important to develop your own style as this will help your posts stand out and make you instantly recognisable to your followers as they zip through their feed. This can be something as simple as using a particular colour hue on your posts or slicing up one large image to spread over a series of posts.

Stories

For many users Instagram Stories have already become more popular than the classic feed. Stories are considered more convenient and authentic and are very relevant for companies to use. They are also a space where you can have more fun with your brand. They are a great tool for growing your engagement and building your brand awareness – you can drive traffic to your website, highlight products or particular pages on your website. You can add location, stickers and a hashtag to your story to further personalise it. If you are trying to get into your customers mind or feedback on a product you can create a poll and see results from your followers as they vote.

Some big brands use stories to show behind the scenes content, or they hand over stories to influencers to engage with the brand and their followers. This can also be a great way to grow your reach as you can gain followers from the influencer.

Post Performance

Regularly check the performance of your posts to see which ones work best and use this as a guide to make your future posts work for you. Well performing formats can then be developed a little further and less successful ones can be re-worked to make them more engaging.

Post Regularly

Try and see your channel from the point of view of your audience and ask yourself how you can offer the best value and engagement to them. Instagram is fast-paced, for a business it’s very important to have a person or team that’s well connected and can react to news and trends instantly – tomorrow is too late.

Trish Brady, UI Designer

Trish looks after digital design here in Neworld, bringing a wealth of experience and insight to every project.