5 Simple Things You Should be Doing on Instagram
1. Have followers to turn on their post notifications
If you don't post at the right time, your content can easily get lost in the feeds of your followers.
Most likely, by the time they check recent posts,you will be buried under the hundreds of promos and content. An easy fix to this is encouraging your followers to turn on their post notifications.
What a post notification does is it notifies you when an account posts new content.
If your audience is interested and wants to keep up with your posts, they should have no problem adding your account to their push notifications.
2. Post to your story
What is an Instagram story?
If your asking this question, don’t worry it’s super easy to learn and also makes Instagram more fun for you and your followers. Your story appears at the top of any users live feed page and stays there for 24 hours.
To post a story, all you have to do is swipe to the left, and a camera will appear. From there you can post pictures, live videos, boomerangs, and have other fun text options!
Because your posts can easily get lost in the mix, by posting live or to your story guarantees your content is on the top of your follower's page.
Research also shows that users will most likely check the stories posted over the content feed below.
Another bonus to posting a story is being able to add polls or allowing your followers to ask you a question. This encourages interaction and quality feedback depending on what you ask.
To Learn more about adding polls and live interactions to your stories visit Social Media Examiner.
3. Engage with your community
Haven't you heard of the saying
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”?
If you want people to like, share or comment you need to do the same.
Look at what you have been hashtagging and search for those same tags. This is an easy way to find your audience and who you are advertising to.
From there you can go through different posts and like ones that you find interesting to engage with your community.
Ask questions or comment something intellectual on other people's posts! Some people are afraid of doing this, but Instagram isn't created just for just advertising, but to connect with others who share the same interests.
This shows that you care about their content and are engaging with them versus spamming and trying to get followers.
Most of the time this results in them answering or commenting back and creates a more engaging post overall. Other people viewing the post will see your comments and responses which encourages them to look more into who you are.
4. Use your Instagram Insights
The easiest way to view your Insights is through your business profile on the Instagram app. Located on the top right corner, you can find the icon for your Insights account.
From here, you can view your account activity, content, and audience.
You can see your interactions each day, how many people you reached through a post, your audience age range, gender, and location, and when your followers are active.
The number one thing I look at is the days of the week when my followers are the most active.
I schedule all my content based on this data because I know more followers are going to be online and will likely see my post.
5. Know your theme
It's important to stick to a theme, so your followers know what to expect. People follow your site for specific reasons.
For example, travel sites are all about travel and their followers expect that.
However, if they posted one day about “how to apply false lashes correctly,” that's not what the viewers want.
Not keeping consistency is one of the fastest ways to lose followers.
Know who your audience is, know why they follow you, and make sure the overall content is consistent.
The examples above show different images, but they all hold a theme. It could be color palettes, location, graphics, the overall tone, etc. whatever it is, make sure it looks cohesive when you look at the account as a whole.
