Instagram has become a social media platform and a hub for almost all businesses worldwide. With the increasing competition, you need to plan an Instagram marketing strategy that makes your brand more visible on the platform. This article guides you step by step to make a successful Instagram marketing strategy for accomplishing your business objectives and goals.
Determine Your Target Audience
Over 70% of Instagram users are female, and most users fall under 30 years of age. Researching your target demographics can help you to decide what type of content to post quickly. Age, gender, location, and interests are also other factors that help you fine-tune content to your audience. After finalizing your audience, you can step further to find
- The types of hashtags they use
- The locations they mostly hang out
- The brands they are interested
- Accounts they follow on Instagram
Determine Your objectives
It would be best to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve through Instagram marketing. Each business varies in its objectives, which could be from mere community building to drive more conversions. You need to post different forms of content based on your objectives. Narrowing down your objectives can help you stay on track throughout your entire campaign. Keeping track of KPIs and metrics for objectives is very important for any social media campaign.
Analyze What Your Competitors Post
Looking at what content your competitors post is equally essential as determining the target audience and objectives. Identifying the content of the toppers in your industry post, and which content of theirs performs extremely well are excellent ways to get the maximum benefits of Instagram. Keep in mind that you share the same niche as your competitors, and their audience aligns with your brand. The following things are to be taken into account while analyzing competitors.
- Engagement rate (likes+comments)/number of followers x 100
- Do your competitors respond to their followers’ comments?
- The Kind of Hashtags they use
- The major content form used
Create a Content Strategy
Deciding what to post on Instagram is an integral part of your Instagram marketing strategy to showcase your brand and expand brand exposure. You will need a considerable amount of the right resources to make good quality content. Photos, videos, user-generated content, and stories are the content forms that potentially arouse your audience’s interest. Instagram contests, carousel posts are other techniques that amplify your Instagram marketing campaign. The right content strategy can make your feed more appealing to your followers and people who view it.
Prepare a Content Calendar
Having a content calendar has equal significance as forming a content strategy. When to post and how often to post are two essential aspects to decide beforehand to avoid posting some scrap for namesake at the last minute. An editorial calendar of content facilitates you to stay organized and plan content for your future feeds like upcoming events, new product teasers, etc. You can quickly check the time intervals between two different posts to ensure that you post consistently. Posting content can always help you keep up your followers without losing them. The best time to post content is when most of your followers are active.
Schedule Your Posts
To improve the efficiency of an Instagram Marketing campaign, you need to stick to a proper content schedule. There are many scheduling tools available in the market to schedule your photos and videos, even for a month. Bulk organization of content is the main advantage that you get from using the right scheduling tools. You can save a lot of time and focus to the fullest on Content creation.
Plan Instagram Captions
Captions are an essential thing to work on concerning any Instagram marketing strategy. Conveying your brand message is vital to gain a stable presence on Instagram. It would be best if you use this chance to narrate your brand. People who see your profile get to know about your brand from the caption. Hashtags are also a crucial part of Instagram marketing. You can get a clear idea about hashtags by researching through other twitter accounts, including your competitors.
Establish Brand Guidelines
Brand guidelines should definitely be a part of your Instagram marketing strategy when working in a large team. It would be best if you document all your Instagram activities, and the document should be made accessible to all the people working in your team. The following are some examples of details to include in the document:
- The type of content your brand posts
- How often you post on your account
- Frequently used hashtags
- Hashtags never used
- Prohibited words/ topics
Track Your Performance
Testing, learning, and optimizing Instagram content is not the place to stop with. Tracking key metrics to quickly identify which content works best for you can make your campaign more successful. Tracking your performance can help you know whether you have reached the business objectives you determined at the initial stage before commencing your campaign.
Instagram Insights are an inbuilt feature of Instagram that helps you better understand audience preferences.
Now that you have a clear idea to create an excellent Instagram strategy, why wait. Just go ahead and execute it.
Mary Kyle is a content developer and marketing manager who works at Snaphappen. She has written more trending articles on social media and has a handful of experience in delivering engaging content.
