Instagram has become extremely popular in recent years and for many businesses it can be a great social media channel to utilise as part of your social media strategy. With this in mind we have put together some top tips to get the most out of the platform.

Top tips

Use Link in Bio! 

You can’t link within your descriptions on Instagram, but you want to be able to direct your customers somewhere and Link in Bio is a perfect way!  It enables you to generate a clickable link which you can then connect to individual posts. What's even better is that the service is completely free to use. This will make your profile less cluttered, more professional and enable customers to follow through those your call to action, rather than leaving Instagram to Google your business. 

Use editing tools 

You want your images to stand out and adding a little enhancement can help do just that. Modern mobile phones now have some fantastic editing capabilities. This includes adjusting the brightness, contrast, saturation and much more which can just bring out those colours a bit more and up the atmosphere a bit, transforming a dull photo. Instagram has these capabilities within the app too if you would prefer to rework photos directly within the app. Just remember not to over-edit to the point the image becomes too overexposed or sharp and starts to look too manufactured!

Use analytics

Instagram, owned by Meta has its own analytics which can be accessed through Creator Studio which includes data on reach, page views and engagement which we went into in one of our previous blogs all about social media analytics. What's handy about these analytics though is that they show the best times to post based on when your audience is active and engaging with your content. They can also help you see which posts are performing better lending you some idea of which hashtags are capturing your audience. Remember these can regularly change and shouldn’t be taken as gospel! You should use your analytics regularly. 

Know your audience 

According to the London School of Economics and Political Science, most Instagram users are between 18-29, so you need to remember you’ll be marketing to this age group! Think about how that affects your tone of voice, the content you distribute, and even if Instagram is the appropriate channel for your business to be posting on!

Jump on Reels

Reels are another popular from of content within Instagram and a great way to create some engaging content thats a bit different to a static photo. Now, a lot of people do ask ‘how long should an instagram reel be?’ and this can vary. Instagram has now enabled you to upload up to a minute and a half but many are a couple of seconds. It’s best to experiment a bit with your reels and Instagram also offer a wide range of templates to get you started too. The quality of your reels matter too, however most people create them ‘in the moment’ and therefore they are filmed on their mobiles, so if you can make sure you have enabled your phone to film in HD or 4K for those higher resolution videos that will stand out.

Hopefully, these tips will help you get the most out of Instagram as a platform, but don’t forget to do your research prior, learn more about the audience you are pitching to and create some buyer personas to really understand if Instagram is the best platform for your business and is where your customers are. If you want help with you social media feed please don’t hesitate to get in touch.