How To Post The Best Content And Grow Your Following On Instagram
Now that you know how to set up your Instagram account from our previous blog, you’re ready to start posting. In this blog, we discuss how to post, how often to post, what to post, and what should accompany your photos. Start growing your Instagram account with these tips today!
How To Post
- Open Instagram
- Tap the plus button at the bottom of the screen
- Choose the image you would like to post from your camera roll or take a photo on the spot using the app
- Tap the ‘Next’ button in the top right-hand corner of the screen
- Edit your photo
- Add your caption, your location, and tag people then hit ‘Share’
How Often To Post
Some sources recommend posting every day. Big brands post multiple times per day, on average, 1.5 – 6 times a day. Finding the right balance for your business is the most important thing. If you can only post quality content three days a week then stick to that for now until you can post more frequently. It’s better to post less frequently and have quality content than to post more frequently and have subpar content. Remember you’re posting for your followers and potential followers, not to keep up with big brands that post multiple times a day.
With that said Instagram’s algorithm has always favored accounts that post more frequently by placing them closer to the top of followers feeds. So if possible it is best to eventually strive to post more frequently.
What Time To Post
This is the most variable aspect of Instagram. It largely depends on your audience, category, and location. The best suggestion in this scenario is to consistently post multiple days a week at the same. Then test another time the next week and continue this process for a few weeks to see where most of your engagement is.
Here are some general trends for engagement on Instagram from Hubspot. They also broke down the engagement times by category. This is because different audiences are active at different times.
What To Post On Your Instagram Page
Instagram was and still is mainly about photos. People will see the photo before anything else when scrolling on Instagram so make sure your photos are as high quality and as enticing as possible. Here are some photo ideas to post:
Photos of your staff, product, services
Generate buzz for a product, demonstrate a service, or show off your staff. These are all good photos to post on your Instagram to connect with your audience.
Customer-generated content
With credit given to the original creator, you can repost their content. This is why you want to have a business hashtag, so when people go to your business or use your product they can easily tag you using the hashtag.
Events
Gone are the days of posting event flyers on telephone poles. Now you can post a high-quality graphic or photo to Instagram to generate buzz for your events.
Giveaways
This is one of the most effective ways to grow your Instagram following. Create a giveaway and post that to be eligible a person must tag friends and follow your page. Giveaway posts receive extremely high engagement rates and should be utilized on a monthly basis if possible.
Announcements
Is there a business anniversary or policy change happening? These are great examples of posts to make on your Instagram.
If you need an easy service to create social media graphics try Canva or Adobe Spark. All the designs come from templates so there’s no need for extensive graphic design training!
Should You Have A Theme?
What’s a theme? A theme is how you edit your photos or the color palette you choose to present in your photos. When multiple photos like this are posted they then create a cohesive page that can be extremely aesthetically pleasing and thus attract more followers.
24As previously mentioned the way your photos look is extremely important. Decide if its right for your business to create a cohesive theme on your Instagram page.
Here are some examples of Instagram pages that have consistent themes.
What To Add To An Instagram Post
While the photo is the main focus there are some other details that should be attended to before hitting Share.
Caption
Each business should have a different writing style and tone. The point of the captions is to have a brief, captivating caption that evokes a response like a purchase, booking, or the user following an account.
Tags
Is there anyone in the photo that you would like to tag? Before publishing a photo Instagram will allow you to tag someone. The photo will then show up in their tagged photos and they can easily share it.
Hashtags
Posting hashtags along with your content is how you get your content in front of new viewers. Hashtags are keywords or phrases you can search on Instagram to find content related to it.
It’s best to use hashtags sparingly within the actual caption. Try sticking to just the hashtag you created for your business or another relevant hashtag.
Also note, you can post up to 30 hashtags but engagement can drop after you use more than 10 hashtags.
Look on Instagram at competitors to see what hashtags they’re using both locally and globally to get ideas for what hashtags you can use. Also, research relevant hashtags on sites like tagfinder to boost engagement on your posts.
What To Post On Instagram Stories
Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours. This is a good way to share content that you don’t want to make a post for but still want to share.
Instagram stories are archived and this is where you will get content from for your highlight reels if you choose to have them.
Highlight reels
Highlight reels are a fun way to share categorized collections of photos. Simply add photos from your archive of stories into your highlight reel.
Contact Us
By using all of the steps and features above you should be well on your way to creating a successful business Instagram. Read the next blog in this series about how to advertise on Instagram and how to measure success. If you would like to outsource your social media management contact us online or by phone at (813) 556-7990 for the Tampa office and (702) 515-2057 for the Las Vegas office.
