Those who still ignore and underestimate Instagram are their own fault. Recently, the visual network giant has seen the 500 million mark of active users. Instagram has been in the advertising industry for some time now. This makes it all the more difficult to successfully place a new account.
Today I’ll show you how to build a community on Instagram and what to look out for. In addition, I’ll give you these helpful tools to take with you.
First steps on Instagram
Choose a suitable username for your company and set your profile to public. The profile should of course be filled in 100%. This means uploading a profile picture, a short description and adding a link to your website or blog. By the way, working with URL fragments is suitable for tracking the links. The link to the appropriate Facebook account (if available) should of course not be missing, since about 20% of Instagram users are also represented on Facebook.
Use of filters and visual language
Instagram’s most commonly used filter is the Mayfair filter. However, the use of filters is rather overcrowded and should better not occur so often. Instead, use the offered image editing and adjust brightness, image section, contrast, etc.. The picture language is also important and should speak a language. So the profile looks even.
Which language is spoken?
The geographical location plays a very important role. So which language your target group speaks should you know? It is clear that if you publish articles in English, the target group will grow and you will get more likes or comments. However, if you only cover the German-speaking area with your products or services, the language should be German. In case of multilingualism, the use of different accounts, as Coca Cola already does, is a good solution.
Correct use of Hashtags
Hashtags are the key to get likes and generate followers. But Hashtags can be wildly strung together by anyone and it also looks annoying. In addition, the number of use is limited to 30 hashtags for a picture upload. So rather use a few hashtags in the picture description and try to package them creatively (example: see screenshot). Note: Hashtags that are added afterwards lose relevance and don’t create a new traffic boost.
Which hashtags should I use?
For now, think carefully about which hashtags fit your brand. Use Instagram’s own search and see how many posts the hashtags have. Also develop a hash tag matching the brand that you post under each post. Pay attention to the uniqueness of the specially created hashtag, so that only your images are linked to it.
Hashtag Shortcut Hack – Tip for lazy people
If you have found your top hashtags and don’t want to type them all the time, you should save them as a note on your smartphone. So and now comes the hack, but for iPhone user->
Copy all the hashtags out of your note.
Opens the settings and goes to – General – Keyboard – Text Replacement.
Click here on the + for Add and insert the copied hashtags there and think up a shortcut (e.g. insta). Voila!
Comment photos of other users with your target group
The interaction with other users on Instagram is important and brings new followers, just like in real life ;-). Liking random images brings new followers to your account. But not with profiles that have far more than 10k followers. In the beginning concentrate on the users with less followers. I noticed that users with a lot of followers don’t pay much attention to the like of a picture.
Comments on the other hand can lead to interesting conversations or even partnerships. It is also true that users with well over 10k followers will not reply if your profile has far fewer followers. It is more likely that users with 300-3000 followers will talk to you, look at your profile and often become followers.
Follow for Follow & Like for Like
If you only want to follow Follower or automatic instagram likes and don’t care about the target group, you can use the well-known Hashtags #f4f #followforfollow #likes4likes. However, I would rather advise against this method, because I find a natural structure of the account much more sympathetic and you get to know your target group better.
At the beginning you should find out when your followers are active. If an account is intended for different time zones, you have to find a good middle way. It is also advisable to post at about the same time (e.g. always in the morning or always in the evening), as your followers will get used to it and then already wait for the next posts.
Frequency of contributions?
As on all social media channels, those who post too much are the ones who spam and annoy. But what is too much and what is too little? More than ten posts a day are definitely too much and one post a month too little. One to three posts a day are a solid basis. In connection with the time something suitable can be found certainly. As I said, this all depends on the target group. During the day many are at work and therefore not online on Instagram. On the other hand, self-employed people or mothers are often online during the day.
