Go back to your school days, when you had a little to do on your mama or papa’s phone. All you cared about was getting good marks, eating your favorite snacks in lunch, and having fun with friends.
Instead of getting hooked to a smartphone, you’d go out in the evening and enjoy some physical activity.
But things have changed. As you’ve grown up, your addiction to social media is getting the better of you. It’s irresistible. And the same is true for a huge chunk of the global population.
Take the example of Instagram, only in the United States, it has 140 million users. As per the rough estimates, Instagram has 1 billion active users worldwide. And the battle for higher reach is on.
People upload their pictures, write amazing captions, and use relevant hashtags to boost visibility. And when we talk about visibility, the term ‘ digital marketing’ pops up in one’s mind.
Agencies are using Instagram to promote their own business and the products/services of their clients. If you are a digital marketing agency or an Instagram ad agency, looking for new ways to enhance the reach, here are 8 amazing ways to do it:
1.Set Your Target Audience
Instagram is a highly saturated social media — or a marketplace if you want to promote your business. You can’t sell your products to everyone. Likewise, you can’t expect everyone to like your content or agree with your thoughts.
Narrow down your niche and think about who your ideal followers/customers are. Who’d like to hear more from you?
2.Research About Your Target Audience
Once you know who your target audience is, you need to get behind their eyeballs. What kind of content are they looking for, what fascinates them the most?
Audience research is the foundation of your Instagram growth. You can’t grow your account as an influencer by sharing vulgar memes for fun.
Likewise, you can’t grow your business without learning about the buying habits and interests of your prospects.
Your content must resonate with your target audience. And for that, research comes first!
3.Use Relevant Hashtags
Customer research will give you an idea about the hashtags used by your prospects. Often, Instagrammers stuff their posts with every relevant hashtag they could think of.
But it’s not about what you think is relevant, but what your target audience is actually searching for.
Do manual hashtag research, or subscribe to a paid tool to automatically get keywords being used by your target audience.
Hashtags used for a specific day or for a particular event are quite common. For example, #Mondaymotivation, #TuesdayVibes, #WednesdayWisdom, #Christmas.
4.Post At the Best Time
You must know at what time your prospects are likely to check their Instagram. So when you post, your posts appear at the top because fresh content pops up on their screen when they log in.
People are prone to check their phones in the early morning hours and evening, during their commute to home from the office.
Likewise, if you feel you get more engagement at some other time of the day or night, schedule your posts accordingly.
5.Use Geolocation
Expanding your reach is not all about using the right hashtags and generating quality content. Naturally, people are inclined to interact with or follow Instagrammers from their home city or where they are currently living.
You can use the location factor to boost your reach. For instance, if you are living in New York, by generating content specifically for the New York residents or using New York in your hashtags, you can attract relevant people.
6.Follow the Leaders in Your Industry
If an influencer, athlete, or business account has millions of followers, they are definitely doing something unique.
You can track their daily activity, analyze their content and post format, the hashtags they use, and apply the same practices.
If you spend some time analyzing your competitors, you are less likely to make the common mistakes Instagram marketers make and get quick results.
7.Interact With People & Influencers
You can’t expect your account to grow only through hashtags and content. Interaction with your prospects and other influencers in your niche is another way to boost your reach.
If you know a certain influencer or business has your ideal prospect as part of its following, you can interact with them. Appreciate useful content so they too feel obliged to reciprocate.
8.Create the Content Your Audience Craves
And of course, to succeed as a business or influencer, you must create engaging content. And it varies from audience to audience; what one audience finds engaging might be boring for some. So make sure you have your research done.
Accordingly, invest in creating content from scratch. You can get inspiration from successful Instagram influencers and devise your own. To stand out, your content must be original and distinguish you from the leaders of your industry.
Bottomline
Growing on Instagram is more challenging than ever before. You are constantly competing with some of the giants of your industry. With the above-mentioned 8 tips, you can boost your Instagram marketing strategy and enhance visibility.