If you are like me, you have surely spent 327 hours reading articles on how to have more followers on Instagram or how to have better results with marketing strategies, but I am sorry to tell you that we have wasted time in the same way, because:
To improve your account and achieve success without investing money you need to master only one subject: The Instagram algorithm.
Algorithm?
Let me explain it to you.
Some time ago Instagram realized that users had more content in their feeds than they could consume, so up to 70% of shared posts were being lost.
For this reason he decided that instead of teaching in chronological order he would only teach what his algorithm determines that he will have more interaction or engagement.
But don’t panic, there are always ways to beat algorithms in a simpler way than you imagine.
Modify your Instagram marketing strategy based on only 7 key factors.
There is no golden rule to win this algorithm that also continues to evolve and change, but Instagram itself has revealed 7 factors that influence when teaching your content or not:
- How much engagement or interaction to generate your publications.
- How long your content is displayed.
- Those who are most attracted to your account.
- What time of day do you post?
- What kind of content do you share?
- Those who look for your account and how often.
- How often your posts are sent by private message.
In a nutshell, engagement or interaction is key, both the amount of time your followers spend in your posts and the number of people who interact with you.
“To cite an example, if a follower often likes videos and stories from a brand, posts from that brand are more likely to appear in that user’s feed.”
In this definitive guide to Instagram Marketing Strategies I want to show you the step by step to beat the dreaded Instagram algorithm.
How to increase your followers and your engagement on Instagram
1. Do not try to fool the system.
First of all let me advise you to NOT waste money buying followers or badly spend your time following thousands of people thinking that they will follow you back.
These two practices will not help you get potential customers or have representative likes for your brand.
In addition, if you buy likes and followers the algorithm will realize and your publications will not be taught and worse yet you can suspend or delete your account.
And even if you get to make fun of the system you will still have no real benefits for your company, because you will continue without having brand exposure.
In addition, Instagram users are not dumb, if they see an account with many followers they will quickly see these profiles and if they see users of Arab or Asian nationalities when your account is in Spanish they will know that they are purchased.
Do not forget that everything you do influences the purchase decision. If you cheat on this your customers will be able to deduce that you are also not honest in other subjects.
2. Discover the story you want to tell.
Instagram is above all an application that tells stories through photography, personal stories, stories that unite, help, motivate or inspire in some way.
Stories are exciting and emotions are what generate brand memories and sales.
Your client does not want to follow you on Instagram to see your catalog of services or see only your dishes every day, what you are looking for is inspiration and connection with your brand.
3.Publica for a specific audience.
Have you considered who you are uploading your publications for?
Do you know his tastes and what interests him?
Although it seems logical, every time you upload a photo or video you should be thinking about your target and your potential clients and you should ask yourself this question:
Will they be interested in what you are publishing?
To be memorable and tell a story that you love you have to know the interests and motivations of your audience.
Change your profile to companies.
You will have many functions that will help you in your business or personal brand and that you do not have in a person account. You can have analytics, statistics, know where your followers come from, how old they are, etc.
So you can see if you are on the right path or you should change your marketing strategy on Instagram.
4. Optimize your biography.
Your biography is the first thing people see when they enter your profile. It has to represent you in who you are and you offer these people who have just discovered you. Think about whether you transmit what you offer to your customers.
Make it fun and memorable, get your creativity and find your way to stand out from the rest of the accounts in this small space.
Use emojis, short phrases, a link to your website, reservations, letter, etc.
5. Use the hashtag in your profile biography.
This is a recent feature and it opens a sea of opportunities to use it as a marketing tool in your profile.
This will make people looking for these hashtags find you more easily if they don’t know you yet or even if they already do, but you compete with another 800 accounts, they go back to search.
6. Your profile or feed should be beautiful and inspiring.
Because for this people go to Instagram.
Your content should stand out for these reasons, you are welcome to have a great account, with erroneous content. You can have good photos, but not necessarily inspiring or connect with the lifestyle of your followers.
Make sure you have a visually attractive feed, let’s not forget that Instagram was born to tell stories through inspiring photographs. If not, you will not attract new followers and may until you lose the ones you already have.
Look at a photo you like and / or have had engagement and try to follow that line both in photography style, filters, framing, background, etc. This will make people wondering if to follow you or not … not only look at a photo, but look at all your feed and the more aesthetic is the more followers you will get.
If your account looks messy with all kinds of photos, sizes and styles, it won’t impact your followers.
7. Improve your photographs.
Instagram is a social network where photographs are shared, but only those that attract attention are those that arouse interest.
Do not post photographs in low light, without contrast or of poor quality.
Although this step may seem obvious you cannot skip it when it comes to improving your profile. Learn to frame your photographs and edit them on your own phone. It will not take you long and will bring you great results.
8. Create your own style of photographs.
Decide what aesthetic you want to have and be consistent in it. This consistency in your posts will make your followers like a photo and also the next one. You must personalize your communication style, find a unique and memorable identity so that your followers and potential clients remember you and always have you in their mind.
9. Your feed always has to show why you are different from your competition.
Even if you change over time it is very important to have a consistency in the communication style. Either the visual style with the photo itself as in the emoticons and texts that accompany the publication. Being authentic you will always be different.
10. To generate engagement you must be more social.
Let’s not forget that Instagram is a social network, it is a space to talk and exchange. Be more active, generous and comment on other accounts, ask questions and follow people who may interest you.
Do not expect to receive hundreds of likes and new followers when you are not part of the community.
11. Use stories without fear.
Instagram wants you to use them and will reward you if you do, in addition you will have recognition from the people who follow you since not many people or brands use them.
If you are active publishing stories, this will help your followers see you in their feed more often by beating the Instagram algorithm in this way.
If you want to make sure when it is seen, make an Instagram Live, rarely does anyone want to miss this transmission, now it will depend on you to watch it or disconnect.
12. Frequency of publication:
In the feed : Two publications a day separated in time (lunch and dinner) would be an adequate number of publications, but it would not be appropriate because you would be flooding the feeds of the accounts that follow you and you could become SPAM and they will stop following you .
In the stories: If you are creative when making stories and add value, there is no limit to publish. Always with consistency and meaning.
13. Interact with the right people.
They are people who have the same interests as you and people who are located in the same geographical area as your business. You can search for these people according to hashtags that you use, locations, comments in other accounts similar to yours, etc.
14. Take advantage of the description or copy of the photo as an extension of you.
Your Instagram must be what you represent and this not only counts for the photos but also for the text you attach with each of your posts. Before sharing your photo, make sure the text is related to your followers and potential clients, ask yourself:
Is this important?
Makes sense?
Is anyone going to read what I have written?
Will anyone be interested?
If the answer is, you won’t have to consider your Instagram marketing strategy again.
What you write next to your post is what will create or not the connection you need with your audience and potential followers.
15. Use hashtags strategically.
It’s a way that people who don’t know you discover you. Why are you going to waste this fabulous tool to reach more people?
Posts without # have less engagement than those that do.
Create your # list to reach these people who are looking for what you offer.
16. Use the correct hashtags:
Here you have to value competitiveness vs. popularity.
Find the hashtags that best represent you, because this makes people looking for them reach you. But watch out for the very popular #hashtags.
For example, if you put #food #foodie and #pornfood (hashtags widely used in food industry) you will have to compete respectively with:
Gastronomy: 5.2 million publications.
Foodie : 86.6 million publications.
PornFood : 3 million posts.
Do you think they will really find you among millions of posts with the same hashtag?
If you want to stand out in the foodie category, look for hashtags that have less competition so you can easily excel.
If you use hashtags with less competition in your posts you will see how your followers and likes will increase.
17. Create your own hashtags.
Do not be afraid and try to find your own, which have to do with your product or location.
For example, I created the hashtag #marketinggastronomico and today there are already more than 6,400 publications with this hashtag.
18. Geolocate your posts.
Although it is not as popular as hashtags it does help you connect with people from the same city or geographic area since many people search through geolocation what other companies and people in the area are doing and look for new plans, courses or events to perform.
If you tag the location you can be found by close people and by your (thousands of) potential customers.
19. be consistent in the publication schedule.
Try to be faithful to a line and publish at the best times.
Although there are statistics that say that the best days and hours are Wednesdays at 7 pm, you can use your logic and think about the times when people use social networks or use tools such as Iconsquare or Instagram profile statistics for companies to see what time your followers are connected.
20. Warm up engines.
If your best time to upload content is, for example, 9:00 p.m., at least from 8:30 p.m. Invest time giving likes to other posts, leaving comments on your followers’ accounts.
This will help you have more chances for them to do so as soon as they see your post. In addition, having Instagram an algorithm that rewards being active in your network, it would be logical to think that I could teach you more people because you will see that you are part of a community and not just looking to grow your own.
If you are generous and strategic you will get more engagement.
21. Respond to comments.
If your account is small and you have some comments every day it is very simple to manage, so you have no excuse to respond to each of them.
But if you receive more than 50 a day the thing changes. If it were your case, try to answer all the people who have dedicated their time to leave you a comment, even if it takes time.
If you see that your account is very large, do not respond to comments that only use an emoji or a word just so you can optimize your time.
22. Don’t lose focus.
Although we are multitask and it is difficult to focus only on one thing, we have to have consistency in what we publish, if you dedicate yourself to gastronomy and suddenly you want to upload your pet … think first if this will contribute something to your account and if you believe so then you would have to keep posting on it so that your feed made sense and an inspiring aesthetic.
Without any editorial line you will not only lose focus but many followers.
23. Number of interests.
I recommend that you try to focus on two or three interests that connect with your audience. If you see that there are others important to you, but that do not relate to your business or customers it would be better to create another account or even value opening a blog with these hobbies.
If you have read the complete Marketing Strategies Guide on Instagram, I congratulate you, this means that you are really committed to improving your gastronomic marketing strategies.
I hope these Instagram marketing strategies help you achieve your marketing and sales goals this year.
I am sure you can grow your account and stand out from your competition with the right guide and tools.
If you have any questions or suggestions, use the comments tab below!
