Social networks are your brand’s window to the world. With Instagram taking Facebook’s center stage, its value in your social media strategy has rocketed. According to Statista, the number of Instagram users in April 2018 was 813 million. If you had any doubts about having or not having an Instagram profile for your business, this number will clear your thoughts.
To stay up to date, Instagram is following video trends and setting new ones. Sometimes it is hard to keep up with all the new updates and apply them in a way that will empower your brand, increase sales and convert prospects into leads. That’s why we have highlighted a few things that you should consider when it comes to your Instagram business profile.
Instagram stories
Even though Instagram Stories were made as a kickback to Snapchat in the Instagram vs. Snapchat war, it ended up to be a winner’s move. According to Facebook, Instagram Stories acquired 250 million daily active users within a year of its launch.
There are a few reasons for the success of instagram stories. For example, the simplicity of watching and uploading content that stays for 24 hours is what differentiates stories from the news feed. Also, the ability to see who watched your stories gave it a big plus in the users eyes.
Stories for business profiles don’t have just the Viewers option, but also the Insights. Let the numbers speak!
The first things you can notice when you open Insights is Discovery. Discovery gives you the insights where your post was seen or discovered. Still not clear? The biggest advantage of discovery is that it shows you how many accounts, that are not your followers, have seen your post.
Secondly, you should pay attention to the reach and impressions. What is the difference? The reach is the number of visits a unique account viewed each post of your story. And impressions? They represent the total number of views on each of your individual Instagram stories.
Let’s simplify it. If you have 285 accounts reached with this story, that means that 285 unique accounts looked at it, but you don’t know how many times. That’s where impressions come in. If you have 285 reached accounts and 350 impressions, that means that your story was replayed multiple times by those 285 accounts. Therefore, impressions can be higher than your reach, but it can never be the other way around.
Next on the list is Navigation. It offers data on how viewers interact with your Instagram Stories. In general, those analyses are based on human behavior. How people tap and swipe shows you how different content performs and what engages your followers the most.
Navigation is combined from the parts called Forward, Back, Next Story and Exits. All of these terms describe exactly what their name says.
For example, Taps Forward is the number of times a viewer tapped the right side of the screen to jump to the next story. Since a lot of people are tapping fast, this kind of metrics is less relevant than others.
Taps Backwards is the number of times a viewer tapped the left side of the screen to rewatch the previous story. Pay attention to this because when a viewer taps backward, it means that they see your content as worth re-watching or that it caught their attention. That is worth knowing with so many “speed tappers”! With the help of this, you can see what is the most engaging content, test it and use it in the future.
Last but not least are Next Story and Exits. While it might seem to you that these two metrics are similar, the difference is that Exits has less negative connotation than Next Story. The good thing is that they could mean that the viewer was just running out of time to watch stories in general. Also, if you include a clickable link in your story, they might swipe up to found out more.
On the other hand, Next Story shows you that the viewer was watching over your story and wanted to skip on the next one. Even though this fact might hurt, you should learn from it and implement it in your new stories strategy. Create the content that invites your viewers for more!
Highlights
The newest Instagram feature is Highlights. Even though you might not see the potential of it at the first glance, they are great for your business Instagram page. Highlights are the first thing your potential customer can see when he/she clicks on your profile. You can give them insights into your product and business, all your blog posts and core values.
Highlights are like frozen content in the wild waters of social media content. Use it wisely!
Ideas for the video content
With a maximum time of 60 seconds, Instagram’s timeline videos play automatically when seen. There are various ways you can use those 60 seconds. Make the most out of it!
- A day at the office
Have your followers take a look inside your company. Let them get to know your company culture and your employees.This way, you will not only get closer to your followers, but you will also attract some new highly skilled employees. Just make it fun and interactive!
Check the video below:
- Behind-the-scenes
People are naturally curious. Take your followers behind the scenes and give them little exclusive insights. For example, if you are a company that sells a product, show them the material you use, production process or distribution. You can even show a short part of your brainstorming session. The options are infinite!
- Present your work
Instagram videos give you the ability to pitch each one of your products to millions of people at the same time. Create a short form video to highlight the biggest advantages of your product. But be careful and don’t make it all about selling. Start from your customer’s perspective and show how your product can satisfy their needs.
Check the video below:
Do not forget to:
- Add Subtitles
People scroll the Instagram news feed during their short break at work, in the classroom, waiting for the bus, basically almost every time they’re not busy with something. But unfortunately, many times you can’t afford to watch a video with the sound on. Even the most engaging video in the world that can’t be understood when the sound is on mute means missing out on potential customers. The simple solution for this is subtitles. Don’t lose leads because of these little mistakes.
- Record Horizontal Videos for News Feed and Vertical Videos for Stories
Think before recording! Your phone orientation should be different for a video on your news feed than the one that is on your story. While Horizontal videos are a “normal” format that fits Facebook and Instagram news feeds, vertical videos are a new popular format for your Instagram story and Snapchat. Why? Since you want to simplify your target markets’ life with your product, you don’t want to make them work extra to enjoy your Instagram story.
- Collaborate with Influencers relevant to your industry
Instagram is all about the network. Like in real life, the bigger your network is, the more relevant you are.
Numbers don’t lie, nearly half of your potential customers (49%), rely on influencers’ recommendations. That’s why it is crucial to identify influential people on Instagram that are relevant to your brand and industry and begin building a relationship. Don’t get fooled by the numbers of followers that each of your potential influencers has. Focus on the ones that are suitable for your brand and important for your target market.
Give them the ability to post videos on your profile or create paid ads on theirs. Not only will this boost your credibility, but it will also help you reach a hidden audience that could be your next new client.
- Use hashtags
Once upon a time, the “#” was just a symbol. Suddenly, the blue bird (Twitter) landed on the Internet and changed everything. Hashtags transformed from an unimportant symbol into an online sensation. Today, all social networks and hashtags live happily ever after.
When it comes to the relationship between hashtags and Instagram in 2018, the relevancy is more important than ever. With new updates, people can follow hashtags the same as they can follow people or a brand. But wait, there is a catch. They can also mute hashtags if there is something they don’t want to see.
To decide which hashtag you should use and get better feedback, there are a few plugins like Hashtagify that can save the day. Hashtagify shows you the popularity, recent popularity, as well as month and week trends for each hashtag you want.
The next important thing to mention, when it comes to hashtags, is branded hashtags. This doesn’t mean you should use your company name as a hashtag. This is about creating a hashtag that embodies your brand and that your target market can relate to. Like this, you will encourage them to share photos your hashtag with their images.
Some of the most popular hashtags campaigns are:
- Coca-Cola’s #ShareACoke
- ALS Association’s #IceBucketChallenge
- Calvin Klein’s #MyCalvins
- RedBull’s #PutACanOnlt
Those are just some examples that you can use when you create your hashtag campaign.
Start recording and use all the benefits of Instagram for your business!
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