How To Improve Your Instagram Presence

I thought this month I’d focus on Instagram and let you in on a few tips you might not know of. So without further ado here they are.

Remember to consider the needs of your followers. And, if you don’t have a sound following, you may wish to consider researching how to buy IG followers.

Dynamic links

You only get one clickable link within your bio, this is normally your website but if you want to promote a new product or service consider changing it to a more specific url and referring your followers to it in your posts. You can change your bio url as often as you like but just remember to track any traffic from the change to use a UTM or link shorter like bitly.

Add Line breaks

Instagram doesn’t generally allow for line breaks in your bio or posts (unless you’re on Android) but there’s a way around it – particularly helpful for iOS users! Just create your text in Notes or other notepad like app adding double returns into your text and then copy the text into Instagram. Here’s a video link for more info https://youtu.be/7Bhr6oL9ezE

Hashtags

Everyone knows #hashtag rule on Instagram, the more the merrier! Use of well researched, industry-related hashtags will serve you well. Explore your own followers or enter hashtags in the search
on Instagram

There is a number of globally recognised hashtags you could consider adding to your posts, these change regularly so keep a lookout for new trending ones:

#selfie: Yeah, it’s an obvious one but doesn’t hurt to add it to your post.

#instagood: The hashtag to use when you post a picture that you’re proud of.

#tbt: Known as Throwback Thursday – a kind of retro hashtag. Ideal if you’re posting older photo just don’t use it on any day other than Thursday!

#foodstagram: Food shots are very popular on Instagram. Use this hashtag when you’re posting pictures of food you’re eating or preparing.

#nofilter: Use this hashtag when you’re posting photos that haven’t been edited or altered with filters.

Resize your photos

The days of square Instagram photos are long gone. Instagram now allows you to display a photo as portrait of landscape. Just click the 2 arrowed button once you’ve selected your photo to try the different options or use a third party app – one of these is ‘Landscape’. http://sproutsocial.com/landscape which allows you to upload images and get them automatically rescaled for different social media platforms with a few clicks of a button – handy if you’re going to be scheduling a lot of posts.

Sharing Content

Instagram doesn’t have a built-in feature to re-share posts by other users, you can of course take a screenshot and repost but consider using an app like Repost – Just remember to tag the original user in your caption – it’s polite!

Tease your audience

If you’ve a big event or product launch coming up why not create a series of teaser posts to get your audience engaged. This will keep people coming back to your page on a regular basis – a good example of this was @asifmagazine they posted a series of small snippets of the @katebeckinsale cover to tease their followers and engage with them. They actually used their Instagram feed as a whole to create larger grid based image of the cover as the reveal unfolded, over a few days – a concept becoming much more popular.

Hopefully there’s a few tips you’d not considered using before and whatever you decide to incorporate into your own Instagram account it’s sure to help you gain followers, engagement and improve your businesses visibility on social media.