Instagram SEO (pt 1): Crush Instagram Marketing with These 5 Tactics

Instagram has become an avenue for expression. People use it to share personal and real-time experiences. Brands use it to tell their story and connect with their customers.
Apart from sites like Amazon, Instagram is becoming another great channel for making sales. Because of its visual nature, Instagram has provided brands with an ideal platform to reach their potential customers and grow their existing consumer base. however, if you wish to dominate the platform, there's a right way of doing things for effectiveness. Have a look at some tactics you could use to turn your Instagram page to a sales-generating machine.

CREATE AWESOME, PROFESSIONAL CONTENT

In Instagram marketing, content is key. In fact, content is the first thing you must nail if you wish to steal the "Insta-show."

You may have a perfect brand, good marketing strategies, and great people skills, but without creating good content, no one will want to connect with you. Focus on posting great content on your page. The rule of thumb is to provide value to your followers. f creating awesome content is not your thing, then you could consider paying a professional to help you with your content because the more high-quality content you make, the more awareness your brand gains and the more revenue you generate. Win-win! additionally, if you outsource, you'll be able to focus more on some other efforts towards building a great business. And there is plenty of cheap labor online on places like Fiverr and Upwork.
Otherwise, you could schedule a dedicated time to create your content in a batch that will last several weeks. That way, your post can always be consistent, and when you decide to create your content out of the blues, you’d always have a backup plan. Instagram is a visual platform, but don't just post pictures. Study finds that video-based content receives the most engagement. Polish your videos before you publish them so it is attractive. Also, make your videos landscape, not portrait. That way it could snatch people’s attention faster.

DISPLAY YOUR LIFESTYLE

Given that Instagram is a visual social platform where your posts are either pictures or videos, it's the social platform for displaying your lifestyle. It allows you to give your followers a glimpse into your daily life.

Now, to make the most out of Instagram FOR your business, you ought to incorporate your products into your lifestyle and then display the same on Instagram. It will allow your customers to see your products and envision living your lifestyle.This will, in turn, strengthen your brand and encourage your followership to buy the products in your posts.
 

BUILD AN IRRESISTIBLE BRAND IMAGE

When it comes to Instagram marketing, branding matters. Your branding is what stands you out from the thousands of competitors. The better your branding, the greater the chance of people connecting with you. So, build and present an irresistible brand image that people will be interested in associating with.

Your profile picture has a part to play in branding. Your profile should be a professional headshot that flatters your followers. Instagram makes an allowance for two photo slot, you could use the other to showcase you or your team giving a seminar or doing something cool or even the uniqueness of your product. whatever you decide to display, your profile photos should be high-quality, clear, and simply amazing.
A key branding tactic is to find your niche and focus on it. Narrow your content to that particular area.
Also, find your voice and be you. It’s okay to research competitors to see what they’re up to but don’t copy anyone. Your aim should be to become an authoritative voice within your industry. Be consistent with your aesthetics and voice. Maintain a theme of colors that best describes what you’re about.
Neil Patel, for instance, does this well on Instagram:

Maintain a consistent brand identity. Why? Because many of your followers will follow you on other social platforms, not just Instagram. If there is no consistency between your website, social media pages, and the other of your marketing paraphernalia, your brand image may suffer. remember, your social media presence is an extension of your brand.
 

FOSTER ENGAGEMENT

Don't dive into Instagram with the strategy of forcing your product or service on your audience; don’t make it all about yourself. Work on fostering engagement and providing value to your audience. ou will always have committed followers when you engage with them. Respond to comments and reply to direct messages, it makes people connect with you faster. Except when a user is being plain rude in which you are not obligated to respond, be sure to connect with people who genuinely took out time to reach out to you.

Be consistent with your post. Have a posting schedule and maintain it. Monitor when your post has the most engagement and try to post in similar times to replicate those results. Also, monitor to see the type of content that gets the most engagement and post more of such content.You could seize the opportunity to do in-depth market research to find out what your followers would love. A conversation would give you new ideas on new things to create and captions to use.
Next, tag relevant account in your posts. This strategy is highly underutilized but it holds great powers. The beauty of this is that it isn’t obvious you’ve tagged them unless people click on the post. It allows a whole range of people to receive notification about your post. They might likely click on it if it’s engaging enough and possibly follows you.
Another strategy is going out to engage with other accounts. You could leave a comment or alike. think about it. If you comment on 10 different posts, that presents 10 different opportunities for people to find you. people may not necessarily follow you when you do this but it makes the Instagram algorithm favor you by making your post visible to people.

And remember, respond to people who reach out to you.

USE HOT HASHTAGS

You may be wondering why so many brands and social media influencers bother with hashtags. Like what’s the fuss all about, right?Well, hashtags are an effective way to reach more people and promote engagement on your posts.To be precise, hashtags help make your content discoverable to people it’s relevant to because once a search is made and the keywords are incorporated into your hashtags, your content will pop up.

Recent statistics show that posts with at least one hashtag average 12.6% more engagement than posts without hashtags.
Instagram allows users to use a maximum of 30 hashtags for each post. And while it is good to step-up your hashtag use, always remember that quality trumps quantity. It isn’t about packing a bunch of hashtags but about using a few valuable ones.
Fun fact:Did you know that 91% of top brands use 7 or fewer hashtags? But that does not mean that the number is right for everyone.Another study shows that posts with 11 or more tags receive nearly 80% interaction.

Our recommendation is to track and measure what works for you and your audience. You might want to try testing your Instagram hashtags for about a week or so.
Below are some other tips that will skyrocket your overall engagement with hashtags:

• Do your research and focus on topics that are relevant to your target audience. Then, streamline your keywords and hashtags to make them visible to them. Need ideas? You could easily find out how influencers in your industry caption their post. Or use our keywords discovery tools to find the right terms to use.

• Hide your hashtags. This makes your post more attractive and less robotic. On Instagram, only the first three lines of your post is visible. So after dropping a tasty caption, leave periods in several lines before writing your hashtags. That way, people only get to see your hashtags when they click on 'see more.'

• Specify the location you’re in to reach your local audience. You can include it in your caption or hide it with the other hashtags. Once you optimize your hashtags for local searches, it allows people in your locality to be able to discover your posts and, by extension, your business.
   

The right hashtags will always drive traffic to your page to use them right.
 

SUMMARY

With over one billion active monthly users on Instagram, you can't be wrong for upping your game to take full advantage of the platform for your business. Start by creating awesome content. Then be sure you display your lifestyle based around your product, build an irresistible brand image, foster useful engagement, and deploy hashtags like a boss.

And if you need help with the right Instagram marketing tools, don't forget to check out our top-of-the-class digital marketing tools like the Image Resizer, JPG Converter, and Instagram Video Downloader.