1. A content plan for every Instagram feed
A key idea is that you can’t focus on one feed only. Currently, there are three almost independent feeds: main feed, Stories feed, Live feed. Each of them requires a special content plan and has its own aspects and peculiarities that should be taken into consideration. Moreover, it is not the main feed with its conventional photo or video plus text format that plays a key role on Instagram. Stories have come to the fore.
It is now possible to post serious analytical posts with a lot of text in Stories. Stories should be updated every day, but the frequency depends on how much information you have and how quickly you can adapt it to the short-video format. One thing for sure - you have to do it regularly.
Content should be versatile. Most pages are run only following two content categories. In fact, it is not enough because there are 60 key content categories. People make decisions differently: for some people analytics is what matters, some people prefer emotions or social proof, others want interdisciplinary communication through a personal brand, and so forth. To maximize the effect, you should post diverse content. These 60 categories have the following main sections: educational, entertainment, engaging, and user-oriented content. These are the main 4 content categories.
2. Styling your profile on Instagram
Instagram-landing
Such a format as Instagram-landing is being used more often. It is a page where all the information is gathered, and a link to this page is added to the Instagram header.
Traditionally, a link to a company website was added there, but the experience has shown that the “Instagram - company website” combination is not efficient enough: people don’t use this link, and even when they do, they struggle with the website interface. Landing is far more efficient. There are two formats: Instagram-landing and landing-bot. With the help of these tools, you can highlight the focal points of your business. For example, a company can post information about available discounts, certain business divisions, or arrange a feedback section.
Free features to create landing pages — create a page that will be selling. Create a landing page in 3 minutes and start selling.
Highlights
“Highlights” are still important and may be seen as a catalog. For example, the following sections can be added: “catalog”, “different divisions”, “for women”, “for children” and “for men”. You can also add a feedback section.
3. Instagram promotion
The expectation level is very high here. Before it was possible to promote your account for free, but now there is a shift towards paid promotional tools. Everyone is on Instagram nowadays, and the competition is obviously tough. Logically, a product in demand can’t stay free for a long time.
Let’s review free and paid promotional tools separately.
Free promotional tools
Mutual promotion
The first tool is a mutual promotion, meaning that you mutually advertise each other with another blogger or channel. There are special services and chats where you can find a blogger for mutual promotion, for example, the EPICSTARS service. However, this isn’t an entry-level tool: if you don’t have followers, or only have 100 followers, it will be very difficult to find people to cooperate with. You should have at least 500 followers.
Content-promotion
The second tool is content-promotion. If you simply post qualitative content, Instagram will show it to certain small audiences. But it should be pointed out that relying on content only is a bad idea because promotion, in this case, is very limited. If your goal is to attract 1,000 followers a year, it can be achieved. If you need to attract bigger audiences and actively run your business on Instagram, the content promotion won’t be enough.
Outside promotion
If you have other platforms with a big audience, for example, mailout or a YouTube channel, it can give you a constant increase in customers. It is only relevant if your other channels already have an active audience.
Promotion through marathons
There are different marathon formats: expert marathons, individual marathons, for example, “how to lose weight in one week” or “how to increase audience reach in one month”, etc. A blogger usually runs a seminar and gives a task. There are two requirements for participants. First, they should be your followers; second, they should leave comments under task posts. It not only attracts new followers but also increases your reach. Quite often another requirement is to post Stories where users explain why they take part in the marathon and add a link. This way, you can also reach new audiences.
With Onlypult, save time you spend on SMM tasks — posting to all social media, analytics, multiple links, micro landing pages, web monitoring. All in one place.
Paid promotional tools
Targeted advertising
There is a paid tool that will allow you to increase your audience on a big scale - targeted advertising. When you launch targeted advertising, you show targeted ads; however, you don’t sell the product, you rather attract new followers. The most efficient way would be to promote your most useful posts with a direct call to subscribe.
Buy posts from bloggers
The second format is buying posts from famous bloggers: you allocate budget and buy post announcement from a blogger who is popular among your audience.
