14 Jul 2021

THE 7 DO'S & DON'TS OF INSTAGRAM

In the UK alone, Instagram has almost 29 million users (Statista) and rising, so it’s no surprise that businesses big and small continue to see it as a viable advertising platform. However, staying on top of Instagram trends, picking the right hashtags and posting at the right time of day are all part of the hassle and intimidation that comes with growing your business on the platform. To simplify everything, we have condensed our “Ask the expert: Instagram” webinar led by SocialB into a few key Instagram do’s and don’ts; work through these tips to help skyrocket your social media presence today!

Do’s

  • Mix up your content:  People don’t like to feel they are being sold to and sharing some non-salesy content in line with your brand’s personality will keep your posts diverse, and your audience interested. Try posting customer generated content on your feed and even asking them what they want to see from you.

 

  • Plan your posts: Try to plan content at least a week ahead, (if not a month) in order to be proactive rather than reactive. Taking the time to strategise what and when you are going to post will more likely lead to higher engagement and brand consistency. It also checks one more thing off your to-do list and frees up time to work on other things! 

 

  • Set up Instagram Shopping: Turn on the Instagram Shopping feature to allow users to shop your e-commerce store directly from Instagram without leaving the app. This feature also allows you to integrate your product catalogue with your Instagram profile, for easy, visual access to pricing and product details.

 

  • Utilise Instagram Stories: There are loads of features to play around with on Instagram Stories, and any content you put on there is quick and easily consumable. Instagram also lets you highlight stories and group them by theme or category, so the content you post there will be displayed on your profile.


 

 

 

Don’ts

  • Buy followers: The accounts you are buying are most often not real. Instead, you are paying for bots or inactive accounts and whilst having a higher number of followers may look good, you miss out on the interaction and engagement that would have come from organic followers. This means that your posts are a lot less likely to show up on Explore Pages or even on your followers’ feeds.

 

  • Use oversaturated hashtags: Hashtags that have a high number of posts are unlikely to help your brand exposure as your post will be lost in the hundreds of thousands, orhashtag love instagram social media #love even millions of users who have also used that hashtag. However, you should avoid hashtags with a very low post count as this is a great indicator that people aren’t searching or using this hashtag to find what they need. It’s all about balance. Many social media experts - including SocialB - recommend hashtags with no more than 100,000 posts.

 

  • Focus on vanity metricsThese are just as they sound; metrics that make you look good but do not actually provide you with valuable information about your audience. Looking at your ‘impressions’ and ‘reach’ under your insights tab will imply success as these numbers are usually quite high but understanding your audience demographics is a much more reliable way to measure success.

 

 

Have a look at Autumn Fair’s on demand series of webinars here for expert lead sessions to help you and your business succeed, and don’ forget to register for this year’s Autumn Fair to see SocialB live!

 

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