The number of brands incorporating Instagram marketing into their business technique has surged in recent years. While just over half of U.S. marketers utilized Instagram in 2016, over 75% will do so by 2020.
It is no wonder: Instagram has a billion active users monthly, and an advertising audience of more than 849 million.
This Instagram marketing tips for 2020 cheat sheet will assist rev up your Instagram strategy, whether you are just getting began or you are already a seasoned pro.
Keep in mind, before you get began with Instagram marketing, you need an Instagram for Business account or an Instagram Creator account. Then, we will find out about some Instagram marketing tips here…
17 Instagram marketing tips you should know
1. Use a business account
A business account offers you access to functions you cannot utilize with a personal account, including:
- Instagram Insights (see Tip 17)
- Instagram adverts (see Tip 16)
- Instagram Shopping (see Tip 13)
- Contact info and a call-to-action button on your profile
A creator account has its own set of advantages for influencers and content creators. However, for most marketers, a business account is where it’s at. Hop back up to the top of this post and convert your account when you have not already done so.
2. Clearly define your goals
All social platforms are tools. However, you cannot utilize these tools effectively unless you understand what it’s you are attempting to build.
Instagram marketing could mean different things to different marketers. Are you looking to:
- Improve brand awareness?
- Get new leads?
- Establish your brand as an industry leader?
- Make sales?
You may even wish to mix several different outcomes. However, unless you understand where you want your Instagram strategy to take you, you are unlikely to get there.
3. Define your audience
A little preliminary analysis could help you determine who you could greatest reach utilizing Instagram. For instance, our post on Instagram demographics shows that:
- The most active Instagrammers are between 18 and 29.
- The USA is the biggest Instagram market.
- More urban residents use Instagram than their suburban peers.
However, that does not mean you need to only use Instagram to attempt to reach Urban Americans in their 20s. Instead, you should define your target market so you could make content that speaks directly to that audience.
This will also become critical in terms of to select targeting options for your Instagram adverts.
4. Optimize your profile
Optimize your profile is one of the most vital Instagram marketing tips. In just 150 characters, your Instagram bio needs to make a good first impression, convey your brand personality, and tell people why they need to bother following your Instagram account.
That’s a lot to ask from a small space.
Luckily, you also get a few other fields on your Instagram profile to showcase what your brand is all about and make it simpler for people to find you. Those include:
- Your name: 30 characters, included in the search.
- Your username: AKA your handle. Up to 30 characters, included in the search.
- Your site: A clickable URL you could change as often as you want.
- Category: A business function that tells people what you are all about without using up bio characters.
- Contact info: Tell people where to find you.
- Call-to-action buttons: Give Instagrammers a method to interact with you directly from your profile page.
G Adventures does a great job of taking advantage of all the fields the profile has to offer.
5. Select the right profile picture
For most brands, your Instagram profile picture needs to be your logo. This helps provide credibility and permits followers to see at a glance who you’re.
Your Instagram profile picture displays at 110 by 110 pixels, cropped to a circle with a 110-pixel diameter. But it’s stored at 320 by 320 pixels, so you need to add a file that large to ensure it still looks good if Instagram changes how profile pics are displayed.
In case your logo is a square, you will have to zoom out to ensure the whole thing shows within the circle as Home Depot does:
6. Create visually compelling content
Instagram is a visual medium, so your posts have simply got to look nice. You do not need professional pictures tools, however, your pictures do need to be sharp, well-lit, well-composed, and in focus, at a minimum.
Even more essential, your visual content should be compelling. Nice pictures are great, but if they do not tell a story, or get viewers excited, they aren’t going to help you utilize Instagram for marketing.
Not sure what to post? Here are some ideas:
- Behind-the-scenes posts: Give followers a look at your office, your storefront, or your manufacturing process.
- Quotes and text-based pictures: Play with text to make visually fascinating content with no pictures required.
- Regrams and UGC: User-generated content is by nature authentic and compelling.
- Instructional posts: Teaching followers how to achieve a purpose is about as compelling as it gets.
- Videos: The maximum length of a video post on Instagram is 60 seconds, however, you could go much longer with IGTV.
7. Establish your brand’s “look” on Instagram
When you decide what kind of content to publish, you should decide the way it’s going to look. Coloration influences buying decisions and brand recognition.
Your Instagram look needs to be consistent across your posts, helping followers easily recognize your content in their feeds.
One good example of that is the Instagram account mr.pokee, home of a hedgehog and a cat dubbed “the world’s cutest adventurers.”
The pictures have a consistent color scheme, look, and feel. They are immediately identifiable.
One simple method to achieve this type of consistency is to utilize Lightroom presets.
8. Write great captions
True, we just said that Instagram is a visual medium. However, that does not mean you could neglect your captions. Your brand voice is just as essential as your brand’s look. Like your visuals, it needs to be consistent across posts.
Instagram captions could be up to 2,200 characters long, so you could use them for everything from a quick quip to detailed storytelling. That said, only the first two lines of text appear in the news feed without tapping more.
Since people tend to scan captions rather than read them thoroughly, you wish to get all of the vital info into these first two lines.
We recommend the following Instagram caption lengths:
- Organic posts: 138–150 characters
- Instagram adverts: 125 characters
When you have got more to say, go ahead and say it. However, be sure the extra text is worth it. National Geographic is a classic example of long-form Instagram content. When you could match their level of storytelling, do not be afraid to go long.
Your caption needs to be relevant, entertaining or informative, compelling, and on-brand.