Instagram is rapidly growing to become one of the best marketing tools for promotion; as you can see, brands have hopped onto this train to increase engagement rates. On Instagram, it’s not only about pretty images; your content also plays a significant role.
In this blog, we will explore the best ways to build an effective content strategy that will help you boost your engagement, reach your audience, and grow your presence.
Table of Contents
Let’s start:
- Do an audit
- Create a content strategy
- Use Instagram features
- Boost your content
- Monitor your performance
Before we get there, your brand needs a business account on Instagram. If you don’t have one yet, follow this easy guide to set one up.
Do an audit of your Instagram profile.
You need to cover a few aspects in your audit to get a clear picture of your platform’s presence.
Profile—Your profile is the face of your brand. Check if all the information on your profile is correct or needs updating. Your bio should be attractive, giving people a reason to follow your profile.
Content—When someone comes across your feed, you need to have a proper mix of promotional and informative posts. Your content must also reflect your bio and be relevant to your audience.
Goals – What is your brand’s goal? Why are you on this platform? Understanding this will help you further grow and build your brand to achieve your ultimate goal. Brands usually focus on a few goals: increasing their web traffic, raising their followers, increasing brand awareness, and building a community to root for their brand.
Create a content strategy.
After a thorough audit and knowing your current position, you can build a content strategy to further develop your brand.
These 3 pointers will help you with that.
- Content theme
- Content pillars
- Posting plans
Content Theme
Why are themes important for brands? When users visit your profile, instead of a random mess, if they see an organized feed with a constant theme, there’s a higher chance of them getting hooked.
By theme, I mean the colors, fonts, and filters you use while creating posts need to be consistent, and the format of your posts needs to be structured.
Content Pillars
There are 4 pillars of content marketing – Entertain, Educate, Inspire, and Convince.
While creating content, remember to entertain your audience through competitions, quizzes, polls, etc.
Your content, such as reviews and ratings, must inspire them. For the same purpose, you can also create a community forum.
Educating your audience is a vital part of content creation. Many brands pass on information through blogs and infographics.
And lastly, convince them why they can trust you through case studies and webinars.
Posting plans
Once you’ve decided on your theme and embedded the pillars in your content creation process, you can create a posting calendar.
The importance of creating a social media calendar is rightly overstated. A posting calendar helps you schedule posts during peak hours when you can receive the most engagement.
The few things you must consider when creating a posting calendar are:
- How many times are you going to post in a week? Create a benchmark.
- Remember to schedule posts in advance after knowing when your audiences are the most active.
- Use scheduling tools such as Tailwind and Hootsuite to make your posting job easier.
Make proper use of Instagram features.
Instagram has a variety of features that you can try and play with while creating your content.
In addition to posting on your feed, you can use stories, reels, and guides to distribute your content in an organized fashion, but not all at once.
What are Instagram Guides?
In May 2020, Instagram launched Instagram Guides, initially for travel. People can recommend places in their city, their favorite products, and their posts for their followers to know the best the user has to offer.
With the travel ban due to the global pandemic, Instagram later used it for wellness.
So yes, using these features will help you engage better with your audience.
Boost your content
Imagine creating amazing content with no engagement or reach. That’s why you need to also focus on your growth. To do this, you need to understand how the Instagram Algorithm works, which we have simplified in our blog.
Other ways to amplify your content on Instagram are:
- Cross-promote
- Collaborating with influencers
- Creating unique hashtags for your brand
- Organizing giveaways and contents
Monitor your performance
After doing all the above steps to leave your mark on Instagram, you must do one last thing, which is crucial for your content strategy to succeed – Monitoring your performance to see if your strategy is actually working.
The key performance indicators that you need to keep tabs on are:
- Stories insights
- Feed post insights
- Engagement rates
- Clickthrough rates
- Followers growth
Conclusion
By now, you might have a better idea of creating your brand’s content strategy and how to use it to grow.
Content strategy is a small part of Instagram Marketing. Social media platforms have now transformed into powerful marketing tools. To learn how to use Instagram as a marketing tool, check out our detailed guide on Instagram Marketing in 2024.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. Why is an Instagram content strategy important?
A solid Instagram content strategy will help you spread awareness of the brand page and increase followers and engagement. If you have an Instagram business page, a clear plan will help align the content with the audience’s preferences and goals and boost sales and traffic.
Q2. What types of content should I include in my strategy?
To grab the attention of your viewers, include the following content in your Instagram:
- Reels: Short, engaging clips on trending topics or quick tips.
- Stories: Interactive stories like polls and Q&A to boost engagement and conversions.
- Carousel Posts: Multiple images of the products offered by the brand.
Q3. What are Instagram Stories, and how should I use them?
Instagram stories are posts that disappear after 24 hours. They can include images and videos, links to the brand page about offers and discounts, polls, and Q&A to improve engagement. An effective way to use them is to show behind-the-scenes content to keep the audience hooked and engaged. You can also post brand and product update promotions to encourage inclusivity among your followers and foster a direct connection with them.
Q4. How can I encourage user-generated content?
To encourage user-generated content, you can follow these strategies to build community:
- Create a brand hashtag that users can use in their posts.
- Run contests and promotions and ask the users to tag your brand in their stories and posts.
- Ask for reviews and feedback through interactive polls
- Host giveaways, which will motivate audiences to participate.
