Increase customer engagement with Instagram—here’s how

In the era where millennials set the trends to follow, social media marketing has become the prime area to exploit to secure brand growth. However, which social media network proves to be the fastest to secure customer engagement in the short term?

There’s no quick answer to that question. Customer engagement still depends on multiple factors like your consistency to deliver updates, the way you treat your customers, how you interact with fellow users, etc.

We can safely say that Instagram has an added value at this point as images tend to be a better tool than words for advertisement. After all, is there any better place to share pictures of your brand than at the leading photo sharing application worldwide?

Exploit the value of your brand

One of the first things we should consider is to acknowledge which kind of images may showcase what we do best. For some industries, factory photos do great, for others, publishing ‘Stories’ or sharing videos can be the best way to advertise your products.

Re-posts and conventional posts are also must-have tools, but for that traditional approach, you need to draw attention to your profile by having visually-appealing images for your clients.

Sit down and trace a proper strategy that includes not only the kind of post you wish to produce for your profile but also your publication agenda. The schedule you need to follow for keeping a consistent presence online is one key factor for all social media networks.

Learn your way with hashtags

Your first attempts in Instagram may lead you to believe your influence isn’t strong enough unless you happen to be a consolidated giant in the industry, as could be the case of popular brands and large corporations.

Hashtags are the tools of the trade you need to work in conjunction with eye-catching images to gather the interest of your potential future clients. There are many tools available online to help you pick the best hashtags for your images.

However, as a rule, do not include more than 12 hashtags per image unless you are promoting special events. Hashtags are double-edged swords and can be seen as spammy by some users, which naturally leads you to lose your audience.

Social media platforms such as Instagram provide brands an opportunity to engage with their customers faster. (Source)

Create engaging content

One secure way to increase customer engagement is by offering fresh news through Instagram, giving an insight of what your company is all about and why your business is different than your competitor’s approach to the industry. Nevertheless, for that sole reason, you need to use visual advertisements as your brush for painting that well-deserved outcome.

Nothing comes easily in social media, especially on Instagram. Thus, you ought to learn some ground base skills in professional photography to make your images not only valuable but desirable as well.

Be sure to pair some digital marketing tools like Buffer. This is one valuable resource, as it can schedule your content or simply publish images to your Instagram account without losing quality.

Protect your work

Finally, after all these strategies, there’s another variable you need to consider: those who may want to grow their fame out of your work.

There are many famous cases in which popular Instagram profiles have been victims of copycats. These days, it’s very easy to take credit for content uploaded to the internet and label them as your own. No matter how much time it takes for original authors to notice such practices, in most cases, the damage is already done.

Despite Instagram not offering any native way to download images, interesting tools available online such as Instasave can help users grab your uploaded work. Hence the importance of protecting your images with visual elements such as banners or watermarks with your brand’s name/logo. Most photographers follow this practice with an acceptable aesthetic value.

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DISCLAIMER: This article expresses my own ideas and opinions. Any information I have shared are from sources that I believe to be reliable and accurate. I did not receive any financial compensation in writing this post, nor do I own any shares in any company I’ve mentioned. I encourage any reader to do their own diligent research first before making any investment decisions.