Instagram is one of the best platforms out there for advertising. The reason for this being, visual media is way more effective at capturing attention than text posts. Instagram puts pictures and videos as a priority, the text comes second. It is a great way to get up close and personal with your audience. Also, it is comparatively easier to grow your Instagram account when you compare it with Facebook.

The key to increasing your popularity on Instagram can prove to be a little tricky. Gone are the days where you can put up hashtags associated with your niche, and get the attention you need. The algorithm may look like it’s making it more difficult for your posts to get organic attention, but that’s not necessarily the case. In this article, we’ll run you through on some of the basic to-dos you must pay attention to, to make it big on Instagram.

If you need help with designing, planning and launching social media ad campaigns, we’d like you to meet our social media marketing team. We think you’d get along well. 😉

Give and take relationship.

We all love receiving likes and shares on our Instagram post. But we’re reluctant to do the same for others. This must change if you’re trying to get more engagement.

There are a few things you can do to ensure that your posts get the attention it deserves.

• If you want someone’s posts to appear often on your feed, you need to be actively engaging with their posts by liking and commenting on their posts. Using this same logic, you need to encourage people to engage with your posts if you want more organic reach. Reply to comments, direct messages, thank people for sharing and more. Active engagement makes you feel like a nice person (or a brand with a lovely personality), and also increases the organic reach of your posts.
• Explore hashtags that are related to your niche. Sort by new and check out what others are posting. If you see something you like, hit like, leave a genuine comment, or even share. This is one assured way to get more people to notice you.

People love reading stories.

One way to connect with your audience is to create content that tells a story. It could be something about your employee, the history of your brand, or something related to a customer. With more people reading post descriptions on Instagram, this paves way for microblogging. Think like a blogger, write small interesting stories and use a picture or a video to attract attention.

Use your Instagram Stories well.

Launched in 2016, stories on Instagram is now probably their most used feature. Stories are a great way to increase engagements. There are a few different things stories are good for. It’s the best way to get more people to visit your website. You can also direct your followers to your posts and IGTV videos.

You might have noticed that there are specific tools you can use on Instagram stories to encourage engagements. You can ask questions, conduct polls, and even invite people to send you a DM. Perhaps the most popular one is the “Swipe Up” feature. Anyone can add a “Swipe Up” to their story if they link it with one of their previously uploaded IGTV videos. However, the “Swipe Up” to visit a website feature is only unlocked after you’ve reached a minimum of 10k followers. Your account also needs to be a business account. Other than stories, you can only place a link in your profile bio, but getting people to click on them isn’t an effective strategy.

Let’s also talk about incorporating a CTA on your stories, be it normal stories or story ads. The best way to go about this is to put up a series of stories. 3 or 4 stories should do the trick. Nothing too long. In the first story, talk a bit about what you do, or who you are. In the second slide, you could put your first CTA. In the next, maybe address a few benefits or answer a few FAQs. Finally, in the last slide, add another CTA. Some people even add 3 CTAs.

Since stories are short, most people lose interest fast. The above strategy makes sure that they are reminded to take action. Oh, and by the way, this tip works great on other platforms that have a “story” feature too. Try putting multiple status updates on WhatsApp with at least 2-3  CTAs.

Type of videos:

The Instagram algorithm favours longer videos now. They want you to use IGTV. Almost every other video I see on my news feed, is over a minute long. Focus on making longer videos, upload it via IGTV. Post a preview of it on your profile and share it on your story.

Use of hashtags:

Try not to use too many hashtags in your posts. It looks spammy. Use a few hashtags that suits your niche, and use that space for a good description. People want to read what you have to say, not your hashtags.

Before you select which hashtags to use, do some research, and then save well-performing hashtags somewhere. Whenever you post, just copy-paste those hashtags into your posts.

Here’s how you can research keywords. Test out a few hashtags that are relevant to your niche, and search for recent posts that have used those hashtags. You need hashtags that have a good number of recent posts, but not too much, or else your post will get drowned in all the mayhem. In the recent posts section, if you scroll about 15-20 rows down and if you still see posts that were posted a few seconds ago, stay away from those hashtags. Using these hashtags won’t do you any good. You can also check out and take inspiration from what others are posting using this method.

Here’s one final tip: pay attention to the time you post. In your profile, you can access the Insights page. Here you can check out audience insights to see at what time most of your followers would be active. Try posting around 30 mins before peak usage time, which should usually be around 6-9 PM.

That’s it for now. Keeps these tips in mind and you’ll easily be able to get the engagement you want on Instagram. You can always hire an agency to manage your social media activity as well. This gives you more free time to work on other things. At Vividreal, we have a long history of creating social media posts, and managing ad campaigns on different social media platforms. We’re here if you need us. That’s all for now. We hope this article was helpful. Cheers!