As a digital marketing agency, we often hear from our clients that they want more followers on their social media platforms. It’s the battle cry wielded by business owners the world over, mistakenly believing that the number of followers equates to conversions – which isn’t necessarily true.
On the other side of the field are the social media experts and creative agencies, ‘quality over quantity’ is our cry. It’s not enough to have people click ‘follow’ on your Instagram once, you want them to like, comment and tag their friends. Engagement is the driving force behind social media marketing. It is literally people interacting with your brand, products or services. Engagement is what is going to keep you in their memory, it is the name of the social media marketing game.
With social media engagement, the snowball effect is real. The more people that like, comment and interact with your page, the more people want to interact with it. If people don’t know if your page is cool enough to be engaging with, no one does it. Funnily enough, when you get lots of engagement, your follower count increases. So how do you increase Instagram interactions? Glad you asked! Our social media team has some handy tips for you.
Define your demographic
Like all marketing and communications efforts, it is best to define your demographic. Why? Because you can’t talk to everyone all the time. The more targeted your Instagram posts, the more it will resonate with your market. If your company’s demographic is very broad, it helps to narrow the audience for each of your posts. Talk to 50-year-old engineer, John, in one and 25-year-old college student, Jenny, in another.
Authenticity FTW
Post more, but post authentically. For years, people have been told that they should frequently post on social media. This is only kind of true. If you don’t have a good reason to post, don’t. If you are at a crazy good event and you want people to know about the really great parts, go for it. Otherwise, think before you speak and only communicate when you have something good to say. Consumer trust is the mythical holy grail of all marketing efforts, if you are posting authentically you will have an easier time gaining that trust.
Hashtag Strategically
Hashtags are a beautiful thing – seriously. Hashtags are not only a great way to have people find your company, but they have also evolved to be a fun and cheeky way to insert your brand’s personality into your posts. As Instagram is heavily dependent on great pictures, being brief is key. Hashtags allow you to say a lot with very few words.
Make It Worthwhile
Remember the social media marketing snowball effect we talked about in the third sentence? Running a social media contest is a great way to quickly increase your engagement. Offer a product or service that people want and is in line with the company. A music magazine could offer tickets to Coachella or an aesthetics company could offer a free mani/pedi for you and a friend. Ask your audience to engage with your page or post to win the prize – easy peasy! Once your interactions have increased for a while, it is easier to keep the momentum going.
This is a great list. If you follow these Instagram principles your social media marketing efforts should see a better return on investment. That being said, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are very content-driven platforms. Above all of these pointers, you need to deliver some stunning images and solid captions to be seen and heard over everyone else’s noise.
Need some help with your social media marketing? Get in touch! We can chat and see how we can set your Instagram engagement on fire!