White Hat Instagram Marketing for Your Visually-Focused Brand
In a world of Instagram bots leaving generic comments on photos constantly, white hat Instagram marketing tactics are like a refreshing breath of cool air. When you consider the number of people who use social media, taking advantage of its various platforms to expand your reach and increase leads is a no-brainer. Instagram boasts over 300 million daily active users — users that love interacting with their brands: compared to networks like Facebook that see less than 0.1% engagement with their followers, Instagram brands experience around 4% engagement, and regularly.
However, there’s more to Instagram marketing than just pretty pictures and endless editing; the secret to taking advantage of a such a ripe opportunity lies in the perfect mix of the right elements:
- Knowing your audience
- Maintaining a clear vision/focus
- Finding your style
- Balancing your posts
By implementing white hat techniques in rigorously researched and expertly executed ways, you’ll see your business boom — almost as if your very life is being lived through the glamour of an Insta filter!
Know Your Audience
As in all marketing strategies, your target demographic decides how you reach out to them. Of the 26% of adults that actively use Instagram, 22% are men and 25% are women. The vast majority of users are between the ages of 18 and 29 (53%); depending on the product or service you’re selling, you’ll want to discover the trends of those within that demographic. What music are they listening to? Do they like posts that are more about the product being sold or do they prefer a human element? There are subtle ways to incorporate the interests of your demographic into your posts without making it obvious that you’re trying to sell something.
This is also a great way to discover influencers, which can greatly increase your range. Who are your followers looking up to, or talking about? Since there are so many users on Instagram, you’ll want to choose wisely: look for influencers that have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers (called micro-influencers) — their images still get thousands of likes but they have closer, more personal relationships with their followers. This boosts authenticity and encourages said followers to buy your product.
Vision and Focus
Consider what the ideal goal of your company’s Instagram account is. Do you want to showcase your products and services, or simply increase brand awareness? Do you want to build your brand community, or deepen the loyalty they feel toward you and your products? The outline needs to be set in stone before you begin making posts; Instagram is a networking service based on first impressions, and you don’t want yours to be messy and disorganized.
STYLE goes hand-in-hand with vision, as it creates the foundation of that impression. All of the following should be taken into account when creating posts: composition, color palette, text, filters, captions, and hashtags. You don’t want your images to blind your users with color and business, but you also don’t want them to be drab and unnoticeable. Consistency here is key: if you are constantly changing your focus every other post, people will be unable to associate your brand with a certain “Look” and will inevitably fade into the background of the bustling platform.
BALANCE YOUR POSTS
Post too much and you’ll lose followers; post too little and people will forget you exist, not to mention the fact that you won’t be gaining any significant new followers. Bombarding your followers with posts is every bit as dangerous as barely posting at all, so finding a balance in the number of times you post during the week is essential to successful social media marketing.
If you can implement these elements in a creative and innovative way, you’ll be amazed at the difference it will make in your company’s success — whether through profit, simple likeability, or (most likely) both!