Are you struggling to craft the perfect Instagram content strategy?

With a potential audience of more than 1.21 billion monthly active users, Instagram can be a powerful tool for businesses and brands.

Around 28% of the world’s internet users already have an Instagram account, where they regularly engage with other companies, research new products, and search for items to buy. In fact, around 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business.

However, if you’re going to convince your target audience to connect with your brand regularly on Instagram, you’re going to need the right content. After all, it’s the videos, Stories, and images you post which determines just how successful your Instagram strategy really is.

Creating a “content strategy” for Instagram will help to guide you through the process of constantly producing and publishing high-quality posts capable of converting your followers.

So, where do you begin?

1.    Decide What Your Goals Are

Before you can start generating amazing results with your social media marketing campaigns, you need to decide what you’re trying to achieve. Setting clear goals for your Instagram content strategy will help you to decide what kind of pieces you should be sharing.

For instance, if your main goal on Instagram is to generate brand awareness, you might focus on content drawing attention to the unique selling points of your business, its distinctive personality, and the key features of your products. If you’re looking to gain credibility as an industry leader, you could share videos and Instagram Stories with how-to guidance and useful tips.

Sit down with your team and decide what the aim of your social media strategy should be. From there, you’ll be able to highlight the different kinds of content most likely to help you reach your goals. For instance, Colourpop wants to inspire its audience to try new products, so it regularly posts videos and Instagram Reels showcasing what people can achieve with different products.

2.    Create A Budget

There are various ways to promote your brand on Instagram without spending a penny, from sharing user-generated content from your customers, to promoting pre-existing content from your website on your social channels. However, it helps to have a budget you can work with to enhance your company’s appearance from time to time.

Around 50% of Instagram users say they become more interested in a brand after seeing an ad. Paid promotion will help to accelerate your company’s reach, and improve your chances of rapid growth on the platform. Even with a small budget, you can still see a massive increase in engagement.

Ask yourself how much you can reasonably afford to dedicate towards things like:

·         Instagram ads: You can promote your business with Instagram Ads across the news feed, Stories, and Reels to improve your chances of reaching the right audience. Start with slow and experimental ads, then increase your budget as you learn what works.

·         Influencers: Working with influencers, even micro influencers, can be an excellent way to improve your credibility and attract new customers to your business.

·         Specialist services: Acquiring the help of Instagram organic growth companies who can help you with engaging your audience and finding new followers can enhance the impact of your Instagram strategy.

3.    Plan Out A Content Calendar

There are a number of factors which determine how effective your Instagram campaigns are likely to be, from your targeting strategies to your use of hashtags. However, one of the most important elements of all is “timing”. The Instagram algorithm decides who sees what content based on both relevance and recency, so you need to promote your content at the right times.

When building an Instagram content strategy, ask yourself how frequently you’re going to publish new posts, and how many avenues of Instagram you’re going to explore each week. For instance, are you going to post standard feed content once per day, and Reels twice a week?

Create your content calendar with a wide variety of different content types to get the best results. Remember, people on Instagram have different preferences when it comes to the content they want to see from brands. Experimenting with everything from text-based posts, to videos and Stories will help to give you an insight into what your audience likes most.

4.    Create Content Based Around A Theme

Instagram is a visual medium above anything else. This means your posts are going to need to look great if they’re going to capture attention. A good aesthetic will help you to stand out on your customer’s news feed, and earn your client’s trust.

You can start with a theme specific to your brand. For instance, HubSpot uses its colors of orange and white in virtually everything it posts on social media.

It’s also worth thinking about how you can adapt your theme to different seasons and events. For instance, during the spring months, you might use more pastel shades and light floral colors. During the festive season, you could experiment with common shades like red and green.

Having specific visual themes to guide you through your content calendar will help to make your pieces more relevant and engaging to your audience throughout the year.

5.    Know The Best Time To Post

As mentioned above, timing is critical when you want to improve your chances of success on Instagram. You need to be publishing content when your audience is most likely to be already active and online. This means you’re going to need to do some research into the right times to post.

 It’s worth looking at the standard guidelines recommended for Instagram posting when it comes to getting the timing right. For instance, many experts recommend posting on Instagram on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to get the most engagement. We suggest sticking to 11am and 2pm on Tuesdays for the best possible results.

However, you can also use the Instagram Insights in your Business account for more guidance on when your audience members are online. This analytical page will track when your followers are most likely to be online, so you can arrange your posting schedule accordingly. Consider using an automated calendar tool to ensure you’re always publishing at the right times.

6.    Optimize Your Bio

Your Bio is an important part of your Instagram presence. It helps to give your customers a clear idea of what they can expect if they follow your brand. It’s also a helpful behind-the-scenes look at your company’s personality, values, and mission.

Unfortunately, Instagram doesn’t give you a lot of space to make the right impression with your Instagram Bio. You’ll only have 150 characters to work with, so you need to make sure you’re using every letter of your message as effectively as possible.

Optimize your bio by:

·         Using a link tool: Use a link-in-bio tool so you can transform the single link available for your profile into a link database where customers can find useful information.

·         Get your name right: Ensure your name and @handle are optimized by matching them to the business name your companies already know.

·         Enhancing your profile picture: Make sure your profile picture looks great. A headshot or a picture of your logo is often a good idea for businesses.

·         Adding the right information: Use the characters you do have to tell your customers what your business does and why they should follow you.

·         Using CTA buttons: Use call-to-action buttons (Available for Business accounts), to give customers a way to interact with you directly from your page.

Don’t forget to choose a category for your Instagram bio and add your contact information so customers can reach out to you as well.

7.    Write Good Instagram Captions

Instagram might be a visual platform, but that doesn’t mean you can rely on your images alone to master a strong Instagram content strategy. Your brand voice and the information you share in your post captions are crucial to building an emotional connection with your audience.

Your Instagram captions can be up to 2,200 characters long, so you can be as creative as you like when it comes to telling stories about your photos and videos. Just make sure the first two lines of your content are as engaging as possible, as this is all that will show up before the “more” tab.

Nat Geo offers an excellent insight into how beautiful and engaging captions can help to make your content more meaningful and engaging. You can also use your captions to connect with your audience on a deeper level, by asking questions and encouraging comments from followers.

Remember, the best captions will let your audience know something important not just about your pictures and videos, but your brand identity too.

8.    Use The Right Hashtags

Speaking of optimizing your captions, you should also be taking full advantage of hashtags as part of your Instagram content strategy. Hashtags are how you boost the visibility of your posts and help customers to find you on social media. They also provide insights into the context behind your posts.

You can find Instagram hashtag generators to help you come up with a varied selection of tags for each post. However, in general, it’s a good idea to use a selection of different kinds of tags with every post. Don’t just rely on trending hashtags like #TBT or #InstaLove, remember to use other options too, such as:

·         Geo/Location tags: Hashtags connecting your content to a specific location.

·         Niche tags: Niche or community tags focused on a specific audience like #naturalfood

·         Branded hashtags: Custom hashtags created just for your business.

Branded hashtags can be particularly useful when you’re building a content strategy, as they can encourage customers to share user-generated content, which you can also showcase on your Instagram profile as a form of social proof.

9.    Make Use Of Instagram Features

Instagram is an innovative social media platform with a constantly evolving array of features. It’s worth taking full advantage of all the tools on offer to make your social profile stand out. When creating your Instagram content strategy, don’t be afraid to experiment with things like filters in your posts to help make them look more appealing.

It’s also worth looking at different kinds of content you can create on Instagram. For instance, Instagram Stories generate some of the most engagement of any kind of content on social media. These fast-paced content pieces are excellent for sharing snippets of information or announcing sales. They’re also packed with features like countdown stickers and polls you can use to generate engagement and collect information about your audience.

You can even use Instagram to tag the products you want to sell and boost your chances of sales. Around 130 million Instagram users tap on shopping posts every month! Alternatively, why not experiment with video content? IGTV videos are excellent for sharing more long-form content with your audience, while Reels are ideal for capturing a younger customer base with short content.

10. Use Analytics 

Finally, there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy to ensure success on Instagram. If you want to make sure you connect with your audience and earn as many conversions as possible, you’ll need to be committed to constantly optimizing your strategy. This means taking advantage of analytics.

Social media and project management software solutions can come with built-in analytical tools to help you dive a little deeper into important metrics about your audience. However, you can also collect some basic insights within Instagram itself.

The Instagram Insights page for Business users can offer fantastic behind-the-scenes views of your target audience, helping you to understand which kinds of content your customers like best, and even where your target audience comes from. The more information you collect, the easier it’ll be to adapt your content strategy to achieve the best results.

Finishing Thoughts

Creating a successful Instagram content strategy doesn’t have to be as complicated as it seems. With the ten steps above, you’ll have everything you need to refine and optimize your Instagram presence, and start seeing results online.

Remember to keep adapting your Instagram strategy as you go, using the information collected from your analytics to guide your future marketing decisions.