With more than 500 million daily active users, Instagram is now quite essential to reach out to a variety of audiences. Many businesses, whether small or large, are turning towards Instagram to promote their brands, find new customers, and support existing customers. But one cannot expect a good outreach without great content!
In this post, I am sharing 15 writing tips that will help you build an effective Instagram content strategy. Don’t worry, Instagram is not just about posting high-quality photos. Many other factors contribute to promoting your business on Instagram. So without further ado, let’s start with our content writing tips.
#1 Identify the pain points of your customers
When you are scrolling through Instagram, what is the most important thing that you look for? I think it is the value that someone has to offer to you rather than just beautiful photos. For instance, a cruelty-free makeup brand would gain more attention if they start promoting how their brand is cruelty-free or how they are standing for animal rights. So, your first step should be to find what your audience values the most and then you can create your content accordingly.
#2 Reel it!
Instagram reels are a huge success and a great way to reach new customers. However, not many brands are using them. Most people use them for entertainment purposes. So why not start with creating reels? You can show how you pack orders for a day in your life. Share a funny insider about your business or just apply the trending reels to your niche. Reels can be a great tool for branding your content. Do not ignore them!
#3 Storytelling through Instagram stories
Instagram stories are also a great way to capture the attention of your audience. Many businesses use IG stories to promote their business. Some use them to show behind the scenes of their business. For instance, one of my favourite visual artists hubman.chubgirl use their IG stories to share their life with their kid and how they manage handling their small business. They also share their challenges, victories, and how grateful they are for having such a pleasant audience.
#4 Use a business account
A business account gives you amazing features that you cannot have with a general account. These are ads, shopping, insights, multiple inboxes, customised contact information, a call to action button etc. You can just promote any of your posts with one click. A business account gives you a more professional look.
#5 Use a content calendar
It is important to plan how you are going to create content and when you are going to publish it on Instagram. Moreover, having a content calendar allows you to take note of all important holidays and public events that are coming up. So you can create content accordingly. You can work on a theme or a series of content and decide how you will publish them. Deciding all this will save you time and you would not feel stressed about what to post on Instagram next.
#6 Interact with your audience
Your audience must not feel you are some robotic corporation that is just publishing content. They need human connection. So start interacting with your audience. Plan giveaways, organise Q&A’s, reply to their comments, and answer their DMs. You might also post stories about customer reviews or thank your audience for their support and enthusiasm. After all, social media platforms are meant for engagement.
#7 Collaborate with influencers
People who already have a good following on Instagram can help spread the word about your business and bring you the audience that you always wanted. One of the major reasons why influencer marketing is good for Instagram is that it increases the trust of your audience. When a high-profile influencer is using your product, it must mean something.
#8 Pick a theme
You can decide on a colour scheme for your Instagram account, filters that you will be using, and the type of content you want to post. For instance, many businesses use only black and white images while some use only the primary colours. Some businesses even divide the type of content that they will publish into three different categories so that they can align similar content in the profile (across the three lanes). For instance, Jay Shetty, a popular life coach has organised his account in such a way that quotes with white backgrounds always appear in the middle lane.
#9 White spaces look attractive
It is often seen on Instagram that profiles that have more white spaces like a white border around the picture, or quotes with white background seek more attention. This is an evergreen trend and always works because it brings a visual appeal to your profile. Sometimes, a profile with all pictures without any borders seems disorganized and confusing.
#10 Know your audience
It is not just the pain points of your audience but their general characteristics. For example, you must know whether you are creating content for teenagers, middle-aged or old-aged people. You must know where they belong to, their gender, their likes and dislikes or even cultural beliefs. The better you know your audience, the better content you can create.
#11 Grab attention with emojis
Enhance the quality of a great photo by including a great caption for it. Many content creators on Instagram, often write lengthy captions for their posts. But, not many present them well. One of the best ways to present your content in the caption is to use emojis. Let’s be honest. Emojis are colourful, they are eye-catching and can be used to highlight the important points in your caption.
#12 Use different fonts
Instagram gives you the option to highlight content, bold content, animate it, change its colour and even the font style. So why not use these features and create distinguishing stories and reels. For instance, if you are organising a huge GIVEAWAY, use this technique. Capitalise letters to grab attention. You can also capitalise letters, bold or italicise them in your captions to highlight the important things.
#13 Start your captions right
Writing long captions is no problem but make sure to give them a bold start. This is because most of your captions are cut off in feeds and it is only the first few lines that could be seen. So, if you have written something engaging, the user might stop scrolling and read your complete caption. For example, you can start with a question or use a phrase or a funny punchline.
#14 Do not forget the hashtags
Hashtags are a great way to find a place in the Instagram algorithm. They help in categorising your posts and reaching your target audience. You can use a maximum of thirty hashtags on Instagram but it is advisable to add at most eleven hashtags. Do not use the same hashtags over and over as it might look like you are spamming the users. You should either put the hashtags in the comment or separate them from your caption by adding three to five lines and using a punctuation mark as breaks.
#15 Use analytics to refine your strategy
You might be posting a lot of content on Instagram, but is that bringing you the desired results? Use analytics to find the right answers. Instagram analytics provide you with great insights about your business account. For instance, who your audience is, when are they the most active, what type of content they like etc. You can also see which posts have performed in the past 12 months in terms of likes, reach, comments and more. You can also check your follower growth, their top locations, age, most active times etc. All this stuff can help you create a great Instagram strategy.
