The Purpose of the Platform: Instagram Social Strategy
Updated: Oct 4, 2022
Your time and effort are significant factors in your social strategy. When choosing how to spend your resources, it’s essential to consider the purpose of your social. A key factor for each social network is the demographics that use the platforms. Does this audience match up to your target market?
For example, many service professionals feel that they need to jump onto every new social platform that comes out, but your time is better spent focusing on the ones that will be most effective. To learn more about developing your social focus, read our article Develop Your Social Focus: How to Determine Your Audience, Platforms, and Content.
Not only does it matter about who uses the platform, but also what kind of content you want to share. If you’re mostly sharing articles, and long-form content, Instagram might not be your best option. Facebook and LinkedIn are a great platform to share articles and educate your audience through links and blogs.
We’re going to be taking a look at the Instagram platform to highlight critical elements for your strategy. Instagram is extremely visual; you need high-quality images and a strong brand message to succeed on this platform. Your social strategy should focus on your hashtag strategy, visuals, and your brand’s voice. It takes time to succeed on Instagram, but the results are worth your time and effort.
Brand Image:
Instagram is not an easy platform to succeed on; it takes time and skill to find your style. You should be comfortable making videos, stories, and promoting yourself. Consider your brand’s color, tone, and purpose when creating your content.
Consistency is important. You want to make sure your posts align with your brand’s message and theme. Another important point for Instagram is that your posts need to have high engagement in order to improve reach. Use professional photography or, at the very least, high-quality images to enhance your content’s reach. You also need to focus your strategy on engagement and audience growth. Currently, stories and IGTV are performing well on Instagram when it comes to engagement, so start using these features.
Your voice is another key element of your social strategy on Instagram. The commentary that you include with your posts should leave readers wanting more, and help them get to know you. Your visual content will capture their attention, but your captions will keep them engaged. To learn more about voice, read our article, Developing Your Voice on Social Media Through Clear Messaging and Authenticity.
Hashtag – Discoverability
Hashtags are central to Instagram’s algorithm, so you should spend some time building a hashtag cloud, for more information, read our article, Building Your Brand’s Hashtag Cloud.
Some best practices include mixing up your hashtags based on their popularity and using tags related to your content. You also should be posting your hashtags in the first comment of your post.
Social media can take some time to grow and for you to see some return from your efforts. How much time do you have every week to dedicate to building your brand’s online presence? Be realistic and set smart goals. Additionally, create your strategy around your life, and you will be able to improve your social media presence over time.