How To Best Utilise Instagram

Are you looking for easy and quick ways that will make your Instagram strategy work better? In this blog post, we are sharing some Instagram tips that will help you save time, grow your following, and build a more engaged audience without additional work.

Post When Most Of Your Audience Is Active

Do you post just when it feels right for you or at the same time every day?

You could be missing out on some serious engagement. You have to figure out your personalized best time to post on Instagram as each Instagram account has a unique audience with followers located in different time zones.

The Instagram algorithm is prioritizing "new" content on your followers' feed. Therefore identifying key posting times for your profile and scheduling your Instagram posts at those times can help you reach more followers and get more engagement.

You can find your audience analysis in Instagram insights. Instagram insights offer followers' location, gender, age, and the time when they are most active on Instagram. Keep in mind that in order to access insights, your account has to be set up as an Instagram creator profile or Instagram business profile. Read here whether you should use Instagram Business or Creator profile.

Invest Time Into Hashtag Strategy

Using relevant and targeted hashtags is a great way of getting organic reach and attracting new audiences. Keep in mind that your Instagram profile has to be public in order to be discovered on the corresponding hashtag page.

Hashtags are used with an intent to discover content, therefore the right hashtags can put you in front of your target audience. Posts that have hashtags get on average 12.6% more engagement, which means that investing some time into your hashtag strategy is important. One of the best ways to find relevant and trendy hashtags is to check what your audience, competitors / similar accounts, and industry leaders are using.

We would suggest utilizing all 30 hashtags in the first comment of the post and breaking the hashtag strategy down to different pillars:

• Inspirational / Lifestyle hashtags
• Hashtags related to the photo
• Trendy / Growth Hashtags

Also, keep in mind that you should be updating your hashtags regularly. Look at the performance of the hashtags used in the past to decide what hashtags to use again in the future - track how many people landed on the profile based on the hashtags you've used.

Moreover, you can utilize hashtags on your Instagram stories too. We would suggest adding 2-3 hashtags.

Hashtags on the story should be smaller so that it doesn't ruin the photo aesthetics.

Use Instagram Story Templates

Instagram stories continue to grow in popularity and it's important to post them as often as Instagram posts. The design of aesthetically pleasing Instagram stories can take a lot of time, therefore we suggest using Instagram Stories templates which can save you a lot of time. By using similar templates for your Instagram stories, you can create cohesive stories that will align with your profile. Don't forget to read more on Instagram Story Tricks.

Repurpose Instagram Lives to IGTV, Stories, and Feed Videos

Going live on Instagram is one of the best ways to connect with your audience in a direct, transparent, and authentic way. But instead of your Live disappearing, once it’s over, you can repurpose this content across your Instagram profile.

There are three different ways you can do that:

Share Instagram Live Videos To Your Instagram Story

Use video editing apps to trim your Live content to Instagram Stories 15-second clips. Think about it - was there any special tip that you shared in your Live that you want to also post on stories, or maybe any special announcements like for example the launch of your new Podcast? You can also put important tips on your Story Highlights.

Share Instagram Live Videos To Your Feed

As you can now download your Live videos, you can edit them in video editing apps like Magisto or InShot to cut your footage and add background music.
Keep in mind that Instagram videos in your feed can only be 1-minute long, so choose your favorite snippet to share.

Share Instagram Live Videos To Your IGTV

As Instagram Live increased enormously in its popularity, Instagram announced new features like a new button that allows you to upload your Instagram Live directly to IGTV. When you select an option to upload Live to IGTV, you can add IGTV cover image, a title, and write a caption. You can share videos that are more than 1-minute long as IGTV to your feed.
Building your IGTV strategy is a smart step as Instagram is about to launch a new feature with monetization opportunities for IGTV.

Reusing your Live footage also means more content for Instagram and it's a great way to get more eyes on your account and reach new audiences. Extending the time that your Live content is visible on your profile will continue driving audiences to your video.

Share Carousel Posts With Valuable Content To Educate

Carousel posts are the best way to share valuable information with your audience, to make them more engaged, and to strike up meaningful conversations. If the information would only be in the caption it could be overlooked, while the carousel post is more eye-catchy.

Learn More About Your Audience

By tracking key Instagram metrics, you can truly understand how your content performs, which is the key to developing a content strategy that works for your account. For example, by tracking engagement data (likes, comments, clicks), you are able to tell which type of photos performs best so you know what kind of content you should be posting more of.

Instagram analytics allows you to understand what your audience wants and how to improve your content.