How to be successful on Instagram? A complete guide

Every developer, marketer or blogger is dreaming about being successful in the social media. Thousands of followers, sales, leads, huge income. However, people are still don`t understand how to achieve this success – they don`t have a perfect recipe. So, to solve this huge problem, we prepared a short article to tell you how to be successful on Instagram – one of the most popular social media platforms of our days.

1. Analyze and prepare your content strategy

First of all, you should clearly understand what you are going to post and what types of content you will use. It could be images (classic Instagram content), videos, GIFs or even series of photos combined with videos. Of course, it depends on what targets you have and which type of content is better for your audience. If you see that people enjoy videos more than images, you should start posting videos more often.

We have four basic steps that you should follow while working on your content strategy:

• Research the best points in your industry. First of all, track your competitors. Find at least five of them and documents their top posts within the last few months. Mark all commonalities and see what works.
• Start building a plethora of content around a similar theme or idea. Plan a pack of post that you will be using during one or two months. adjust them to your social media calendar and ensure each post has a consistent vibe.
• Generate unique content. Someone can say that it is an empty step of the plan. Think again – social media users are expecting that you will surprise them with every new post. You should be ready to do that, because in other case you will lose your audience.
• Invest in photo editing tools for your content. It doesn`t matter what program you use – you content should be in the highest quality.

2. Create and use your own branded hashtags

Followers often think that marketers use hashtags only to increase engagement. Well, it`s not the only reason. Th informational flow is growing every second, so you need to mark your content out of all images and videos collected on Instagram.

Create simple and memorable hashtag that will help users to find you and your posts in the global feed.

3. Add call-to-action to your post

If you want to be successful on Instagram, you shouldn`t only post images and add hashtags. People won`t buy your products if you won`t show them the way to your store. So, you should add a link or, at least, tell them where to find it. The best practice of using call-to-action on Instagram is to add phrase like “our new collections are now available in the store. Link in bio” in the post description. Try this and see what happens next…

4. Engage with Instagram users

Followers hate when marketers ask them to share their opinion in comments and then see that there is no reaction on it. They wasted their time on typing a comment, and you didn`t answer to it? You are a very bad marketer.

If you want to build good relationship with your customers, you need to react on their comments or messages they send. Of course, if it is a spam, skip it and move to the next, but if person shares some good thoughts, you must react on it. Don`t write too much – a short phrase will be enough. Let them know that you read their comments and their opinion is important for them!

5. Connect with influencers

Many brands incorporated user-generated content to connect with users, collaborate on content and promote one another`s Instagram. However, they don`t need to turn all Instagram users into followers. Instead, they need to find influencers that will help brands to increase engagement and the discussion around the company.

Find the right people and, believe us, you will see the real result.