Social media is helping businesses to raise their brand awareness. Communicating with customers on social media is easier. But reaching out to your right audience on social media is quite challenging, as it is popular with high traffic. As businesses are realizing the importance of social media, competition is catching pace.
While talking about social media marketing there are not only Facebook and LinkedIn. But, Instagram is getting popular with time and the interaction of the audience with content has increased immensely on this platform of late, especially in the last 4-5 years. The standardized importance of Instagram increased with its rich interface.
Thereby, it won’t be wrong to say that not for image sharing and uploading by individuals, but businesses can too leverage this product to pitch to their prospective consumers, sharing valuable, fun and creative content. However, this can be done only when businesses use Instagram marketing strategies and win the online market.
Some Key Facts About Instagram:
- Instagram has more than 1B+ active monthly users.
- Around 500 million daily Instagram Stories are posted on Instagram.
- Instagram is the second most accessed social media network after Facebook.
- About 71% of businesses use Instagram in the USA.
- Nearly 45% of Instagram’s users are between the ages of 18 and 44.
All the stats show that Instagram is a global platform that allows brands to recruit new talent. It also helps businesses to showcase products, humanize their content, and inspire their audience.
It allows businesses to market their products and services interactively and authentically. Over 130 million users interact with shopping content every month. Let’s get to understand the in-depth marketing strategy for Instagram.
Table of Contents
- What is the Instagram algorithm?
- How does the Instagram algorithm work?
- The Role of Hashtags
- How is Digital Marketing Easy with Instagram?
- The storytelling concept
- Importance of Visual Content
- 2022 changes to the Instagram algorithm
- Hacks to rank your content on Instagram
What is the Instagram Algorithm?
The “algorithm” is coined for the set of rules to rank content on that particular platform. It gets to decide the types and order of the content to show in the user feed as per its interest and previous behavior. The Explore Page, the Reels feed, and hashtag pages are personalized by Instagram periodically.
Instagram analyzes every piece of the posted content. It accounts for the alt text, captions, hashtags, and engagement metrics into account. Instagram aims to distribute content to ensure users find the content of their interest easily.
In simple words, Instagram tries to synchronize user behavior and posts like images, reels, stories, etc.
How does the Instagram algorithm work?
Every time a user opens Instagram, the algorithm goes through the entire content available in real-time and serves the most personalized one to the user.
The primary Instagram algorithm counts for major 3 ranking factors that play a major role in content listing in the feed of relevant audiences:
- Relationship between the author and the viewer.Â
If you follow each other, text each other, leave comments, share, or like their post, these things show continuous interaction. Brands need to show active community management and interact with their audience.
- Interest
If a user frequently interacts with a similar type of content to yours then, Instagram will start listing your content in that person’s feed.
- Relevancy
Instagram decides the relevancy of content based on time and trending topics. The Latest posted content is considered the most relevant.
Secondary Instagram algorithm counts ranking factors include frequency of user activity on the platform, number of accounts followed by the person, session time, etc.
Source: ilfusion.medium.com
Beyond the core rules and regulations, this is how Instagram distributes the relevant content to the respective audiences:
Instagram algorithm for stories and posts
Post information: This factor checks out the number of likes, tags, location, and post timing, helping Instagram to figure out the relevancy.
History of interaction with the author: Instagram tracks the frequency of interaction between the user and the author of the content.
Frequency of user activity on the platform: As much as you interact with the app, it will better personalize the content.
Instagram algorithm for reelsÂ
Similar to the posts and stories, everything works the same in this case. Just the song selection and trending ones, help you to rank your reel and get views.
Role of hashtags in Instagram marketingÂ
Properly using hashtags help your posts reach the maximum number of users. Hashtags were rooted in Twitter and now widely giving exposure to the variety of posts on Instagram.
Hashtags benefit most in terms of organic growth. If you want your target audience to interact with your business, then you can use the most relevant hashtags.Â
How is Digital Marketing Easy with Instagram?
Instagram is no longer being introduced as a personal platform only. But, it is representing a lavish balance between the personalized user experience and serving a great marketing platform.
Instagram is a highly intuitive and passive means of marketing. Here, the brands create an aura and then earn the highest of expectations.
The storytelling conceptsÂ
People still enjoy stories as most people grew up hearing stories. This is the reason celebrity news catches the audience’s attention faster. Storytelling is the benefit that comes from human behavior. So if a business knows to use this concept in marketing with the shortest form of stories, then they can perform well ahead.
Importance of Visual Content
Visuals are the most intuitive content on the Internet currently. Photos are likely to be 650% more engaging than text-only posts. As a result, Instagram is gaining user popularity as per its user interface and other features.
Use Instagram to resonate brand engagement with the audience through visuals. Images used on Instagram can be incorporated with the visuals used in blogs and email newsletters to build a robust brand image in a highly synchronized manner.
How much and what you are providing matters secondarily. But how are you representing your stuff matters most. So, focus on visuals specifically in Instagram marketing.
Understanding the latest Instagram algorithm
Instagram is used to list posts in a feed according to the timing and the people a user follows. Now the new update is loaded with AI features where machine learning also works. Now users see reels and other relevant posts too as per interest. Yet, few A grade celebrities opposed this update saying to make Instagram, Instagram again. But audiences are liking this new update and now it is introducing a great means of content representation to the different creators.
Hacks to rank your content on Instagram
Algorithms are complicated to follow but they reward quality content. Here you will get to know the hacks to grow your brand engagement with the power of the Instagram algorithm. Incorporate different interactive visual content like images, videos, animations, and infographics.
Respect the community guidelines
While posting any story, feed or reel, keep the guidelines in mind. Because Instagram limits the visibility of the content with something against the app’s Community Guidelines. Sensitive content, low-quality visuals, political content, etc. is likely to be less distributed widely.
Go creative with reels
Carefully follow, observe and study the creator accounts on Instagram. Use trending music, songs, etc. bring filters in use carefully. Shoot reels in vertical mode and use engaging transitions.
Schedule posts at the correct time for maximum engagement
Audience interaction is all that defines the success and performance of your content over the internet. Sometimes content is not able to reach the right audiences, it becomes old on Instagram as millions of posts are uploaded over Instagram in a day. For this, you need to understand the right time to post on Instagram.
Source: Hootsuite.com
Create engaging content
Maximize use of Instagram Stories, question stickers, emoji sliders, and polls in your Instagram stories. It will increase the engagement. As the term engagement is a must and a huge for Instagram and other social media platforms also like, LinkedIn.
Maintain consistency
Post consistently, neither keep a long break in between nor post many together. Posting regularly will help the audience to get a good intro and become used to your content.
Different social media platforms offer a different marketing aura. Specifically, all types of businesses are finding their buyers and customers over Instagram. It makes Instagram the most preferred platform for marketing. Following the algorithms along with curating exclusive content. Both are very important for faster success on highly competitive social media platforms like Instagram.
Conclusion
All hacks and algorithmic approaches are prepared by in-depth research processes. These activities are performed by the leading social media marketing and SEO companies. You can check out the best tools for social media management or reach out to an expert digital marketing company to get these all done in one go.
