Instagram continues to be a fascinating platform for its users. It has proved to be one of the most lucrative platforms for marketers and brands to raise engagement and connect with consumers on a more personal level.
According to research, 90% of Instagram users follow at least one brand on the platform. It shows that the users are open to engaging with brands on a social platform. However, marketing on Instagram subtly, without disrupting the personal surfing experience of the user, is a skill marketers need to hone.
The question you might have is, what can you do to stand out from other brands and create a highly engaged presence on Instagram?
It’s challenging but also essential to navigate through and utilize new features to meet customer expectations. So why not put your creative skills to use and build a focused and powerful community on Instagram?
Below are some of the Instagram content ideas you can try out to strike a chord with your audience.
Showcase workplace and culture
While this may not be at the top of the list of things you’d like to post on Instagram, think of how you can humanize your brand. The point of brands connecting on social platforms is to show a relatable and humane side of your company. What’s the best way to do that than to show how people-focused your brand is?
The audience is generally curious about the interesting people that work behind the scenes. A lot of brands have dedicated pages where they exclusively post about company values, diversity, work culture, company events, holiday celebrations, etc.
One example is the digital adoption platform WalkMe. It shares its diverse workforce, employee testimonials, awards earned, and company events.
As a brand, you get to show a different perspective to your followers and may even encourage them to apply to your company.
Respond to audience comments
Commenting is one of the most effective ways to start a two-way engagement on Instagram. Joining the community in their conversations makes your followers seen and excited. You don’t have to reply to all the comments.
You just want your organic social media content to reach and impact as many potential customers as possible. The more you respond to audience comments, the more they’ll see your business on the platform.
Answering key queries via comments can also directly impact your sales. You can also generate engagement by asking your followers for their opinions on something low-stakes. Just ensure that it’s relevant to your brand.
The comments also need to be consistent and address customer issues. For example, with a following of more than a million, Four Seasons makes it a point to keep the comment section engaging with their regular responses in the comment section.
Share quizzes and puzzles
You can conduct numerous experiments with Instagram stories and stickers. It is one of the best steps to build a loyal community that feels connected to your brand. You can use stories to conduct polls, questions, and quizzes since active participation from users results in better engagement than simply talking and posting about your brand.
A pop quiz is an informative strategy to introduce your brand and spread awareness to viewers. You can simply pose a question from a quiz sticker on Instagram and ask audiences to fill in choices. You can also use question stickers to entice curiosity and play guessing games about new releases.
For example, an oiling brand decided to gather business insights through an Instagram poll sticker, asking users directly what they wanted to know from the company.
Use product teasers
When you release a new product, all you want is for it to get as much publicity as possible. Although, you’d want to be careful. You cannot be too pushy, which is why it’s best to post product teasers. You can create a series of stories indicating a product launch to excite the target audience.
To create successful, engaging, easier campaigns, just provide enough details about the product to pique the curiosity of your audience. Here are some Instagram content ideas to do so:
- Countdown. Every day you can upload a picture or a story with a number indicating the number of days left before you launch the product.
- “Coming soon” posts. Go for something brief but very compelling instead of monotone information. Let the image or story do the rest of the talking for you.
- Hashtags. Have a dedicated hashtag for the teaser, and use it whenever you upload a new post or someone shares it.
- Collaborations. You can collaborate with influencers to tease your new launches and other products.
Run a flash sale
A lot of people are ready to make purchases via social media. Instagram has become a popular platform for B2C sales since 26% of Instagram users use the platform to find and purchase new products. You can take advantage of your stories for flash sales. They’re short and encourage customers to make a quick purchase, so they don’t miss out on the opportunity.
The type of sales can range from stock products to giveaways and quick discounts on exclusive products. It also encourages the users to check out your stories more often since they don’t want to miss out on future flash sales. This Instagram content idea is a great sales tactic and also directly affects your engagement level on Instagram.
Debunk industry myths
Not everything you read or engage with on social media has credibility and is the truth. Naturally, you’d find a lot of misconceptions that you hear about your products or anything related to your industry. You can use this opportunity to debunk industry myths occurring due to a lack of knowledge and word-of-mouth.
Taking the stance of an expert helps you get an authentic following and establishes you as a thought leader. You’re also eventually building a trusted brand.
For example, as a pioneer in space, NASA is known to have an active presence on its Instagram, where it regularly educates its followers about space in a comprehensive way. It also ropes industry experts to discuss certain topics and engage viewers.
Publish testimonials
Instead of having to publish original content regularly, you can ask people to share posts featuring your products and use a specific hashtag that goes with it. User-generated content provides the dose of freshness your social media needs on a regular basis. It also promotes awareness of your brand through the use of hashtags and shares.
You can ask users to tag you in their posts, reels, and videos and promote how others see your product and use it in their own lives. However, give credit to users when you share their images.
For example, a majority of Airbnb’s Instagram engagement is driven by user-generated content. Their customers post pictures and reels about unique homes, experiences, and destinations around the world. It advertises its services through testimonials and allows its customers to share their experiences with Airbnb’s millions of followers.
Share appealing carousels
With its carousels feature, Instagram allows you to share not just one but up to 10 pictures, videos, and text graphics with your audience — all accumulated in one single post. There are a couple of reasons why this is beneficial for you.
Firstly, you get to include different types of content within one post. Secondly, you don’t have to spam your followers’ feeds with one post after another. Lastly, they surface in users’ feeds more than once, which means carousel posts can double the opportunity for likes, comments, and shares. For example, check out this infographic that Refinery29 shared on its Instagram page. It got creative with its in-image, too, urging the user to swipe right.
Carousels also offer a great opportunity to spread out the information amongst multiple posts. You can share a step-by-step carousal that gives out bits of information instead of sharing them all at once. It’s a perfect Instagram content idea if you want to share educational materials or support a social cause. Every slide can drive your engagement.
Post influencer endorsements
As a brand, you probably have a limited number of followers compared to individuals. So if you want your content to reach as many people as possible, you’d want to leverage influencers who comparatively enjoy a more authentic and loyal following.
If you’re selling products and services to a younger generation, influencer marketing campaigns are the go-to tactic to follow, since 34% of Gen-Z social media users follow influencers on social media. Some of the top examples of Instagram influencer campaigns are McDonald’s with Travis Scott, Dunkin’ Donuts with Charli D’Amelio, Levi’s with Jaden Smith, etc.
Wrapping up
Social media engagement is a constant work in progress. To stay ahead of the game, you have to experiment with new forms of content to drive engagement. These engagement strategies on Instagram gives you an insight into your prospective customers’ mind and gauge what content works best for them.
Next time you’re planning to scale your engagement on Instagram, try to incorporate as many of these Instagram content ideas as possible. But don’t take our word for it. You can also use your creativity and watch the engagement gradually rise up.
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