How to use Instagram like a PRO in 10 steps

I was not such an early adopter with Instagram as I was with Linkedin on Facebook. The reason is probably that I do everything I can to avoid staring all day long hooked with my eyes on my mobile phone’s screen. And it was until I realized that as a marketing person and (possibly) an influencer it is a mistake my behavior. So I went further with it. My initial strategy was … leaning by doing. I knew that Instagram is great for brands but also for the personal brands. I am not the type to show off every meal I get, every cup of tea or coffee as I believe that it is better to create content which will really help people. This is one of my core beliefs. So if I am spending three hours on social media I want to create some good content in the process and share it.

Instagram is great for businesses because you can publish here behind the scenes stuff, epic promos, short videos and interact with the followers in a very special way.

So if you are asking yourself why worth doing stuff on Instagram o doing more stuff I have some answers.

In a nutshell, why people love Instagram and why you should love it too

1. It is far easier to reach your followers organically — while on Facebook you can reach 3 to 5% on Instagram you can reach 50% to 70% and some people say 100%. Really? issaasadinstagram.com/instagram_infographic

2. Since the beginning, Instagram had surpassed Twitter in numbers and quality of the traffic. Now Instagram has more traffic than Facebook and Twitter combined. mashable.com/2012/09/27/instagram-passes-twitter

3. Since users love visual content it is a proven fact that the fans and followers are 40% more likely to engage with brands that post pictures so Instagram is a great platform to follow this trend www.socialmediatoday.com/content/why-instagram-will-go-viral-2015

So while you may consider these initial assumptions historical (the links are a little bit old :)) it is great for many occasions to return to basics to understand the present and the future.

10 steps to use Instagram like a PRO

1. Check what your competitors are doing — this will help you to see what works and what doesn’t and create your way of communication.
2. Find the best hashtags — this is the proper way to reach your target group and have your content posted in front of them.
3. Create and prepare your content — at the beginning, it will seem like a daunting task but as you progress, things will get better and better through practice.
4. Set up a publishing calendar — failing to plan means planning to fail, Instagram will be like any other activity and proper planning will make achieving targets much easier.
5. Perform research about potential costumers — I believe that you want from Instagram something more than just seeing some nice pictures :). You either promote your personal brand or sell products and services or promote a brand. The reality is that it is best to use Instagram with a purpose.
6. Attract and Engage — this is by far the most important thing to consider
7. Add a link in the bio — the links you are publishing on Instagram are not clickable. The only clickable link is the one in the bio. You can add the full link o a shortened one through bit.ly or another service to also help you to track the link clicks.
8. Add VALUE — as mentioned before, we all have something to sell — this is a fact but think about adding value first before asking for the sale. It is a damn very important principle.

9. Use videos — Instagram users love video content and you can use Instagram TV to publish more and longer videos.

10. Use stories — Stories are the #1 way to create engagement on Instagram so start using it today. I have a nice piece of software which is used almost daily to create Facebook and Instagram stories and publish them. Check it here!

As you certainly know, 500 millions of users are activeInstagram every day. Some of them may be your customers. If you want to make your brand look more human, real and intimate with your customers, you should be on Instagram too.

There are ways to use Instagram as a novice and ways to use it like a pro.

Here are some tips & tricks for building up a brand on Instagram detailed:

1. Check what your competitors are doing

You will have to build your own strategy of communication. Check what your competitors are doing constantly and differentiate your brand.

How to find your competitors on Instagram

The process of finding your competitors on Instagram is very simple: Type in Google search „your competition name” Instagram e.g. „Competitor name Instagram”. You will be able to see immediately links to profiles on social networks.

Things you should look for when checking your competition:

1. What type of content is your competitor publishing — you will find lots of ideas for you
2. The frequency or how often do they publish — you will know how often you have to publish to be better than them!
3. How many followers and followings they’ve got — find out if Instagram is an important channel of communication for them

How many accounts should I analyze

I will say that it is not a fixed number here. It all depends on your niche and specifics of the industry and how creative are they. So, depending on how fast you will be able to tune your brand’s voice and message it is sometimes just a few accounts and sometimes a dozen or so.

This is not a one-off process so you need to come back to it as often possible as new competitors will arise and also old competitors will fine-tune their message so it will become harder to compete with them.

As time goes by, you will find more competitors, so your strategy will change over time. Even if you are not an expert today this research it is the easiest way to understand what is best to communicate with your target group.

At the beginning, the process will seem hard but you will become better and better by doing, I promise that!

2. Find the best hashtags “#”

The idea of hashtags is not new and looks very similar with the old days of bookmarking websites.

By using hashtags people can find your posts. Without them, there is only a small change that anyone will notice you :).

The limit of hashtags on Instagram is 30 to each post. You can say it is small or not but anyway, with 30 hashtags you can hit a wide target audience, but first you should focus on the best hashtags to reach your target customers. Your hashtags are not random creations, they have to describe your post, this is their initial purpose. If you add more than 30 hashtags you may not see any in the post as they will be deleted.

The simple process to find the best hashtags is:

Type a hashtag in the Instagram app on your phone — you will see instantly how many posts there are already and their sources, you will potentially find new competitors, influencers and customers.

What to focus on when looking for the best hashtags

• - the number of posts published
• - what type of activity they generate — likes, shares, comments
• - Who is active in engaging with the posts, could they be your potential customers?

Which are the types of hashtags you can analyze

• - there are hashtags for your business, like — #onlineshop, #onlinecoupon #business, #retail, etc.
• - hashtags describing your post, related to the content of your posts

3. Create and prepare your content

I would say to do your best and be as creative as possible so your content will not look like everyone else’s.

There are few tools very simple to use which will create magic stuff for your Instagram

1. Canva.com

Canva is nothing but an amazing tool which has a huge base of photos, fonts, and gadgets that will make your content look interesting. Canva provides many ready to use ideas for your profile on Instagram.

Here are some quotes I created very fast with canva.com

Pretty impressive, right?

2. InstaQuote

InstaQuote is a free mobile app which will change your texts into some stunning pictures. It has a free plan and paid features. Only the free plan is enough to get things off the ground.

3. Videohance

If you want to publish videos, this mobile app is great for you. You can edit them in a real time or when you finish recording. The only limitation is that your videos have to be up to 30 seconds long.

4. Over

Another mobile app which will make your photos look Instagrammable.

5. Recite

Recite is a very good desktop application that you will like if you want to publish quotes. All you need to do is to write a text and Recite will prepare a long list of ready to use photos to create memorable Instagram posts.

4. Set up a publishing calendar

As mentioned, with so many activities and so many things to do it is very easy to get overwhelmed and lose focus. And when that happens the failure is very close. With a publishing calendar everything will become much easier and you will achieve more with less effort.

When is the best time to publish on Instagram?

The best times to post on Instagram are like all the time :) http://www.quicksprout.com/2015/01/02/what-are-the-best-times-to-post-on-social-media/. This information if fom 2015 but it is still relevant to this day. To cut the story short, there are 3 best times during the day to post on Instagram.

• - in the morning
• - at the lunch time
• - in the afternoon

Note: On average, the best brands post minimum 2 times per day. So, when you start you can just do it at least once a day or once every two days.

How to create a publishing calendar?

The best way is to start creating and scheduling content in advance for 2–4 weeks. At the beginning, it will seem very hard (I’ve been there, done that but sooner things will become easier and easier).

There are 2 ways you can get your content published on Instagram

1. Published with the Instagram app and make a publishing calendar in a spreadsheet? Instagram is a mobile app which was created for publishing in real time. So initially there weren’t apps allowing you to schedule content in advance and publish from the desktop. The whole idea is to take photos and videos from Instant events and add them to Instagram. Don’t forget about it.
2. Published through a 3rd party application — as mentioned, the ideas of Instagram is to publish from your smartphone or tablet. Lately have become available apps that publish the scheduled content on your behalf like Hootsuite or Latergram. With Latergam (rebranded Later.com), the free plan allows you to publish 30 posts per month, which is great in the beginning. Latergram has a desktop version, so you can prepare your content on your computer and use previously prepared hashtags to maximize the results. You can change the publishing time very easily by moving blocks in your calendar.

5. Perform research about potential costumers

Ok, so what we’ve achieved so far: we know who are our competitors, which hashtags to use and we have content published and scheduled in the platform. So now we need followers but not any type of followers but the ones which can be transformed into customers.

Two best places to address Instagram for potential customers is:

• following and engaging people who use hashtags similar to the ones suitable for my business
• following and engaging people who are the followers of my competitors

The best free ways that will increase your follower base are:

1. Use right hashtags or usernames in the Instagram mobile app and just follow best profiles found
2. Hire a Virtual assistant or do it yourself — follow the followers of your competitors — this will eat a lot of time at least at the beginning
3. Log in to your Instagram account in web browser and follow anyone who responded to your post (like, follow, comment). You can also follow people who responded to your fans’ posts (there is a huge probability they are your potential customers).

On average 15% to 30% will follow you back. You can delete later the ones who don’t follow you — very simple.

A very important question: how many new people should I follow per day?

The magic number I will say is to engage with 100 accounts every day. This will take 30 to 60 minutes so there are some time and effort involved!

Very important point — the refollow on Instagram. The users don't get notified when you unfollow them. but if you started following them again it will notify that you started following them so they will realize that you have unfollowed them before :) Yes. They get a notification when you re-follow them.

What to do with people who don’t re-follow me?

• - leave them alone :) and try to pull them in a different way
• - give them some time and try again in a few weeks

This is a very detailed activity. If you don’t have time for it hire a Virtual Assistant.

6. Attract and Engage

This is the most important Instagram Marketing Strategy! It really doesn’t matter how many followers you’ve got. If nobody is responding to your posts it’s like you don’t exist on Instagram at all and this is very bad. That’s why it is very important to use suitable hashtags.

A long time ago Instagram deleted hundreds of fake accounts but there are still many of them. Sooner or later they will also be deleted. You can also still buy crazy amounts of followers (described as real people). In most cases they are fake accounts and you may hurt your Instagram activity and the marketing efforts big time.

How to engage with your followers on Instagram

On Instagram you can engage with your followers in a few ways: liking posts, following users, sending direct messages, commenting on a photo/video.

How many pictures should I like per day?

If you anyway spend a lot of time on social media, use this time wisely. I would say to stick between 50 to 100 daily. At the beginning, it seems a lot but over time it will be easier and easier.

But, really, how to do it? The main ways to do that are:

1. In the Instagram mobile app — search for a hashtag and click on hearts under photos displayed
2. In a web browser — login to your Instagram account in the web browser and like pictures peoples’ who clicked like or commented your post (pretty easy, huh?)
3. Use an application designed for it — there are apps you can use to like the pictures and do other Instagram stuff.

Follow people on Instagram with some help of the tools

I will say to use any tools in a very ethical manner and don’t overuse by any means because you can have your account banned. There are some useful tools like Crowdfire that can help you out with this task. With Crowdfire following and unfollowing users is simple and very easy. However, this kind of applications got limits of actions per hour. You can do 100–150 actions like follow/unfollow per hour which if you ask me should be enough for 1 day of activity of follow/ unfollow not to raise red flags.

Send Direct Messages on Instagram

This option has been available for some time. You are allowed to send a direct message to one or many (max. 15) users. Take good care here because you can be reported for spam which could be very bad. It is important to know that direct message recipients don’t have to be your followers but they have to accept the communication from you.

What can you use Direct Messages for

• you can send a personalised offer
• communicate with influencers or potential customers
• just say hello

Comment on Instagram with emojis

Comments on Instagram are very very simple, for example: ‘cool, awesome, beautiful’ etc. There is a fantastic article by Anthony Thompson about using emojis on Instagram. His Instagram profile engagement increased 3x after using emojis. As I started using his tips, I see that our followers are much more likely to be active. Seems that Instagramers really like this way of communication.

The best options to comment on Instagram

1. Instagram mobile app — you have to click on bubble under a photo to comment. Remember that you can comment user’s pics who you don’t follow and who is not your follower. Don’t forget about emojis and add them as they work very well! ☺
2. In a web browser — all you need to do is log in to your Instagram account to comment, but if you want to use emojis try this Chrome plugin:
3. Use an app that allows posting comments — not every app that helps to manage Instagram accounts has the option to comment so check this carefully in the apps you are using.

7. Add a link in the bio

Probably the most underused feature, but actually one of the most important. Use the full link or create a shortened link for your Instagram account to your website or to wherever you want to take the users, because if you don’t do that, every visit will be counted as direct traffic and you won’t be able to know that it comes from Instagram. So, don’t forget about this One of the simplest way is to use bit.ly for it and then measure it with apps like Colibri IO.

Where to point your link in your bio

• if you are selling products and have a special offer or a sale set link to this sale. Also when posting a new photo, don’t forget to let your followers know about it — “please click the link in the bio or similar stuff”.
• if you want your followers to read your newest article, change your link in bio to that article and in the post encourage them to read it. “check my latest article in the bio”.
• when you plan an event or you have a contest, change your link in your bio and when you post new pictures say “check the link in my bio for …”.

8. Add VALUE

As mentioned before, adding value will never get out of style and this is very important because if you create value, sooner or later you will trigger the reciprocity trigger with your followers and they will feel that they owe you something and will click, like, engage, sign-up, purchase and become raving fans. So add value 80% of the time and ask something 20% of the time. O even better 90% to 10%.

9. Use videos

Besides photos use videos like crazy in posts, broadcast live videos and also add videos to the Instagram TV feature. Don’t post crap, but post stuff which could be useful for your audience.

10. Use stories

How often are you on social media? Like…ALL the time, right? And, whether they admit it or not, so is everyone else. Nowadays, most people are spending their time on STORIES. Stories are showing up at the TOP of FB and IG and growing 15x FASTER than posting on the actual news feed. 300 Million+ Users are interacting with FB and IG Stories! So, now we know that Stories are where all the eyeballs are at… But, creating effective Stories on FB and IG can be a time-comsuming pain-in-the-rear, right? Well, not anymore…

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