Best Practices On Instagram - Social Media Unicorn

Instagram is a terrific avenue for brands to promote their products and attract new users. And it’s easy right? Well, not exactly. Ensuring success on Instagram is much more than simply throwing a new image up every few days. If your brand wants to stand out from the 500 million other accounts on the platform, you’ll need tips on how to rise above the noise. Luckily, we’ve listed our top tips below. Keep in mind that each and every brand is different along with their overall goals so while our advice should resonate with many brands out there, you should still tailor these to your needs.

Are we missing anything? Tell us in the comments.

1. POST FREQUENCY: When you post matters just as much as what you post. Late in the day (4:20PM PST) and Thursday and Friday evenings going into holiday weekends will always out perform Monday at high noon posts. This is due to the sheer volume of people actively using Instagram during these times. Once daily is a must, but the top performing accounts are usually posting at least 2-3 times during these peak times.

2. QUALITY HASHTAGS: Study top performing hashtags and make sure that you are posting things that are starting to trend or currently trending. The more diverse the hashtags, the better. It can be tempting to continue to post the same type of content if it’s working, but you’ll gain a bigger audience if you stay diversified.

3. SHARE, SHARE, SHARE: Sharing the love is the name of the game. You want to be sharing user generated content and crediting users. Social media is truly at it’s best when the user is the star of the brand’s show. You should be spending at least 30-60 minutes per day commenting on other posts and accounts who you want to engage. This will help increase our exposure and give the brand an authentically engaged feeling.

4. ASK FOR TAGS: Asking users to “tag a friend” is a useful audience growth strategy. This way your audience will become your unpaid influencers sharing your brand for you. A strategy around a paid influencer campaign will always help, but you can start by asking users to tag a friend in posts at no cost.

5. USE THE RIGHT FILTERS: The right filter can make all the difference. Filters with higher exposure, warmer temperatures, and higher contrast are the best ones to choose when posting. Properly filtered photos are 21% more likely to be viewed and 45% more likely to be commented on than non-filtered photos.

6. HAPPY FACE: Emojis perform super well on Instagram. Emojis help to draw in the audience and are a universal method of expression. Sometimes all you need to say for the post can be said in emojis. Try to make sure you incorporate at least one emoji per post.

7. VIDEO: Fun fact: less than 10% of all Instagram posts are currently video, yet they garner 18% of all comments. Video is highly engaging and will hold audience attention even longer than a photo, so make sure you are incorporating lots of video.

8. CONTESTS: Getting competitive around user generated content is always a great strategy. One of our clients did this around Valentine’s Day and got some great content. Having an Instagram specific contest for user generated content is a very effective way to incentivize your audience for their engagement.

9. THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Show off your knowledge! This helps to solidify your presence an authority in the cannabis space or whatever area you work in. Also, make sure that you are posting “read more by clicking on the link in our bio”. This will help to drive that valuable traffic back to your website.

With these tips, some great photos and a few minutes per day, your brand will be on its way to Instagram stardom in no time. Follow our Instagram now!