Instagram has changed. There are three things you need to know if you want to get better results: creat more effective, higher converting, more profitable social media marketing campaigns for your business.
I. INSTAGRAM MARKETING STRATEGY #1 : CONFIRM – CONNECT – CONVERT
This 3 parts not only works on Instagram but applies equally well to any other social media network you decide to apply. I’ll show you exactly what it means and how to use it to get more leads, customers and sales than ever before.
The key to Instagram success hinges on two crucial elements: your audience and the algorithm. Get these wrong, and no matter how brilliant, funny, or creative your content is, it won’t gain traction. Additionally, all social media platforms, including Instagram, thrive on something called ATTENTION ARBITACE.
Think of your Instagram account as a mini-website for your business, rather than just a social media profile. This website is designed to do three specific things in a specific order. First, you need to confirm that visitors to your bio, viewers of your content, and engagers of your feed (sounds like an old fantasy movie). Anyway, know they’re in the right place and understand what you offer.
You need to make sure that your bio is optimized for conversions by being again crystal clear on what you do and why you’re worth following. Make sure your name and title are clear and easy to understand. Use links to guide people on where they should go next. Make sure to use a high-quality image for your profile picture. If you’re going to have multiple links in your bio, then make sure that the most important one is perched right there at the top.
- CONNECT which you are going to do in 2 ways
- The first is by strategically posting your content at the best possible times.
According to this report, that’s Mondays from 10:00 a.m. to noon, Tuesdays from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., and Wednesdays from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and Friday from Friday from 9:00 to 11:00 pm.The best days to post appear to be Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and the worst day to post looks like Sunday.
Also, an important note here: it’s safe to assume that these times are meant for the local time of your target audience. So, if you’re in London and your target audience is in London, then post, say, Monday from 10:00 a.m. to noon in London time. But if you’re in London but your target market is, say, in Vancouver, then post on Monday from 10:00 a.m. to noon Vancouver time. Most important of all, though, is that these times are really just GUIDELINES. So, the best thing you can do is log into your Instagram analytics to find the dates and times that your audience is most active and then post.
- Using Instagram to actually chat with people.
It said years ago conversations are the new leads. And if it was true back then, well, it’s even more true today where authenticity, engagement, and having genuine conversations with people really is the gateway to building a bigger and better business. Now, if you can respond to each comment manually, go for it! On the other hand, if your Instagram inbox is more of the overflowing variety, then using an AUTOMATION SOFTWARE SOLUTION can be a lifesaver.
Once you’ve confirmed and connected well, you now have the opportunity to move on to the convert stage – ManyChat.
If you’re exploring new strategies to boost your Instagram ENGAGEMENT. REACH, CONVERSIONS. Then you definitely want to check out ManyChat. It’s an Instagram DM automation tool that’s transforming how brands and creators interact on the platform. ManyChat is also an official Meta Business Partner and approved for Instagram use, which makes it a must-have tool for effective engagement.
ManyChat gives you the power to engage users directly through comments or DMs, sending them information automatically.
This approach not only increases engagement but also exposes your content to a BROADER AUDIENT. Plus, it shifts sales conversations to DMS where they have a higher likelihood of converting and allow for personalized interaction and follow-up questions, something that’s basically impossible with traditional Bio links.
Ultimately, what ManyChat does is turn every Instagram post, story (real or live), into a dynamic conversation starter.
Making the switch from Bio links to DMs can increase your click-through rate from a mere 1% to a very impressive 46%!
With every comment becoming a potential conversation and every conversation turning into a potential sale. You can start leveraging ManyChat to supercharge your sales and interactions on Instagram. You can use it for free for up to 1,000 contacts, and the pro version starts at just $15 a month.
II. INSTAGRAM MARKETING STRATEGY #2 : AUDIENCE & ALGORITHMS
Winning on social media all comes down to just two simple things – the audience and the algorithms. In both cases, the key to getting more REACH, more ENGAGEMENT, and more FOLLOWERS really just comes down to giving them exactly what they want.
The real good news here is that they both want pretty much exactly the same things: Your audience wants content that’s interesting, entertaining, educational, or valuable; and the algorithms want you to create content that’s interesting, entertaining, educational, or valuable.
Because these are the kind of things that are going to keep your audience engaged and on the platform for as long as possible, which is going to allow Instagram to make a whole lot more money.
The secret to creating content that both your audience and the algorithms absolutely love comes down to combining two different ingredients or elements, pieces, little Lego blocks stacked together.
Part one is the message and the actual content itself. Part two is the way that the content and message are packaged and presented to the audience when published to social media.
- The message and the actual content itself
How to create truly viral-worthy content that gets engagement, followers, and shares every time you post.
- The way that the content and message are packaged and presented to the audience when published to social media
Indeed, the efficacy of a message hinges entirely upon its visibility. Currently, a specific format dominates most, if not all, social media platforms: SHORT – FORM VERTICAL VIDEO. While these are referred to as Reels on Instagram and Facebook, Shorts on YouTube, and simply native video (without limitations on length or orientation) on LinkedIn, TikTok just calls them Video TikTok.
But whatever you call them isn’t important here. What is important is the question of how you can create short-form content that captures the hearts, minds, eyeballs, and wallets of your ideal target market.
III. INSTAGRAM MARKETING STRATEGY #3 : ATTENTION ARBITRAGE
When I first started marketing well over 10 years ago now, blogging and having an SEO (Search Engine Optimized) blog was the key to success. This is because Google was the primary traffic driver for most businesses out there.
Having a high-ranking website or a high ranking blog was a virtual guaranteed payday. I remember taking countless courses on Blogging and Keyword research, Writing, Content Marketing, and WordPress Hosting – basically anything and everything that went into running a successful blog. You see, what happened was that social media platforms took over as the primary traffic driver for many businesses. They started coming on the scene and changing Consumer behavior and Content Preferences, which meant I needed to pivot.If Instagram isn’t a key part of your social media strategy or you’re not really attacking it with a kind of all Hands-On deck mentality then you probably need to Pivot too.
Attention Arbitrage which is all about identifying the platforms, channels, and media opportunities that are offering a disproportionate amount of reach engagement and attention in comparison to other platforms. Instagram is fighting pretty hard to come out on top with over two billion monthly active users. Instagram is a giant. It doesn’t matter what business or Market or industry. You’re in the ODS are pretty good that you’re going to find a substantially large chunk of your ideal target market: PRESENT, ACTIVE and ENGAGING on the platform.
While achieving success may appear straightforward, it is crucial to recognize that competitors are equally aware of this principle. Therefore, mere presence is not sufficient; rather, a strategic approach that leverages the right content for the right audience is paramount. The question of why certain content achieves viral status, while others remain obscure, continues to perplex many, even within the general population.
If you asked most people why they think some things go viral while other pieces of content go completely ignored, you’re likely to hear something along the lines of it just being PURE DUMB LUCK, CHANCE, maybe FATE, some freak occurrence that caused a magical piece of content to get millions, if not billions of impressions. But the fact is, while nobody can guarantee that a specific piece of content is going to rack up hundreds of millions of views, there are certain characteristics and elements that all pieces of viral content seem to have in common. In other words, you can’t make something go viral, but if something is going to go viral, it’s probably going to have these elements in it – elements that you can learn, use, and apply to give all of your content the highest likelihood of success possible.
In his book Contagious, author Jonah Berger shares what makes things popular, get shared, and go viral. Most viral content delivers some kind of emotional charge, whether positive through feelings of awe, excitement, or humor, or negative through things like anger or anxiety. It is important to understand that emotions are a far more powerful driver in sales and marketing than just straight-up logic and facts could ever hope to be.
The next element is Practical value: people share things that help other people. Not only does this make them feel good by helping someone else out, but it also makes them look good themselves through a psychological phenomenon known as the HALO EFFECT – whereby sharing good things people are more likely to associate good things with you.
Next is TRIGGERS – one of the most interesting and powerful viral factors. Of all triggers, sights and sounds and other stimuli that remind us of related products and ideas are the most common. The perfect example of this is when NASA landed a Rover on Mars, and Mars, the chocolate bar about the planet, saw an increase in sales because of all the media attention Mars, the planet.
Now, I appreciate you may not own a business named after a planet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find other ways to associate your product, service, offer, or message with something else. Like the marketing firm CRN did when they introduced Kit Kat and coffee to consumers to get them to enjoy a Kit Kat bar whenever they take a coffee break.