Instagram still reigns as one of the most powerful and provocative platforms for social media content marketing.

But why? 

Well, Instagram allows you to build your brand image through pictures and videos, far more effectively than Facebook or Twitter. Its clean interface makes it attractive to us Digital Marketers. It has already been proven to enhance customer engagement. 

Instagram also offers plenty of creative possibilities, targeting opportunities, and personalization potential. The visual-centric site offers plenty of ways to connect with high-profile tastemakers, break through the competitive noise, and build active, engaged communities.

So I guess you’re wondering, “how can I make the most out of my Instagram?”

Well, that’s simple! Here are 10 tips and tricks that will help to strengthen your Instagram business. 

Are you ready? Let’s go!

ESTABLISH AND ACTIVATE YOUR INSTAGRAM STRATEGY

For this first tip, you need to give some serious thought to how your Instagram activities can drive your strategic marketing goals.

For example, if lead generation is a top goal for your video content then you need to be aware that Instagram doesn’t offer clickable links as Twitter or Facebook do. Only if you have a verified or business account with at least 10,000 followers.

So, you need to optimize your bio content for lead-gen purposes and choose the link wisely. You can also drive additional leads by including a relevant and enticing call to action on your bio page.

Here’s a prime example from Insta-famous pup Brussels.Sprout, which draws fans towards its merch page with a CTA that promotes his favourite “pet projects”:

In this case, you should ensure that your strategy meshes well with Instagram as a whole. If you want to create your own social media marketing plan, then head to this article!

SET UP A VERIFIED BUSINESS ACCOUNT 

In the screenshot above, you can see that little blue checkmark that verifies Sprout’s status as an influential public figure. This little blue tick is a badge of honour that comes with some useful marketing perks such as: deeper insights on followers, performance analytics for posts, advertising tools, and additional promotion options within the Instagram app.

Anyone on your content team could set up a personal profile and post on your business’s behalf. So, it would be better to build an official business account for your brand’s content activities. Once you satisfy the platform’s eligibility requirements, you can request a verification badge.

ADD PLANNING EFFICIENCY WITH NATIVE SCHEDULING TOOLS

A handy trick that makes an Instagram business account worth maintaining is the ability to schedule posts. In the past, this function only was available through third-party tools. Nonetheless, Instagram corrected this oversight earlier this year with the launch of its content publishing API, which allows businesses to schedule up to 25 photos and video posts within 24 hours.

It isn’t a drastic upgrade, but still significant. This tool can make your content campaigns easier to manage and remove some time constraints required of your social media team. Also, the added bandwidth can be reallocated to monitoring and responding to comments your audience shares about your post, or potentially taking part in other relevant social trends, memes, and cultural conversations that may arise unexpectedly. 

For example, Coca-Cola. They are the masters at this!

For additional ideas on how to position your Instagram efforts to achieve your content marketing goals, check out Ann Smarty’s post on ways to increase organic clicks and leads from Instagram.

CRAFT YOUR CREATIVITY WITH CARE 

It’s all about the visuals on Instagram! So, show off your most aesthetically pleasing brand imagery and supply descriptions that draw viewers deeper into your brand experience. Also, make sure to consider all of the senses (sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell). This can drastically heighten the experience for your audience.  Fortunately, any business with a signature aesthetic can be successful with Instagram by using stylized imagery and sharing its perspectives and attributes in a unique way.

A great example of this is Apple, which make you want to experiment with your iPhone’s black-and-white photography settings!

If you need to trigger a flow of creativity for your Instagram content, then head over to our brainstorming article! Now go and share your captivating content with the world!

PUT YOUR BRAND VALUE AND VISION ON DISPLAY 

Even if your content team is photo-phobic, Instagram has a lot of other creative options. For instance, SaaS business Atlassian uses a simple, static graphic to take a stand on an issue and drive traffic to its latest podcast episode along the way.

As well as this, text-centric messages offer designers a chance to flex their font-related creative expertise. Olga Rabo shares nine expert-level font hacks, including a way to incorporate animation to help bring more visibility to your Instagram stories.

So, don’t feel limited to one creative avenue. There is a multitude of paths for you to explore on Instagram.

PLACE FOCUS ON YOUR FOLLOWERS 

No matter what content media and design techniques you choose, Instagram works best when you appeal to the interests of your target audience members. It’s their community sandbox, after all.

It is essential that you form a connection with your audience, in order to give them a personal reason as to why they should choose your business over your competitors. This may be a particular ethos that you hold in high regard. Or, it could be an upcoming event within the community. The aim is to find something which you know your audience will be actively excited about, and respond to.

These community-building tips crafted by Monina are extremely beneficial in helping you with this task. 

EXPLORE INSTAGRAMS NEWEST FEATURES 

Even the most captivating experiences on social media can start to feel a little stale. So Instagram takes user fatigue to heart, and continually introduces new products and features, refreshing its old programming to capitalize on new trends. As well as strengthening its value for marketers and creators, like you. 

So I guess you’re wondering, “how can I use these new features to my advantage?”

Well, it’s easy! Here are a few of the latest developments. There are a few which fall right in line with the company’s plans to pivot toward video, entertainment, and creator services:

Text translations and captions: 

Instagram recently launched a panel. This tool enables text overlays and captions to be instantly translated from the original language to the user’s preferred language. In particular, it is useful for brands that target multicultural audiences or operate across multiple global markets.

Extended access to insights:

 Instagram has also announced that it would be doubling its timeframe for tracking and analysing performance data (from 30 to 60 days). 

As well as this, it also released a calendar tool in Insights which enables businesses to choose custom dates for their account metrics.

 

Highlighting diverse accounts and stopping abusive messaging:

 In June, Instagram enabled Black-owned U.S. businesses to self-identify and amplify that distinction with a badge on their profile and product pages. 

Earlier in the year, Instagram also issued an update on how they are going to discourage and penalize users who send abusive or harassing messages through DMs or post as comments.

Helpful, right!

Video remixes: 

Instagram has also launched a Remix function for its short, entertaining video content shared as Reels. This tool gives users the ability to include other people’s content within their videos, similar to TikTok’s popular Duets feature.

I bet you’re gonna give that a try now!

Live Rooms: 

Earlier in March, IG opened up an additional creative option which was the ability to collaborate with up to three additional accounts on a livestreaming video. This is an ideal feature for hosting live Q&A interviews, putting on a show, or even providing a behind-the-scenes view of how your remote teams operate in real time.

So, what will you be live streaming next?

New professional dashboards: 

In January, all creator and business accounts were provided with a centralized dashboard. Here you can discover trends and insights, track content performance, and access additional brand-building tools and products that can improve the impact of their efforts.

 

DISTRIBUTE AND CONQUER 

Even if only a small percentage of Instagram’s billion monthly users regularly post updates and stories, your brand still needs to battle through a lot of content clutter. Because of this, promoting your posts on Instagram is as important as it is anywhere else in your marketing mix.

So, how can you ensure that your Instagram business is seen by your audience?

Well, it’s simple! Follow these steps: 

 

HASHTAGS:

In Robert Katai’s article on Instagram marketing, he outlines the two types of hashtags you can use in your Instagram campaigns:

• Branded hashtags: These feature your company name,. This makes it easier for people to be aware of your company, to discover your content, and to learn more about you.
• Community hashtags: These are more organic to the conversations happening. They help users follow broader topics, specific areas of interest, or other unifying themes.
• Budgeting towards performance: Paid promotions are another great way to boost your brand’s reach and engagement.  You can purchase promoted posts and display ads within Instagram’s regular content feed. Or, you can promote your content by placing ads within Instagram Stories. These display your campaigns between image focussed and video-centric stories which users will click to view.

 

ENLIST POWER PLAYERS 

Where would content marketing on Instagram be without recommendations from its swarm of influencers? Influencers are the leading voices, the brand ambassadors who have already earned the trust and attention of your target audience.

An example of this is are Instagram story takeovers. This is where an influencer of your choice takes over your brand account, and produces exclusive content for a designated time (typically a few hours or a day at most). 

This is a brilliant technique since the influencer’s audience isn’t urged to follow your brand, but rather they are encouraged by the influencer to see what he or she is doing on your brand’s account. This subtle promotion is more effective to increase reach and drive traffic from Instagram Stories to your site or special offers.

For more information on how to utilize your own Instagram stories, then head over to this article for further guidance!

 

STAY OUT OF SOCIAL HOT WATER 

Sharing is always caring, but posting someone else’s creative property without securing permission is never cool. Potentially, it could put your business in legal jeopardy. If you want to mitigate your brand’s risk then you need an understanding of copyrights and the terms for fair use. It’s vital that you know this!

Read more about social media legal ins-and-outs in this article by Allen Murabayashi, which includes tips to help keep your content on the right side of the law.

Overall, whether you share sumptuous photos to livestream your most memorable moments. Or, you want to inspire viewers with fun remixing activities. Instagram is a great platform for putting your brand’s best content assets on display. How are you using the channel to connect with your audience? Paint your picture of Instagram success in the comments.

 

Congratulations! You have just been taught ten detailed Byter tips and tricks on transforming your Instagram business. Now it’s time to put these tips and tricks to the test, and get your Instagram growing as much as it can. Don’t forget to let your family and friends know about your newfound skills from a London Digital Marketing Agency. Also, be sure to let us know how you do on you Instagram business path. We’d love to hear about it!

 

If you want to strengthen your content marketing skills, then explore more of our detailed articles! We want you to be the best you can be!

As we all know, SEO linking is a big way to get people to know about/ visit your website. The official word for this is called backlinks. So I have compiled a little list of things you can do to get more links back to your website/blog.

 

1. Replicate your competitors’ SEO backlinks

Backlinks are simply incoming links to a website or webpage. In other words, they are any links that are directed to your site. Backlinks are a main building block of good SEO because they help to indicate the importance or popularity of a website.

 

2. Use the broken link building strategy

Broken link building is a tactic that involves finding resources in your niche that are no longer live, recreating a version of the content and reaching out to webmasters who link to that content asking them to replace the broken link with a link to your newly created resource. You’re providing value to the webmaster, helping them clean up their website and the web in general, while also building links to your website.

3. Try to regain missing backlinks

Link reclamation is the process of reclaiming lost links. Obviously. In layman’s terms; you have a link on someone else’s platform but now it no longer works. How do you get it to work then? Well, you have to look at specifically why the link does not work.

Here are four common reasons for link losses:

• The author removes your link from the linking page;
• The linking page no longer exists (404 error);
• The linking page gets (301) redirected;
• The page is no longer indexed in Google

Each one of these problems has its own solution, some of which are similar to the solutions presented in this blog.

4. Build links with images

If you create images, or infographics etc this is quite good. You put out your images and other people may use them and put them on their website, and hopefully link back to you, the creator.

But if you want to use images as backlinks, you want to be sure that the link points to the broader page the image lives on, not to the image directory. Image directory links (ending in .gif, .png, .jpg, etc.) are dead-end: all the traffic that goes there is just wasted. If you find sites using the images that you have made, ask the site owner to replace the image link with one that leads to your page with the image. If you’re letting them embed your image on their site, they should be ok linking to the right place.

An easy way to find if people are using your images it to do a Google Images search. If the site is credible and you’re ok with them keeping it there, you can ask them to add a link. (If it’s a sketchy site, it’s worth asking them to take it down.)

 

5. Write guest posts

The easiest way to get links is to of course put yourself directly on other people’s platforms. Guest posting will boost your credibility and get your brand in front of a new audience, but if you can include a link to your website within the content, it’s also a great SEO strategy.

 

6. Get on “best of” lists

These are lists compiled by other sites that are providing readers with lists of products or services. Getting on “best of” lists is of course a great validation of your product or service, but it also puts a link to your site on a relevant, authoritative site.

 

If you want more ways to improve your SEO backlinks, check out this post 

Good luck!

Twitter fame and verification can bring you many benefits as a company. Having a big following on Twitter can allow you to communicate with your customers in a more convenient fashion. It can also help with brand legitimacy, as the bigger your following the more you look like you know what you are doing. Having an interesting Twitter account can also help increase your customer base or just general brand awareness, as you might attract customers who would not normally interact with you. For businesses who have dedicated themselves to a particular cause, social media, especially Twitter, is one of the best places to be.

So, you have decided you want to start on Twitter. How do you go about growing your following?

1- Interact with others

When trying to figure out how to get popular on Twitter, remember it’s all about growing that audience connection. Don’t just publish a Tweet and go ghost. Follow other influential people in your industry. Retweet posts from influencers. Reply to your customers. When your Twitter presence becomes conversational, you’ll increase engagement and grow your follower base. You can also post tweets that encourage responses, like asking customers to tell you their experiences, or little polls or other such things. People like talking about themselves, and if you give them a little prompt will quite happily interact with you. You must remember to answer as many of these as you can in an engaging manner.

2- Share relevant content

Make sure to share content that your audience is actually interested in, whether that’s Tweeting about sales, product tutorials, or current events. Always remember to stay on brand. Twitter has an analytics page that gives you general feedback like Instagram does, so that may help your understanding of your audience. Again like Instagram, look at the hashtags for inspiration. Twitter has a news and trending section. When you type in certain hashtags in your posts twitter will suggest to you hashtags and also tell you their popularity. If you can attach yourself to current events or trends then you have a higher chance of getting seen. Of course, you must be aware, Twitter controls the trending tab to a certain extent And they will also often put new stories first into many current events hashtags. 

3- Post visual content

Unless you are really good at outrageous hot takes, images and videos work best as a way of making people notice you and engage. Humans are very visual creatures, and especially with the success of platforms like TikTok the importance of moving content has been fully illustrated. Twitter is designed for text, that is true, but images make you more visually striking. 

4- Tweet consistently

On Twitter, any given timeline is constantly changing. The average tweet has a life of 24 minutes.  So make sure to post often to keep your Tweets at the top of the most recent section.  Create a content calendar so you can plan ahead of time to keep consistent. Or simply drink a lot of coffee and let her fly. Again, remember, be on-brand. Do not tweet about unrelated topics unless you feel very strongly that it will add to your brand

5- Count on micro-influencers

Micro-influencers also fall into the interaction section of your plan. Micro-influencers are social media creators who fall inside the 3,000-100,000 followers bracket.  They are still influential and often have a more approachable and legitimate image than the giant influencers. This is because the big influencers are often very manicured in their presentation so keep that in mind when you come to advertise with influencers. If you can work with a few micro-influencers this will definitely help you grow your follower account

6- Share your Twitter account on other channels

Chances are you also have a large business presence outside of social media. Use that to your advantage. Add your Twitter link to the bottom of your email signatures, to your website, and even to your physical business cards. When you give your customers one more way to find you, you’ll communicate that you’ve got their back, even outside of the store. 

7- Hot takes

And lastly, Twitter is known for its hot takes and drama. So if your following is not growing to your satisfaction, you can always post something controversial. Or if you can’t come up with your own hot takes, simply join in on the latest public denouncing circle. This will get you noticed and allow you to signal that your brand has its finger on the pulse of current events.

Remember kids, Twitter can be quite a toxic place, so if you are running your own social media, remember to take breaks. And if you feel like your mental health is affected by it, remember that’s how Twitter works.

if you want more mildly humorous tips on how to grow your brands check out our other blogs 

Good luck twittering

Now of course we all know that as a brand your entire existence depends on how positive customers view you. Your brand’s literal job is to make people want to buy from you. So a negative comment on a public forum can be very not good. 

A whole lot of negative comments are even worse.

Dealing with negative comments and feedback on social media is something a lot of brands misunderstand. 

Most Companies traditionally do not hear from happy customers very often or even hear from customers generally. So, if companies suddenly start getting a lot of people complaining, seemingly about the same issue (in a very public setting), companies will think it must be a very serious issue. This can often be not the case. For example, if you exist on Twitter or god forbid Tumblr. (why would you do that to yourself) for any amount of time you become aware, that is part of the platform’s culture to dogpile and spam attack for the smallest and stupidest of reasons.

Dealing with negative comments brings up the interesting dichotomy that now exists due to modern internet culture. This dichotomy is: to apologize or not to apologize.

The internet is full of tearful videos and statements from creators and brands apologizing for something or other. These apologies are for all things from awkward miss management of PR, to broken products, to the latest huge harassment scandal from say .. Blizzard Entertainment. In fact, apologizing is a whole industry, one apology video can spawn 500 analysis videos and keep the news cycle busy for a good few weeks. 

The most common sentiment among internet users these days is that apology videos mean nothing. They are just some fun sideshow to watch as the person apologizing goes down in flames. 

This is due to the repeated and provable insincerity of the apologies. I.e James Charles. Cough.

So, when your brand gets negative comments how do you handle it? 

I suggest the following. 

The first thing you have to do is be able to tell the difference between an actually unhappy client and someone just being annoying. The internet is a wide and amazing thing and is full of all of humanity. There are accounts dedicated to tweeting at the president of America photos of feet. There are accounts that will make haikus out of your comments if they fit a certain format.

So the reason why being able to tell apart legitimate complaints, and one dude with five email accounts and a grudge, is important as each circumstance has a completely different handling style, and have completely different outcomes for your brand

So the normal, standard, in theory, polite way of handling legitimate complaints and small negative comments are as follows:

• Don’t ignore the negative comments, reply as soon as you see them/ are able to
• Be polite, self-explanatory
• Personalize your message, respond to the actual individual issue, do not send out a general corporate message
• Explain yourself, you want your explanation in writing
• Learn from your mistakes, don’t do it again?
• Don’t make false promises, you will get caught ou and this will show you are insincere 
• Take it out of the spotlight, maybe thank them in the comments, and then request they move to DMs as opposed to doing the whole thing in the comments?
• Generate positive comments   <- be careful of the timing this last one there has been some embarrassing results when done wrong

If the customer has a legitimate complaint then deal with it like a decent human being. All of the steps above are just that. 

BUT

The Second more interesting issue is dealing with negative comments that are not legitimate. These can be from anything from special interest harassment campaigns to just one person with seven bots. These can be from people who have misread one tweet and are now convinced that your small cupcake company is stealing pet cats. Or they can just be very bored people who want attention and free stuff. Or, worse, a combination of all three.

In these situations, apologies will not help you, in fact, they are often viewed as signs of weakness or admission of guilt and in the long run, will make your situation so much worse.

Often if you are being dogpiled for something that you are quite sure isn’t something bad, the only real option is to batten down your hatches, and ride out the storm. These will classically only be very bad for maybe a week until something else pops up and the mob moves on.

If you attempt to apologize to that kind of mob, your apology will never be enough for the angry responders. This is because they have already made up their mind about you, nothing you can say will change this. Your apology is an admission of guilt. So the best you can do is double down and stick to your guns until the other party gets bored. That way the followers who do believe you are not in the wrong will feel vindicated that you didn’t bow down and will keep following you. 

If you apologize you lose the support of your side and do NOT gain the support of the other side. So you are stuck between a roc kand a hard place

Lastly, you must remember that good old Marketing saying: all publicity is good publicity. 

If you want more slightly humorous takes on branding in the modern climate of social media, check out our other blogs https://byter.com/2021/06/17/6-humorous-tips-for-personal-branding/

Hopefully, you never end up on the receiving end of an internet mob. We believe in you!

Have fun!