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You don’t need that little blue checkmark to be successful on Instagram, but
having it can help you earn trust and stand out.
Source
After submitting the form, you’ll receive the answer as a notification within
Instagram in about a week. Instagram will never email you, ask for payment, or
contact you any other way.
If your verification request is unsuccessful, you can try again in 30 days. If it’s
approved, hooray and welcome to the super-elite Insta club.
The tricky part of getting verified is having enough third-party content to prove
you’re well-known enough to warrant needing verification. We cover tips for
getting that supporting content in our complete guide to getting verified on
Instagram.
You can customize the targeting options or have Instagram automatically target
your ads. Boosted posts are a good way to dip your toe in the advertising pool, so if
this is all new to you, stick to auto mode.
Click on Ads in the left menu, then Create ad at the top right.
Remember Choose Your Own Adventure books? It’s like that, but for marketing.
For a first campaign, Automated Ads are a good option. Instagram will try to get
you the most results with the least budget possible, and they auto-adjust your
targeting and bidding strategy as they learn more from your audience’s reactions.
It’s like having a 24/7 robot assistant.
If you want to experiment with ad targeting yourself, or have a specific goal, try
out one of the other options, like focusing on leads or traffic.
The prompts to complete your ad vary depending on which goal you pick, but
generally the next step is to create the ad creative. For example, this is what the
next step is for the “Build your business” goal.
For a well-rounded campaign, you should have at least 2-3 ad groups, each
containing 3 or more ads.
Most ad formats have an option to allow Instagram to switch out your creative
assets automatically to optimize ad performance. It’s like having a real-time, built-
in A/B testing process. Add multiple creative assets for each ad to take advantage
of this.
Try to include a mix of photo, video, Stories ads, Reels ads, and Catalog and
Shopping ads if you sell products online. Test out different ad copy and calls to
action.
And, ensure you have ads for each stage of your buyer’s journey, from
consideration all the way to conversion.
Take a shot every time you read “define your audience” in a marketing blog.
Targeting is critical to your ad’s success. Meta Business Suite gives you five
options:
You can target:
Step 6: Launch
Tips on using Instagram Shopping are in the next section, but you need to add the
Shop tab to your Instagram profile first.
This allows you to create a fully shoppable product catalog directly on Instagram,
as well as tag and link to products in your posts and Stories, and more.
Source
The process is different for each, so check out Meta’s list of supported platforms to
find instructions for yours.
Eager to learn while you wait? Learn how to tag products in your scheduled
Hootsuite posts, and the next steps to optimize your Instagram Shop.
Lead generation
Brand awareness
Recruitment
But, your goals are as unique as your company. The important point? Have some.
Learn how to set effective social media goals that directly connect to your
marketing strategy.
Remember: it’s what’s inside that counts (most). As in, your actual Instagram post
content.
Encourage your followers to share photos or video of your products. Not every
shot will be an Ansel Adams-worthy one, but you can’t beat the authenticity of real
customer photos and stories.
Instagram makes this easy with the Tagged tab, which shows all the posts other
users tag you in. There’s a hack to make it so only the crème de la crème are
visible: Enabling manual approval for tagged photos.
So instead of a jumbled mess, you can curate user-generated content that fits your
aesthetic.
Source
Don’t let the fear of your content not looking “pretty” enough stop you. Post it
anyway.
Post captions
How you come across on video
Key terms you use
How people speak on camera when representing your company
Your bio copy
Text in videos or Reels
Besides what you say, it’s how you say it. Are you casual and fun, or serious and
scientific? Keep things light with jokes, or stick to the facts? There isn’t a wrong
way, but you need to stay consistent.
Your brand voice and tone is a key part of your social media brand guidelines.
8. Use Reels
It seems like all you see when you open Instagram now are Reels, and there’s a
reason for it: They get engagement. We conducted an experiment that found a
significant correlation between posting a Reel and an immediate boost in overall
engagement rate.
Some may not get many views and that’s okay, because when one of yours does go
a lil’ bit viral? It’s all worth it.
Anyone can be successful with Reels, it just takes practice. We’ve got tons of
resources to makes yours reel-y (ugh) good:
9. Use Stories
Reels may be newer, but Instagram Stories aren’t going anywhere. Popular for
more informal content, Stories allow you to develop relationships with your
audience in a unique way.
It doesn’t take a ton more work to see a big effect, either. A year-long study found
that when companies shared one Story per day, it resulted in a 100% retention rate.
Not only that, but 500 million people use Stories every day. I’m not great at math
but having 100% of your audience remember your content, with a potential reach
of 500 million people? That’s a no brainer.
If you need tips on what to share in your Stories, check out our Instagram Stories
guide for businesses and how to create effective Instagram Stories ads.
Highlights are great for communicating lots of information quickly in the format
most people prefer these days: Short video. 61% of Gen Zers and
Millennials prefer videos under 1 minute long.
Plus, adding Stories highlights is a way to repurpose your Story content and keep it
working for you.
Try adding a temporary highlight for a new product launch or event. Leave up
always-relevant ones like FAQ or ordering information.
Source
Product tags: If you have an Instagram Shop, you can easily tag your
products in Stories. Users can tap the product name and checkout in-app.
Links: Useful for directing people to any URL, but especially so if you
don’t have an Instagram Shop. You can still link out to your products on
external sites.
Questions: Get quick and valuable feedback.
Gift cards and more: Depending on your account type, users can
purchase gift cards or order food delivery directly from a Story.
Hootsuite makes it easy to schedule Instagram Stories in advance, including all the
special tools and features you need.
You can add up to 30 hashtags per Instagram post. But a 2021 experiment we did
showed that using more doesn’t get more views. Last year, Instagram’s official
@creators account recommended no more than 3-5 per post.
TL;DR: Science is hard, no one knows how many Instagram hashtags are “the
perfect amount,” and you should regularly experiment with this.
Check out our Instagram hashtag guide for tips on what’s working right now.
Yes, it also boosts your engagement rate. But more importantly, it encourages your
potential customers to start conversations with you. Over time, those conversations
become the foundation of their perception of your brand and greatly influence
purchase decisions.
Hootsuite Inbox allows you to stay on top of all comments and DMs across all
your platforms in one place. Assign conversations to team members, track
responses, and ensure no one falls through the cracks. See how efficient it is to
foster genuine engagement with Inbox:
Try:
Our complete guide to going live on Instagram covers how to do it and ideas you
can try today.
Sometimes the best strategies for Instagram are the oldest. Contests can boost your
organic reach and give you tons of user-generated content.
It’s also the only way to know if your marketing strategy needs a tweak, or if you
should double down on what you’re doing.
Rather than sifting through each platform’s analytics dashboard and attempting to
assemble the full picture yourself, lean on Hootsuite Impact instead. Impact pulls
together data for all your organic and paid content across every platform in one
place, giving you powerful insights whenever you need them.
18. Experiment!
Last but not least, don’t wildly follow every Instagram marketing tip you read on
marketing blogs. 🙃
Seriously: You need to experiment. Every audience is different. Maybe your peeps
hate live video. Maybe they’re only online at 3pm on Wednesdays. Maybe they
will give you their first-born child for a free sweatshirt.
Evaluate your performance often and set aside time to run experiments to see
which tactics work best for you. Don’t worry, we have a free social media audit
template to help out.
People spend about 18 minutes per session, which beats out the average Amazon
shopping trip (13 minutes), Twitter scroll (14 minutes), and YouTube session (7
minutes). Surprisingly, also the average session on Pornhub (14 minutes).
Now that’s real engagement.
Source: Hootsuite Digital Trends 2022 Report
1. Hootsuite
Lil’ biased here, but Hootsuite really is a great choice to manage all your social
media marketing. We have all the basic tools you need, like scheduling, planning,
and analytics, as well as advanced capabilities to take you even further.
With Hootsuite, you can schedule posts for Instagram (Posts, Stories, and Reels),
Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest. from one intuitive
dashboard. Think of all the time you can save not switching between 7 apps to post
content!
That’s not it. Every Hootsuite user gets access to custom, fully personalized
recommendations for the best times to post content for maximum reach,
impressions, or engagement.
2. Notion
Notion is like if a notebook and a spreadsheet had a baby. A Gen Z baby ‘cause it’s
digital-first.
You can add anything to a Notion page that you add to a document, like text,
images, etc. But its real power is databases, allowing you to filter and sort your
info in multiple ways, including on a calendar, in tables, or with Kanban boards, to
name a few.
It’s what I use to plan my social media content (before I put it into Hootsuite, of
course) and I love how easy it is to edit on mobile. Plus, if I had friends a team,
everyone could collaborate in the same Notion workspace, too.
Check out Notion’s template gallery, or make your own content board from
scratch.
3. Adobe Express
Adobe Express is a free online tool to create great-looking social graphics and
more. You get additional features if you already have an Adobe subscription,
including Adobe Stock access and more.
With Hootsuite’s Creative Cloud integration, you can view all your Adobe libraries
directly inside Hootsuite, and edit photos in Hootsuite Composer. It’s a perfect
pair, especially if you already use other Adobe apps like Photoshop or Illustrator.
Manage all your Instagram marketing alongside your other social platforms
with Hootsuite’s time-saving tools. From a single dashboard, you can schedule
posts, Stories, and Reels, engage with your audience, and measure your social
ROI. Try it free today.