10 Steps to Create an Achievable Instagram Strategy

Are you still under the impression that Instagram is just for selfies and food photos? While those do exist, savvy people are killing it on Instagram by connecting on this fun and fast social network. It’s time for you to create an achievable strategy for your Instagram account. Without a strategy, you’re just posting selfies and food pics, right?

Here are the main reasons you should create an Instagram strategy:

Build brand awareness. Letting people into your private world or seeing behind the scenes at your hot startup builds trust.
Stop selling. Social media isn’t about selling it’s about building a network and yes, you will share your products but it’s not a hard sell every day.
Create a fan base by creating a consistent presence.
Join mobile nation! Everyone and their grandma has a smartphone – join the millions of people on Instagram and connect with a new social community.

Here are ten steps to get you on a path to Instagram success:

1. Jack up your profile. You don’t have many characters to say who you are so choose wisely. Give people a taste of who you are and why people should follow you. The only clickable link is in your bio so make sure you link this to your most important online asset and update it to feature special events.

2. Start with a goal. What do you hope to gain by using Instagram? Do you want to create a visual portfolio of your work? Give customers a behind the scenes peek at what you do? Or maybe show a more personal side? Without a clear goal, you won’t be able to plan your posts.

3. Be consistent. Once you make the commitment to get started, you need to post regularly. If you can post one or two times a day, your fans will love it.

A great example of consistency is the daily diary of sketchbook artist Sally Mao. Sally posts her beautiful sketches to the delight of her followers.

A recent study showed that Instagram accounts increased account growth by posting frequently. However, if you stop your posting schedule this could have a negative impact.

4. Be relevant. Stay on target with your focus and provide value to your followers. Don’t post any old thing and expect it to do well. Quality trumps quantity on Instagram.

5. Provide help or information. Sharing helpful tips or encouragement is always a bonus.

Posting a quick video with tips gained Michelle Phan 55.5k likes! Using Michelle’s post as an example she did the following:

Created a compelling video
Added a text overlay with the title
Used a brief text description
Had a simple, yet effective call to action: “watch my new video on how to make a friend.”
Listed the URL so people could cut and paste it into their browser.

6. Create a hashtag strategy. You can use up to 30 hashtags per post. Post a few in the original post and add more in the comments. Use industry specific hashtags and create your own if you have a fun brand. If you have a special hashtag, make sure you share it in your profile for visibility. You can find popular hashtags on websites and load apps that can help you.

Stop the random acts of hashtagging! Focus and stay targeted in your niche to achieve your goals. (click to tweet)

This is an Instagram post I created on vacation and I used Evernote to grab my hashtags that I loaded before my trip.

A photo posted by Peg Fitzpatrick (@pegfitzpatrick) on Oct 10, 2014 at 9:02am PDT

7. Prepare for success. Save your hashtags to Evernote so that you can access them on any device. Create groups of hashtags for different topics such as creativity, travel, and inspiration. It’s also helpful when you’re at an event.

8. Don’t (only) hype your products. This isn’t the place for a hard sell. Sharing fantastic content from your fans or other Instagram users by reposting their photos works well. When you want to share someone else’s photo, use a reposting app such as Photo Repost. It’s not ok to download other’s content and share as your own.

9. Connect with other Instagrammers. Comment, like, and repost other people’s posts. Check out people who use the same hashtags and let the networking begin.

10. Batch your graphics. You can easily create a batch of graphics to share throughout the week or month. Set yourself up for the week by creating all your posts at one time and trickling them out over time. This will help you stay on brand and on target!

I hope this simple strategy for success for your personal brand will convince you to start posting on Instagram. Can't wait to see your snaps! Hit me up in the comments below if you have questions.

Photo credit: Big Stock Photos

6 Comments

Rebekah Redice, Nice piece of article . As far my personal experience is concerned,in fact, there is no hard bound rules by following which one can have success. Many of suggestions,like, putting questions at the end of saying. I agree that until readers thoughts are provoked he/she does not react. Reaction or response is the real feed back. In my off-line ads I am doing this experiment and getting response too.
Thanks for remembering me. Stay connected. Love.

This is not a comment but feed back. Some years back people were getting fascinated to online social media but now situation is some what different. No doubt new comers keep on adding but matter is how many out of these entrants stay connected and get success. As far my interaction within my circles is concerned popularity of online social media is falling drastically.
As you may be aware that I am a teacher. Teacher has to be in touch with young and raw minds and this gentry is most targeted audience because they are the people who can build or destroy something. Parents are becoming very protective and proactive so that their wards may not fall in the “traps” laid online. I am using word ‘trap’ because when some one is doubtful about some thing, he/she sees only negative side of the coin only.
Here in Delhi NCR, many Schools are becoming very strict about usage of online social media. Why?
What so ever you share,last time, as suggestions/advise have been more effective offline.
Last time, you shared 11 tips regarding subject of conversation. Out of that 2-3 were already within the radars of my reflections. But I incorporated 2-3 more to use. So out of 11 tips I used at least 5-6 tips for my offline conversations and they have been very effective.
Okay, bye until next connectivity.
Love and have a wonderful Wednesday.

Great post! These tips will surely inspire everyone to get creative on Instagram. It is, by far, the most creative social platform. Making sure that putting time and effort into making photos look good and by using these strategies as a springboard for own ideas for a company building a strong marketing strategy first step to be successful! Also I’d like also to highlight as well another tool for media marketing that is not mentioned in this post, I’m talking about reviews. The flow of reviews on your website generate continuous fresh content marketing! Other positive aspects of using a feedback system are the increase of the CTR (Click-Through-Rate), the decrease of PPC, the activation of Google seller ratings extension, the boost the conversion rate and the Google five golden stars! Last but not least, reviews are the best way a company has to increase its transparency and reliability!

Cheers

Zara

Hi Peg,

Thank you for the great article.
I think consistency is the key in social media. The brand story should be communicated in a consistent brand storyline. This is what great brands do.

I am just worried to swe a trend of using social media as any other traditional media, no two way communication. This is troubling.

Best,

Marko

Great advises, thanks you for sharing! I’d like the article even more if you’d added some useful applications. I think they’re a crucial time-saver, so i’m always looking for new ones luckily they’re released quite often. I personally use about 5+ different apps on daily basis. I can’t imagine editing without Whitagram and VSCO Cam because i don’t like instagram’s everlasting filters. Efficient management is impossible without detailed statistics, so Iconosquare.com is my choice. When it comes to following management i use fast-unfollow.com to easily get rid of up to 5000 users not following me back in one day. And finally a scheduler – latergram.me in my case – to keep posting consistently. For most of these apps there are analogues, but always inferior: they have either higher price or fewer functions. If you know some interesting apps please do suggest them to me, i’d highly appreciate that 😉

Thanks for this strategy, coz it’s really achievable. In any event, do not forget to play up such things as Schedugram or Hootsuite. Use them, and they’ll be awesome assistants in your wat to success. By the by, check zengram.net.

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Stop the random acts of hashtagging! Focus and stay targeted in your niche to achieve your goals. (click to tweet)

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