By Lily Germain, Senior Campaign Executive at Bottle PR (Digital PR agency in Oxfordshire)
Ah, Instagram. With 28.4m users in the UK, for all sorts of brands, Instagram can, without a doubt, be a tactical channel to engage with your target audience, but you’ve got to know how. Here are some of Bottle PR’s nuggets of wisdom on how to engage with your consumers on Instagram.
Fame & Findability objectives:
Start with Fame goals
Let’s start at the beginning. You’re can use everything in your creative toolbox to produce winning content, but if you haven’t reached as many potential buyers (however light or heavy) as you can and turned them into followers, then it’s highly unlikely you’ll see any uplift in post interactions.
Go big and go broad with your audience targeting, the more you limit the pool of users by loading up on interests, the more you limit the opportunity to seek out new brand fans.
And you’ve got to keep going with this reach plan so you can keep growing. Like go broad at least once a week.
Now let’s nail the engagement bit…
Types of content that make people stop scrolling
Present the personality of your brand through content that considers the audiences’ passion points, as well as their cultural interests. These are not the type of posts where you ram product and services for sales down necks.
A few ideas to get you ticking include:
- Relatable memes
- Help content in carousels
- Include stickers on your stories
- Use relevant hashtags
- Re-share UGC, make your audience really feel a part of your world
- Make sure you’ve got a call to action in your captions, but keep it light, maybe ask a question, start with a debate, give them some humour
- Reels, reels and more reels
- Oh, and post content at peak times during the week when your existing audience interacts the most
Sharing one or two of these per week in your feeds will help to encourage and continue conversation with your customers.
Day-to-day tactics:
Now you’re a pro on the types of content that encourage engagement, it’s worth keeping in mind the tactics you can use daily to keep that engagement flowing. Let’s dive in.
Consistency is key: Never forget your brand codes. And repeat formats and themes that resonate most with your audience. This keeps your brand visible to the people. Top Tip: don’t saturate feeds with too much.
Respond! If they comment, show them you’ve seen it, even if it’s just a like. Make them feel valued and part of the community you’re creating. It makes your brand seem more human and relatable, plus, no one likes to be ghosted…
So, to wrap up, remember that brand engagement doesn’t happen by accident, so incorporating these steps, and a sprinkling of consistency, will make you effectively engaged with your customers on Instagram in no time. Now you’re armed with the knowledge, what bright ideas have you got for Instagram?