Instagram Content Marketing: Expressing Your Brand Visually
Why Instagram?
Most people think Instagram is just about selfies and pictures. But did you know that there are lots of ways to market content on Instagram too? By content, I am talking about written content and video content. It is possible, and if done correctly, you can earn much higher engagement than with other content sharing platforms.
How?
So how do you achieve this increased engagement? It comes down to the same principle of all content creation: Make something valuable for your audience. If it is valuable, then people will pay attention, follow, like, and even share. If your content is purely self-serving, then people will scroll past your posts and slide past your Instagram Stories without viewing them. Annoy them enough and they will unfollow you.
Marketers talk about the 80/20 rule, which means share 80% useful or fun information and 20% hard selling. With Instagram, I venture to go even further and say do a 90/10. Just one annoying post is enough for people to unfollow you. People are on Instagram for entertainment and to see cute or cool posts. Make sure most of your posts follow those guidelines and you can get away with a few hard sell.
What?
You can’t share your blogs or articles on Instagram, but there are other ways to market written content.
Quotes
Like all well planned companies, you have a set of values that your business is built upon. Sharing quotes related to those values is great, but you can also go a step further. Look to those at the core of your company for their own quotes, tips, and advice about your market or industry. Create a graphic with their quote and voila! You have something useful (a tip or piece of advice), which is like a content snapshot. It’s visual too, so it’s perfect for Instagram.
Article Ads
Articles are tough to advertise for in normal Instagram posts, but it is possible. There are two ways to go about doing it. You can create a graphic ad that tells people why they should read your article. Or you can make a graphic image with a quote from the article. The second option follows the holy grail of content- provide something valuable and useful, which is my suggestion, but we have had success with both on our Instagram.
Just make sure you include the link to the article. You can post it below your Instagram post, but keep in mind that it won’t be clickable. Or my favorite, update the clickable link you are allowed on your profile page to correspond the article you are advertising at that moment. That way people can find your content easier.
Video Posts
If you have content to share that is particularly important and that you would like followers to have permanent access to, then posting videos is a great option. Videos can be up to 60 seconds long and can be formally shot, or more informally recorded. Don’t just talk for the fun of it though, have a purpose, like a tip or piece of advice.
Instagram Story Live Videos
Instagram Stories stay available to your audience for 24 hours, then they disappear. This is a nice way to get your content to audiences without feeling like you are spamming their feeds. This works best for more informal, short videos with high energy and punchy messages. Just remember that engagement on these videos isn’t measured in terms of likes and shares, but in terms of who has actually seen it.
TAKEAWAYS
Whether you are posting content through quotes, article ads, video posts, or live video stories, make sure your content is:
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- Valuable
- Useful
- Fun or cool
- 80-90% informative or merely interesting rather than a hard sale.