Instagram is a great platform that can boost your brand. But to do that effectively, you’ll have to stand out among billions of active users. The social media platform has become a tool for business marketing, especially since 46% of users now purchase products from advertisements on Instagram. Moreover, around 80% of Instagram users follow business accounts. This serves as an opportunity for businesses to establish their brand reputation and connect with their consumers. As such, each brand’s engagement rate on Instagram serves as an important metric for performance. So if you want your brand to stand out and gain the following of your target market, here’s what you need to do.

Solidify Your Brand Image

Instagram has a lot of visuals, so it’s the perfect avenue to establish your brand visually. But as previously stated, you’ll be competing with billions of active users. Thus, you need to make sure that your brand image is unique and catchy for your target audience. It may seem counterintuitive since copying well-known aesthetics seems like a good strategy to become popular. However, our article on the ‘8 Steps to Building a Business Using Social Media’ underlines that selecting an underserved niche is one of the best ways to grow your brand. You’ll experience greater engagement when you create a specific brand image for an underserved market.

Experiment with Various Content

To boost engagement, you’ll need to make the algorithm work for you. Content and social media manager Andrew Hutchinson provides plenty of tips to help creators understand the Instagram algorithm. He points out there’s no all-encompassing algorithm and that each section of the platform is ranked differently. For instance, the Explore tab recommends posts to users based on what they like. So, to be recommended to your target audience, you need to know what kind of content they’re interested in. For instance, if your target audience is NYC residents, then you’ll need to know what they look for on Instagram. By knowing this, you can post relevant content that’ll get you on their Explore tabs.

Use Relevant Hashtags

Hashtags are unique social media tools that can boost your brand engagement, if you know how to use them wisely. Business and finance website AskMoney discusses the importance of these social media tools, especially because social media is a crucial part of modern day business. Their article on increasing Instagram followers states that you need to create a strategy for the hashtags you use. Rather than sticking to popular hashtags, experiment with terms that make it easier for your target audience to find your post. Moreover, don’t abuse the algorithm by using 30 hashtags at once. Instead, just use three to seven relevant terms for your posts.

Post at the Right Time

Once you’ve found the right image, content type, and hashtags, all you need to do is post your content at the right time. This is because Instagram refreshes each user’s feed, so newly published content is more likely to appear first. Thus, if you post content during your audience’s most active time, your content will be one of the first things they will see. To catch your audience at the best time, MarTech Advisor recommends posting during Mondays and Thursdays, at any time other than 3 PM to 4 PM. However, brands targeting Gen Z and Millennial audiences can share posts in the middle of the night until 5 AM so that their content will be the first thing they see before they start their day.

Now that you know the basics of boosting engagement, you can improve your brand and following on Instagram. Remember to find underserved markets relevant to your niche, experiment with content, use relevant hashtags, and post at optimal times to catch the attention of your audience. Follow these consistently, and you’re sure to see improvement!

If you want more advice for your brand, check out other articles on SarahFunky. The travel tips, hacks, and resources are tried-and-tested strategies that can help you establish your business