1. Stick To A Theme
Choosing a theme and sticking to it is one way to make your Social Media accounts a success. Brainstorm a few ideas by first thinking about what attracts your current customers and what you’d like to achieve next. For example, if you’re a restaurant hoping to get more patrons in the door, feature behind-the-scenes posts of your chefs in action or give sneak peeks of new menu specials.
2. Keep a Posting Schedule
By pushing out new visual content each day or at least each week, or even each month (but you have to do more), you’ll not only increase your chances of getting noticed, but followers will start to truly “follow” your posts as well. According to research conducted by Latergramme, the best times to post for the most engagement are 2 AM and 5 PM EST. While others say it’s 8ish AM and 8ish PM. You will have to experiment for yourself to see what works best for your audience.
3. Mix It Up
Stick with your business related theme, but come out of your shell because on social media boring does not sell. Mix up your social feed with varying angles, backgrounds and moods. If you’re bored by your own gallery of widget portraits, chances are your followers are too. If you are a pet adoption center, get your animals in action by posting videos of them interacting with visitors or playing outside.
4. Motivate With Messages
Remember, Instagram is all about storytelling. You have to include a description to give your picture background. Tying motivational or inspirational messages to posts is an extremely successful posting method, especially if your theme or brand revolves around personal improvement. Check out Nike account for some great examples.
5. Stick to a Few, Simple Hashtags
Hashtags are a simple way to connect your post to a larger theme or global project. But be careful of spamming followers with too many common hashtags like #tbt or #love. You can easily lose more followers than you gain depending on how you utilize hashtags to boost your post visibility.
6. Follow Others and Like Often
Like the relevant content that similar accounts or brands are posting. Follow those who inspire you. Look at the “suggested users” list to find more accounts to follow. An easy way to find new followers is to add your Facebook friends’ accounts – these users will almost immediately add you back if you follow them first.
* This blog post is based on content which first appeared in a newsletter by a very prominent social media marketing firm.
