How To Manage Your Business Instagram Like A Pro

With the help of Instagram, businesses of all sizes can extend their reach, engage with new customers and build a strong brand presence in the increasingly influential social media sphere.

That all sounds incredibly attractive until you consider that newcomers to the platform might be baffled by the most impactful ways to use it.

Rather than floundering around and relying on guesswork, use these tips on how to manage your business’ presence on Instagram to get the upper hand immediately.

Set A Publishing Schedule

Like any modern social platform, Instagram audiences can be built successfully if high-quality content is drip fed regularly to followers. This not only encourages sharing but also means that users will know when to expect updates.

Some tools can take charge of auto-publishing on Instagram so that you can focus your attention on crafting the posts themselves, rather than worrying about whether or not you will remember to send them out at the right time.

Also, build a publishing schedule that is most likely to garner views, likes and interactions. 5pm is the peak period for Instagram usage, with commuters flocking to their phones to scroll through their feeds.

Take Advantage Of Analytics

If you find that your posts are really flying, then you’ll know that your efforts are on the right track. If, on the other hand, you are struggling to succeed with an Instagram business account, it can be tough to work out where you are going wrong.

This is where analytics become very useful, and Instagram offers its own tool called Insights that unlocks the data behind each picture you post. You can see a wide range of information and how it relates to the performance of your publishing activity, including how posts are discovered by users and what types of interactions they earn.

With cold, hard figures to hand, you can take action to improve your strategies and get better results from future posts.

Harness Hashtags

The humble hashtag has become invaluable in the social media age, making it easier for trends to be tracked and content to be sought out amongst the flurry of perpetual posting that goes on every second.

On Instagram, hashtags have the power to make visual posts easy to discover. They also allow businesses to establish their own branded tags that can generate interest and allow posts to be grouped together over time.

The art of crafting a hashtag is fairly straightforward, and you can piggyback on widely used hashtags to get your posts seen, so long as they are relevant to the phrase in question. Where many businesses make a mistake with managing Instagram is by overdoing it on hashtag use. There is a 30 tag cap on posts, but hitting this will leave it looking more than a little chaotic. Instead, it is sensible to factor in 5 or fewer hashtags so that the social media savvy audience you are trying to attract will not be alienated.

Hire An Expert

This is something that smaller businesses may not consider as an option initially, especially if there is not much of an internal understanding of how Instagram operates, but it makes sense to get a social media specialist onboard to take charge of the management for you. Outsourcing can be fairly affordable, whether you opt to work with a freelancer or sign up with a digital agency.

In short, it’s important to take Instagram seriously. If Facebook works for you, then Instagram can too, and let’s face it – it’s hard to dismiss the clout that it wields with its one billion monthly users (as of January 202).

Plan your strategy and respond with whatever resources you have at your disposal.