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Best Practices for Instagram Marketing in 2022

Instagram has long been the ideal platform for sharing photos of delicious food, amazing adventures, and beautiful people. So if you don’t have that, what does your business have to offer an instagram follower? Turns out, a LOT! If you have a phone in your pocket, you basically have everything you need to make your instagram feed blow up!

Just follow these helpful best practices for Instagram marketing, and you’ll be swimming in new followers before long. All it takes is a little creativity, consistency, and some basic know-how. As always, Red Massive has you covered. Read on for our list of best practices for Instagram Marketing.

Use Stories

• They’re temporary, which means they’re great for events, limited deals, countdowns, etc. 
• They maximize your customization options so you can really create a unique, thriving brand experience.
• You can organize Stories that you archive to your Instagram page.
• Think about interesting categories your followers may like to focus on:
• • Specific product lines, certain staff members, various partners that you can continue highlighting, behind-the-scenes content, seasons, recurring specials, holidays, etc.
• Share other people’s Instagram post to your Story.
• • This is a great way to highlight relevant content without creating it yourself. It creates a more robust digital presence for your business/organization.
  • You capitalize on and can get the attention of the audience you share from. (If you share Walmart’s post, Walmart followers are more likely to see your page.)
• Ideal for quality engagement – and then quality feedback or shoutouts:
• • Ask a question
  • Post music
  • Have a live link
  • Host a quiz
  • And then reply to those responses, spotlight winners, etc. You create collaborative engagement this way.

Capitalize on Hashtags

Follow hashtags that relate to your work so that your feed and audience gets curated by topic and you can easily see relevant content worth sharing without having to scroll for so long

• • Popular hashtag categories and examples:

Product or service

#purse, #divebar, #livemusic, #chapstick

Niche

#vlogger, #foodblogger, #foodie

Industry Instagram Communities

#catsofinstagram, #kidsofinstagram, #volunteersofinstagram, #studentsofinstagram

Special Event/Seasonal

#NationalPreventionDay, #SummerDays #SpringBreak

Location

#ArkansasPrevention, #RiverValley #Russellville, #ArkansasEats

Daily

#MondayMadness, #TuesdayTestimonial, #WednesdayWin, #ThankfulThursday, #FearlessFriday, #SelfieSaturday #SundayFunday

Relevant/Popular Phrases

#AmWriting #SheWhoWanders #NotRightNow #SeeYaLaterAlligator #RiseAbove

Acronym

#FBF for Flashback Friday, #TBT for Throwback Thursday, #IYKYK, #TMYK, #ICYMI

IGTV & Reels

• • IGTV
    • Great to explain something, host a panel, go in-depth.
    • Max length of 60 minutes.
  • Reels
    • Reels are meant to be entertaining – short, sweet, and to the point.
    • Max length of 60 seconds

Posting Frequency

• • Daily feed posting is preferred, with hashtag use, so the algorithm organically bumps you to people’s page. 
    • If not posting daily, then at least 3x per week regularly.
    • If you post daily, you’re more likely to be organically seen on people’s timeline. Most people will not search for your Instagram account and then scroll through it – you have to appear on their page naturally.
  • Create opportunity for engagement because engagement is THE way to be seen on people’s timeline
    • Ask a question, answer a question, share a review, incentivize tagging people in the comments, etc.
  • Post and share as much as you can on Stories. 
    • If people engage with your Story, your Instagram feed is more likely to be seen on their timeline organically.
    • Stories have a 24 hour time limit, so it’s a great way to have a carousel-type feed that is constantly new and exciting.

On-Purpose Branding

• • Most Instagram pages look random, but you know when you see an INTENTIONAL feed. Make yours intentional! If people can immediately tell that you care, they’ll want to know why
    • Do photo sets of 3 so that each line of your Instagram feed is independently branded/themed.
    • Post small sections of a larger picture so that over time or a series of posts the big picture emerges from 9-12 individual posts.
    • Come up with an Instagram branding guide.
      • Which filters to use, which hashtags, what fonts, what days to do Black and White, which campaigns/partners to reference, etc.

Be Active

• • • Engage as your page. (We can’t say this enough!)
    • Comment and like other content as your business Instagram page, not just your personal one.
    • Share other content to your Story.
      • And be sure to share your business content to your personal story! 
  • Reply to comments and answer your inbox!

Direct Messages

• • You can directly message your followers and it’s a great tool to leverage when announcing something big or important.
    • Legislative success, public events, volunteer calls to action, questionnaires, etc.