Everyone wants to know that “secret sauce” that an Instagram management agency would use to grow accounts, right? Then you’ve come to the right place. We’re here to share with you some tips and secrets that an Instagram management agency would never tell you outright.
In this article, our Instagram management agency reveals how to work with micro-influencers to grow your brand, when are the best times to post, and which tools you should be using to make your content a lot better … with less time needed.
Those three secrets alone will boost your content quality and engagement in no time. Let’s now dive into the rest.
If you have any doubts or want to discuss anything further, our comment section is wide open for you to leave us a question or comment about the article.
Time Your Content Correctly
Time Your Content Correctly like a great Instagram Management Agency would!
Have you ever made a killer post that you put a lot of effort into, finished it at 2 am, and thought, “It should be fine to post right now since people will see it in the morning,” then was shocked at the lack of engagement it got?
Well, a big part of it is because you posted at a time when your target audience was completely asleep or doing something else. So, they won’t see your content at all unless they scroll down a lot on Instagram.
A fundamental rule that a great Instagram management agency uses when posting is that you need to post when your engagement is the highest. Those periods tend to be when people are having lunch, when they are home from work, and right before they go to sleep.
Why is that?
Well, consider when you look at Instagram throughout your day. Haven’t you noticed that you tend to open social media apps when there’s some free time or you are bored? Now, think of how you’re feeling when you’re having lunch, home from work, and right before bed. You’re probably tired but want to do something to pass the time and make you feel good. That’s where social media gets you.
If we consider all this, then it should be straightforward at what time you should be posting your content for maximum reach. By posting at the right time and using hashtags, you can better reach your followers and attract new ones.
If you want to find what time you should post, you can head over to your insights (located in your profile) and see when you have the most engagement. This way, you can tweak it to fit that schedule.
Another very important point you need to remember is where your target audience lives, since your timezone might not be the same as theirs. This means that you might need to change the time in which you post to get the most amount of engagement from that timezone.
All of this is very easy to miss. And, it’s what an Instagram management agency tries never to miss due to how much they want to squeeze engagement out of each post.
Now that you’ve decided on a posting time, let’s talk about hashtags a bit and why you’re perhaps using the wrong ones for your post.
Hashtag Quality is Priority #1
Our Instagram Management Agency Says Hashtag Quality is Priority #1
We’ve all seen those posts where people add a bunch of hashtags and pray they get a lot of engagement this way. Many people hit on all of the most popular hashtags if it relates to their content.
Please don’t be that account, unless you like wasting hashtags and engagement, let alone be the account that puts hashtags in the comments.
When selecting hashtags, you want to look for ones that are either in the 30k post realm or below. You may be wondering: why not just pick the 5 million post hashtag since it’s bound to get more engagement, right?
Wrong … unless you’re a big brand with enough follower leverage and engagement to show up in the featured post list. Posting with a super popular hashtag will only lead to your post getting thrown in with thousands of other posts using that hashtag every hour.
What you should do instead is find hashtags that don’t have millions of posts but instead within the 10k to 30k range. You might be asking yourself: Why in the world would you want to do that?
It’s because of one key reason.
It’s a lot easier to appear on the featured page and get easy engagement from users who are looking at that specific hashtag.
This also segues into why it’s important to pick hashtags manually instead of going on apps that do it for you.
We live in an era where apps can do just about anything, from creating a post to suggesting hashtags, depending on the words you give them. While that sounds like a great time saver and overall good choice, these apps tend to use hashtags that either don’t fit your post or are there for no reason. We see you, #like4like!
Instead of letting the app pick the hashtags, you can ask for it to search for some, and you can pick manually instead to get the best ones possible.
Let’s pick an app/website like Display Purposes, for example. They have a very simple interface where you add between one and three words, and they search hashtags related to it. So let’s say your post is a rock guitar solo. Then the first three words you should be looking at are guitar, rock, music.
When you add them to the website, it’ll show you this:
While some of those tags are good, there are a lot of them that don’t really have anything to do with your post. So if you were to let the website do everything, you would be copying a lot of random hashtags that won’t give you anything at all.
This website lets you choose your hashtags from the search it does when it looks for the words you gave it. You can add and remove hashtags until it’s what you want. Look at this next example:
Now we have hashtags that have something to do with your post. So whenever someone does a search for that specific hashtag, there is a higher chance of them checking your post out and engaging with it.
It may seem like something that isn’t super important, but using the correct hashtags helps a lot when it comes to making your content reach the right people.
Best of all, you don’t have to drop the apps you use completely. Just make sure they have a manual selection mode for the hashtags that they provide.
Yes, doing this might take a little bit more of your time before posting (honestly, it’s like 5 mins). But it will drive your content towards the right people, which is far more critical at the end of the day.
We just covered the importance of using the right hashtags, but what about when you want to make a collab with an influencer? Are there any red flags when working with them?
That’s our next tip!
Be Careful When Working With Influencers
Our Instagram Management Agency Says Be Careful When Working With Influencers
You’ve seen it multiple times when looking at the feed on Instagram. There’s this big influencer or celebrity showing off this new and amazing product to you. You’re probably thinking: how much did it cost the brand to get that influencer to post about that product? Well, you’d be surprised at the prices some influencers can ask for without any real guarantee that you will get your investment back via product sales.
Important notice before we keep talking about this. Collaborating with influencers is mostly going to be a B2C strategy more than a B2B strategy. This is because of how you are targeting people in B2B (being very specific) when compared to B2C, where the target persona is a lot more common in the crowd.
With that out of the way, let’s dive into how to spot a good influencer for your business and which red flags to look for.
The first thing you should look at when checking an influencer’s profile page is the engagement it has compared to the followers. If they have 100k followers but only 200 likes and one comment on their posts on average, then it’s either an account with bot followers or their followers are just bored of them hence why they don’t engage.
A good rule of thumb is to find influencers that have likes at around 10%-20% of their whole following. So let’s say they have 100k followers. If this is the case, the average like amount should be 10k likes, and they should have between 0.5% to 1% comments, too.
So if by any chance you get an “influencer” trying to do a collab with you and they have 100k followers and 100 likes, you can bet that it’s an inflated number. You likely won’t get the ROI they promise if you pay them to show your product.
Generally, an influencer will ask to be paid for 1% of their total following, sometimes more or sometimes less; it depends on the influencer. You have to make sure they don’t try to ask for an obscene amount for just one post.
More than 2% of their total following is already too much for one post, so take that into consideration.
A good strategy our Instagram management agency recommends you think about is that instead of finding one big influencer to post and talk about your product, divide your budget and find several micro-influencers (between 10k and 30k followers). They are less expensive to do collaborations with and this method can let you run multiple ones at the same time.
Don’t forget about the red flags, though!
Another vital part of selecting an influencer is making sure that his audience fits your target persona or, at the very least, the target demographic you’re going for with that specific product.
You can’t expect an influencer who makes content for video game lovers to be a good fit for your skincare business. You have to take time out of your day to do some research and find influencers that have a following that matches the product you’re trying to sell.
To be clear, we don’t want to discourage you from seeking an influencer to promote your product. And remember, if you’re a B2B business, there are other ways to get more people interested in your product. Check out the next tip we’re going to talk about now.
Never Forget About the Power of Ads
Our Instagram Management Agency Says Never Forget About the Power of Ads
This might be an obvious one, especially if you’ve been seeing how Instagram posts and stories have changed over the past couple of years, with less and less organic reach and more paid ads popping up everywhere as time goes on.
Yet we see a lot of brands who fear the use of ads due to not wanting to spend revenue in a place where they might not get a good ROI for their brand. And while we get their point of view, these businesses need to understand that it depends on how you make your ads and how you segment them.
The first mistake people make when creating ads is that they do not set a goal for them. They go and make their most popular post an ad, and they let Instagram do all of the work.
While it can work to help that post get more likes and maybe some comments, it will have no intention behind it: like gaining followers, getting leads, or even just sharing your post.
This is why the most important rule to know about when creating an ad is always to make it with an intention in mind, so you don’t end up wasting your money.
Never make an ad if you don’t even know why you’re making it in the first place. Always have a plan in mind when making it.
Reels are Free Real Estate
Reels are Free Real Estate
It’s funny how Instagram did exactly the same thing they did with Snapchat when it was exploding, and everybody was using it. This time it’s TikTok’s turn to get copied, but this is great news for us because we learned something when it happened to Snapchat. Taking advantage of the new features as soon as possible is the best way to benefit from the organic growth you can achieve with it.
Let’s face it, Instagram’s organic reach has plummeted year by year. With new accounts being created every day and so many posts being pushed every second, it’s tough to get noticed, let alone go viral.
But they copied the same format TikTok has and made it a feature for Instagram. This means that all of the viral volatility that is in TikTok is also in Reels, and you can use this to your advantage as much as you possibly can.
We recommend you sit down and look at the current trends dominating Instagram and see which ones you could use to your advantage. You can do this by adopting those trends, making them your own, and aligning your content with your company values or mission statement.
The organic reach is still here and sky-high when compared to the rest of Instagram. So if you want to get more eyes on your brand while also not having to pay for an excessive amount of ads, then you better start making Reels as soon as possible.
Best of all? Its format is exactly the same as the TikTok. So you can make it on reels and post it. Then you can post it on TikTok to further boost your brand’s momentum.
Don’t sleep on Reels. Use them to their maximum potential!
What Even is UGC?
What Even is UGC?
We’re glad you asked! UGC stands for User Generated Content. It’s when your customers or fans use your product or service in a post. They can show its features, talk about how much they like it, provide information, or work on something they are doing.
You might be thinking that there’s nothing beneficial about them doing that for you, especially since you have a perfectly tailored grid and don’t want to break it.
Well, hate to break it to you, but re-sharing a post a customer made while using your product or service is one of the best ways to not only generate quick content but also to show the legitimacy of your brand.
It’s one thing for the brand itself to say that the product is good since they will never criticize their product, or at least not on social media. But it’s completely different for your customers since they owe the brand nothing and can talk about it with the utmost honesty.
This means that what they say in their post holds a lot more weight than you might realize at first.
A strategy a lot of businesses try to fit into their social media when they have a decent amount of followers and customers is to make a hashtag their customers can use. Then they can show the brand’s product or service in some way, shape, or form. The brand, in turn, can showcase them in either a post or a story once a week.
This does three things for the brand:
- It shows prospective followers that the brand has people who follow them enough to make a post about them. This means that their products or services might be worthwhile.
- It provides a sense of relief and safety to the users who are relatively new to the brand since they have some proof of other people liking it.
- Making it a weekly post and selecting someone encourages people to use the hashtag on their posts, especially since they want to be on your feed and gain exposure to your followers.
Not only that, but you also get the benefit of a free piece of content that you just have to ask permission to post and share.
Do be aware that a small company that just started out on social media will have a very hard time making this possible due to a lack of a following on Instagram.
Use Captions For WHAT?
Our Instagram Management Agency Says: Use Captions!
It’s very easy to forget that you have a caption where you can expand upon your post. This way the people who want to know a little bit more about the post and your company’s point of view can actually do so.
But, it’s become so rare to see brands using their captions to their full extent.
Well, while it might seem like something you can simply ignore, our Instagram management agency highly suggests you put a bit more time into creating a caption where you can give a bit of backstory on the post itself.
You could even make it a trend to add something else like a coupon code at the end of it, so people catch onto this and start paying more attention to your captions.
This can allow you to set a call to action in the caption to try and get some leads off a post that might not have gotten any at all.
There are so many creative ways to use your captions; you can do a bit of storytelling, give advice, share wisdom, expand upon what you said in your carousel, and so much more!
Here’s a great example of someone just giving a bit more context on what the carousel was about and hitting a quick call to action right at the end to seal the deal.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ68DFRlSfQ/
See how much it added to the post itself? It’s not a super long caption explaining the carousel, but instead, it added a bit more context to it while sharing his own personal journey when making it. And, to top it all off, it also tells you to share with your friends who might find it fun.
Captions are just as versatile as the image itself. You simply need to give as much thought to it as you would give to the image.
A Quick Instagram Stories Reminder
A Quick Instagram Stories Reminder From Our Instagram Management Agency
Ah yes, we know your brand is most likely posting on Instagram Stories at least once per day. But are you taking advantage of Stories to the fullest by promoting your post, showcasing fun behind-the-scenes images or videos from your business, mentioning past tips, and using UGC to make it interesting?
There’s a lot more to posting on Stories than just saying good morning and celebrating a special day.
Take advantage of it by letting people know when you publish something new and want them to check it out. Use hashtags and stickers to draw even more people in, and make sure to stay true to your brand’s colors and style.
If you want to humanize your brand a bit more and show people that your whole team isn’t made of robots, you can go behind the scenes and show what your employees do throughout the week. Who are your employees and what are their personalities like? What fun things are you doing around the office? Brainstorm ideas to make your brand feel more genuine.
Remember that people connect with people, and even though you’re selling a product or service, they want to know that there’s a human being behind the product. They want to know that there is a dedicated team caring about them and wanting them to have the best experience possible.
The beauty of Stories is that you don’t have to worry about messing up any grid or making it align completely with your brand as a whole; you are able to get away with a lot more stuff here than you would with normal posts. This is a great way to be creative and try something new and exciting that you think might bring more engagement and potential leads to your business.
The Live Feature is There For a Reason
The Live Feature is There For a Reason
The ability to stream on Instagram has opened the door to so many interactions with people. You can explain a bit more about your brand while responding to specific questions your followers might have.
It might seem a bit intimidating at first since you’re talking directly to a live audience, but after a few tries, you’ll be as comfortable talking to them as you would be with your friends.
Ok, but why would I want to make an Instagram Live if I can just make a video that people can watch whenever they want and leave questions down there?
The simple and short answer is interaction. With Instagram Live, you have the opportunity to talk directly with people who follow your brand enough to join the Live session, and they can ask you in real-time questions that you might miss in a video you posted during a busy day at work.
It also lets you have fun interactions with your followers while getting feedback on your products and other areas they may recommend improving. While you won’t particularly do everything they say, there’s always a chance they might tell you an idea to improve your product that you never thought about.
Any good Instagram management agency will tell you that Instagram Live is severely under-appreciated. But, with a big enough following, it can be a huge success.
Why Aren’t You Checking Your Insights?
Why Aren’t You Checking Your Insights?
Are you unsure of what type of posts are getting the most interaction and which stories you should be posting more of?
If this is happening to you constantly, then you’re not using your insights correctly.
The reason the insight feature is there in the first place is for you to notice which posts are doing the best and why.
This helps you determine which type of content you should be making more of and discover what the part that drew people in the most was.
Insights is such an amazing tool if you want to know if your strategy is working or if you’re going in the right direction when it comes to gaining views, followers, and clicks to your website.
Optimize your Profile Page
Our Instagram Management Agency Recommends You Optimize your Profile Page
Ok, so you have your posts in check, and your stories are killer, but when people go and check your profile, they are met with no description, no links, and no personality.
This is something that users will instantly notice and will leave if they deem the brand not trustworthy enough.
Even if you have a description set already, try to remember when you last made any changes to it. If it was three months ago, then our Instagram management agency suggests you try to change things up a bit, description-wise.
Make sure the main link slot you have goes directly to either your main website or a landing page you might have ready for it.
Content Calendars Are Your Best Friends
Content Calendars Are Your Best Friends
Let’s face it, we all have very busy days where even posting an image is near impossible due to our daily activities. Fear not! There are apps that can help you set up a content calendar, and send you a small reminder to post and the time you set it to so you can give it permission to post directly. If you prefer, the app can also post automatically for you as long as you give them permission to.
Content calendars are the best when it comes to organizing your ideas and seeing what you’re missing once you have a whole week organized. Once you have it down, all you have to do is use it as a cookie-cutter design for the upcoming weeks.
Interact with Similar Accounts
Our Instagram Management Agency Says Interact with Similar Accounts
We can’t stress enough how important it is for you to post on a regular basis and respond to comments users leave. Don’t forget to interact with accounts that fit your target persona. You should be interacting with their content and leaving some comments of your own on their pages right after.
This will take the most time out of your day since you’ll be not only looking for people who fit your persona and your niche.
This is most likely going to be one of the hardest tips to follow due to the sheer amount of time it takes to do. Our Instagram management agency suggests you try to at least reach one new account per day AFTER you have responded to all of the comments and direct messages your account has.
Less is More When it Comes to Call to Actions.
Our Instagram Management Agency Says Less is More When it Comes to Call to Actions
This might sound counterintuitive. But if you’re constantly sending your followers a website they should check out and trying to make them do other stuff like tagging their friends on posts all in one day, then maybe you’re pushing the envelope a bit too far.
Let your followers have some breathing room; otherwise, they might get annoyed at you for being too pushy and end up unfollowing or, even worse, giving you a bad review.
Instead of putting a call to action on every single post of yours ever, our Instagram management agency says consider doing one with a call to action and then two without it. This will help show your followers that you’re not just trying to get them to go to your website constantly (even though deep down you are).
Consistency is Key
Consistency is Key
You should know this one by now, but nothing beats a consistent account that is always at the top of its game. Consistency beats everything. It beats amazing-looking posts. It beats posting twenty times a day, and it sure beats not doing anything.
When it comes to social media, consistency is the main word you want to have present in your mind at all times.
You have to remember that social media isn’t a sprint in search of going viral. It’s instead a slow jog that starts gaining momentum the more consistent you start to become.
Giveaways are a Great Way to Get Followers
Giveaways are a Great Way to Get Followers
While giveaways are known for bringing in followers that only care about the prize rather than the brand, there are ways for you to prevent this. Our agency recommends making it a UGC-only giveaway where, if they don’t have any posts using your hashtag and product, they will miss out on the giveaway.
This ensures more UGC in the long run. It creates brand awareness in followers who do want to win and will even consider buying a product next time to join a giveaway.
Do not underestimate the power of giveaways! When done right, they are amazing and will 100% bring new followers with them.
Memes and Jokes are a Perfect Way to Break the Ice
Memes and Jokes are a Perfect Way to Break the Ice
While this tip isn’t something you want to do regularly, you should consider making jokes or meme posts that help show that you don’t take yourself too seriously. Your followers won’t think, “This brand seems like they don’t care about anything or that they have any personality, so I’ll just leave.”
Ideally, you want to make them yourself. But, if you find a good meme or joke that has to do with your business niche, then consider adding it to your stories and see how it goes.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Those were a lot of tips and secrets we just shared! Let’s do a quick recap to remind ourselves about it all and go back if need be. Why not grab a pen and paper and jot these tips down?
You learned how important timing is when posting your content on Instagram and how much of a difference it can make as well as understanding the reasoning behind why you’re posting at those times.
You learned that it’s not about putting an obscene amount of hashtags on each post and ignoring that a lot of them have nothing to do with you. You learned instead that taking advantage of said hashtags by selecting the ones that do fit your post and brand will provide the most amount of value to you.
You also got to know a bit about working with influencers, if you’re a B2C business and how to spot red flags when looking for several that could benefit your business. Remember that sometimes, working with smaller influencers that don’t ask for all of your budget for one post is the better choice and makes for a lower-risk investment.
We talked about how crucial it is to take advantage of ads, both on Stories and posts, as long as you’re doing them with a purpose in mind instead of just burning your money.
You got to learn why reels are so underrated and why you should take more advantage of them right now, especially since the organic reach is pretty high.
There was this term called UGC that we hope you don’t forget… it’s free content that lends your brand another layer of trustworthiness.
You got an example of why captions are massively underrated and how you can use them to provide value to the users who take their time to see your posts daily.
You even got an explanation as to why consistency is your biggest weapon and why you should be patient when building your presence on social media, especially when it comes to Instagram.
Remember that Instagram is going nowhere with it being the most popular social media by far. So it’s best if we get the most out of it and keep working on building our presence on it.
Read the tips and secrets any Instagram management agency would prefer to keep to themselves. Try to at least work on three of them this week. You can do it in any order you prefer as long as you actually do it and make it consistent. Or… just hire us!
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to leave them below, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Have a great day. And remember to be engaging, consistent, and scroll-stop-worthy!