Social media can play a major role in your business productivity as there are tens and thousands of millions of people hooked on it at any given point in time. There are several different social media channels that you will come across and use it for your business purpose. There is none that can match the potential of Instagram. However, you will need to use this platform in the best possible way, following the specific trends and principles for the entire duration.
- As you may know, Instagram is all about sharing pictures and videos. That means everybody will be interested to find and share on the best photos and videos.
- You may also know that every user profile or Instagram account has a “Followers” and “Following” count. This represents the number of people following an account as well as how many other users are following them.
- There is a button on every user profile that one must tap to follow it. However, if any account is set to private profile, the users will need to have an approval first.
Setting your account
If you want your business account to reach out to more and more people and more and more followers can get hooked to it, you must ensure that you create the best profile, insert the best link, but most importantly, you set your Instagram profile to public. This will ensure that anyone will find and view your profile with all the photos and videos that you posted. If you want only those followers you approve to see your posts, only then should you set your profile to private.
To enhance your profile’s visual appeal, you can make your own profile picture in no time for a cohesive and professional look.
When you create and set up your account, you must make sure that interacting on posts is easy and fun. You can:
- Double tap on any post to “like” it
- Add a comment at the bottom
- Click the arrow button to share it with others or
- Use a direct message.
You can also use the search tab, which is denoted by a magnifying glass, if you want to find and add more friends to your Instagram account or to follow more interesting accounts. It will also help you to browse through posts that are tailored and recommended to you. Apart from that, you can also use the search bar located at the top of the account to look for specific hashtags or users.
Using filters and editing
Use filters and editing to make the best use of your Instagram account for your business purposes. If you apply these to your Instagram posts, the pictures will be more interesting and appealing to your followers.
Over the years, Instagram has come a long way and now provides users with a lot of posting options. When it first launched in 2010, the user’s choice was limited, and they could only post photos through the app. They could add filters without any extra editing features.
- Today, users can post photos directly through the app or on their devices.
- They can also post photos and videos up to one minute in length.
However, the most significant thing is that now they have a whole lot of additional filter options provided by Instagram along with the editing feature that helps them in tweaking their elements to post. If you do not know how to use or where to find these filters and editing feature, take cue from sites like stormlikes.com and others. They will guide you through the process and beyond.
- The camera or video icon that appears when you tap the middle Instagram posting tab it will allow the app to know whether you want to post a picture or a video.
- You can also capture the picture through the app and post it directly or tap the photo or video preview box in order to select a picture that you captured previously.
As of now, there are about 23 filter options offered by Instagram that you can apply to both photos and videos.
However, by tapping the Edit option at the bottom of the photo editor, you can add lots of effects to your photos. You can adjust the:
- Brightness,
- Contrast and even
- The structure of the photos.
If you want to make such adjustments in your photo or video within the Instagram app, all you need to do is tap the wrench icon simply to choose a specific feature from the bottom menu. Using this option, you can adjust a lot of things such as the:
- Contrast
- Highlights
- Shadows
- Warmth
- Saturation
- Sharpness
- Vignette and
- Tilt-shift as well.
As for the videos, you can select a cover frame or even trim them.
Boost engagement rates
Instagram will help you to boost the engagement rate in a much better way as compared to all other channels in social media. This is because there are more than 500 million people who are actively using this platform daily, making it the most popular, favored and used platform. That means you can reach out to a wider audience quickly and in a much more effective manner.
However, it is not the sheer number that should tempt you to use this platform for your business purpose. In order to get the desired boost in your business, you will need to increase the engagement rates on your posted content. Take the help of the micro-influencers, for that matter, to be better off and grow your business and engagement.
Typically, social media platforms help in growing engagements but with the rise in popularity and demand of Instagram, there is also a significant rise in corrupt and inferior practices. Therefore, it is important that you choose the best influencers for the best results.
Finally, you must be wary of the paid followers that some companies offer in exchange for a price. However, these paid followers are rarely genuine and most of them are a blend of fake accounts and bots. Therefore, choose an influencer based on their engagement rates: the higher it is, the more genuine and authentic the influencer will be. Period!
