“Instagram is strictly a visual platform.” Through short videos and photos, Instagram makes it easier for its users to engage more than Facebook’s curated content. Instagram has a median of 1.60% engagement rate across all industries.
People nowadays are connected with their brands more via mobile phones. They prefer to share direct messages, express opinions, and post stories to showcase their buying behavior.
As per data, 91% of luxury brands, 84% of sports clothing, and 83% of beauty brands have been using Instagram to engage with their users and increase their business through planned influencer marketing.
Also, the past surveys have revealed that 83% of Instagram users agree that they found new products and services information via this platform.
“An engaging post on Instagram, with authentic and original content, can help your brand to engage with the users.”
To write engaging social media posts on Instagram, you must give attention to each of its segments.
The five key segments of a post on Instagram:
- Visuals
- Caption
- Hashtags
- Community engagements
- Technical Specs & Dimensions
Step 1: Make High-Quality Videos/Photographs
Instagram is all about visuals (photographs and videos). A video series or a photo collage with high-quality collateral can instantly engage your audience. You can share information about your products or services easily through them. With the right color schemes to match your brand and professional photo/video software, you can catch followers’ attention quicker.
Important Points:
1. Adjust your phone camera settings: Turn-off HDR on your camera to avoid taking overprocessed pictures.
2. You can also learn to focus the camera manually so that you can highlight the features as per your choice in the image.
3. Do not overdo with the filters. Balance it so that you don’t ruin the natural light.
4. You can use VSCO Cam to edit your photos for better picture quality output.
5. For videos, look for natural lighting and keep the source of light in front of you. It is better to use a DSLR or a smartphone camera to shoot the video rather than the Instagram app camera.
Step 2: Use Caption Space Wisely
Even if Instagram allows 2,200 characters in a caption, use this space wisely to engage your followers. As per Instagrams’ recommendations, the best length is 125 characters, which can get readily displayed. There is a trend of writing an editorial style longer posts, but mostly it depends on what you are promoting in the post.
For example, take a look at this tutorial type post; it is lengthy but still engaging.
A short and informative caption with a celebratory tone can be equally engaging in promoting a trend, memes, or challenges.
Important Points:
1. A caption must be written error-free with clear intent.
2. To catch the interest of users quickly, front-load your caption with relevant text first. For example, check out the Airbnb post below. It highlights the location and positive attributes of this Airbnb place early, to catch the reader’s attention.
3. Don’t forget to include call-of-action in your caption to enhance engagement with your followers.
Step 3: Use Hashtags only where relevant
Hashtags play a vital role in inducing community engagement. However, it does not mean you clutter your caption with popular hashtags greedily to get maximum engagement. Too many hashtags in the caption makes it look spammy. Also, people might refrain from engaging. So, use them only where it is relevant.
Important Points:
1. If you need to use more hashtags, it is better to add them in the comments section. For example, you can use a line break to avoid clutter.
2. Select hashtags relevant only to your industry, brand, and campaign.
3. There is no right number for hashtags, but keeping it below ten is best.
Step 4: Do Community engagements
The ultimate goal of writing an Instagram post is to engage your followers and generate leads to gain conversions. Just having exciting content is not enough. You also need to engage your followers to help them connect with your brand. For example, a sneak peek review or a behind-the-scenes exclusive is an excellent way to do community engagements for big news or announcements.
Important Points:
1. To enhance community engagement, you can ask your users questions that are relevant to your brand, and let them respond to you directly. Questions like asking for feedback, close-ended yes-no questions or multiple-choice questions, or getting-to-know-you questions are some good examples.
2. You can also use emojis to personalize your post and enhance engagement. Posts with emojis generally have higher rates of engagement compared to others.
Step 5: Follow the Technical Specs & Dimensions
To get maximum engagement with social media posts for Instagram, you must follow the necessary technical specifications and dimensions. Specification and features in Facebook Ad Manager for Instagram Ads and in-app Instagram may vary from each other. While designing the ads on Facebook Ad Manager, remember to create your Instagram content for a mobile-first experience.
Hopefully, by following the above steps and keeping in mind the essential points, you will now be able to write engaging social media posts for Instagram.
Want me to help you manage your social media content? Get in touch with me at Contact@SanjayB.com.