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Whether Insta is a tool you're toying with or a pillar of your marketing strategy, it's important to stop and ask 'could I be getting more out of the platform?'
With 1+billion users, no matter your industry, no matter what you're selling or who you're trying to reach...Your ideal audience is on Instagram.But now you've got to do something about it.And whether you're just stepping foot into the game of the 'gram, OR you're sprinting past 100k followers, you can always check to see if there's something else you should be looking at.Here's what's covered in our checklist:
Again, with so many users, it's as close to guaranteed as possible that your ideal audience is on there.What's left to figure out is how much investment you should be paying to Insta over your other channels.
Even if it only seems 'ok'...It might actually be awesome - you may not have found the best way to tell your story on Insta yet.
Note: This is the most important part of the checklist!Because if your answer is 'yes!', no matter how patient, curious, or excited you are, eventually you'll hit a brick wall.And there's no reason to.Rather than spend your time squinting at your phone, then crawling back to a spreadsheet to organise your calendar, and opening a tab to track your results, and checking your emails to get content approvals...Get an Instagram focused scheduler like Sked Social.With a scheduler taking care of the annoying, fiddly, jumping-back-and-forth things, you can focus on getting more from your Insta.Then you have to see if you can get noticed on a feed.
Eyes are quick.In less than a heartbeat, Insta users can tell whose content they’re looking at, whether it's their friends or one of your competitors.So when someone's scrolling, you want to be sure you're instantly recognisable. Here's how to do it:
Your visual brand guidelines should outline:
When used consistently, you start creating a pattern of familiarity with your user.So whenever followers see your particular shades or the star of your Reels, they'll know it's you and start to gravitate towards your content more.
How you talk to your audience and how you want them to respond back to you is another facet to consider.To maintain a consistent brand voice across your Instagram content, you might set specific guidelines like:
All of your content should fall under predetermined content pillars. A content pillar is a specific theme or topic that each piece of your content will fit under.For our Instagram, our pillars might look like:
So our audience knows what they are going to get. They know they can follow us and never see TikTok dancing videos.When determining your content pillars, consider these things:
For your audience, Instagram is entertainment, while for you, Instagram is a canvas.Which means creation, creation, creation!And if Instagram hasn't been a big focus until now (and even if it already is), creating is hard.You need ideas, you need tools, and you need to know you've got it sorted for now and the future.A few things to keep in mind:
You don't need to be a graphic designer to create engaging posts.Canva, for instance, has post and story templates, as well as effects, drag and drop elements, and icons, so no matter how blind to aesthetics you might be, you can create something beautiful.Sked Social has in-app access to Canva, so you can create, edit, and export without having to leave your dashboard.If animated video is more your style, you might try out a tool like Visme.
They may have earned a basic reputation over the years (and rocked plenty of memes), but stock photography can be a lifesaver.Whether it's for a client who supplies you with no imagery, or it's Friday afternoon and you can't be bothered finding something better, or all you really need is a woman smiling while eating salad...it's good to have stock photos as a back up.If your wallet and/or budget is already quivering in fear, you don't have to pay big bucks for decent, royalty-free stock images.Pexels (another integrated library in Sked Social) has some of the best stock photography in the game, but you'll also be able to find good imagery at places like Unsplash and Common Creatives.
Let's get something straight: social doesn't need a strict ROI. There's no way to measure someone who thought your feed looked funky, and then a week later stumbled across your website, and then decided to try your product because they remembered that post you did.But if you wanted to prove your case...It doesn't hurt to be able to show that, yes, you are not only softening up you ideal audience for conversion, you're also an instrumental part of that conversion path.Here's a few things you should be looking at:
This is the stepping stone between 'yeah you post interesting stuff' to 'I want to know you'.Whatever your link in bio tool of choice (obviously, we'd recommend Sked Link), you'll want to make sure your:
And why is it so important to have all these elements taken care of?It reduces the friction between platforms.Because any pause, any stutter, any distraction in between your follower trying to get to your website could be the difference between starting a relationship and remaining strangers.
They may only live for 24 hours, but in that time, Stories can drive visitors to your site like bees to honey.Here's an excellent example of one in use:
According to Databox research, 45.45% of pages with less than 1k followers and 80% of pages with more than 10k followers have the link in their IG bio, which leads to their homepage.If you're thinking 'hmmm are people really interested in seeing any brands Stories?' the answer is absolutely yes.A full third of the highest viewed Stories on Instagram are from businesses.And unlike your link in bio, going from story to your website is just a swipe away. No friction.They see it. They like it. They come straight for it.
If you're selling a physical product - and you're not making any sales from Instagram - you're missing out on a huge opportunity.Your posts can be made shoppable (learn all about it here).It doesn't take much, and itturns your follower's feed into your store.They see a pair of sun glasses they like? Or lipstick, jacket, shoes? Boom, they can go straight to the register.But even if you're already making sales from Insta...How much effort does it take?Because the goal is to spend as little energy making the most amount of return.So if you're thinking 'ugh it's a great channel but it's so annoying to get working', well, Sked Social can take care of that - check out how to get more from your eComm store with Sked here.
Instagram is a great platform.Undeniably so.But - if it’s the worst part of your job, or you dread throwing any of your precious time into effort for the platform…Then something is wrong.It’s not the platform.It’s definitely not you.The problem is the connection between you and the platform.When it’s easy to create content, when it’s simple to know what’s working, when you can do everything you need to quickly and easily - well, that’s what turns a drag into an investment.And when it feels like an investment, that’s when you’ll start to see change.
It’s not because we’re #1 (we’re actually #2 or #3 in size), or because our UX is light years better than the competition (even though it clearly is, some of those other platforms look like space shuttle controls).The real, what-they-tell-their-friends-over-drinks reasons are this:
Basically, all the little things that mean they can actually focus on Insta without it weighing them down.If you’d like to see if Sked Social is right for you, here’s the deal:Start a free trial. Use coupon code SKED100 at checkout. And you get your trial week free, plus a free month after that.That’s 5 weeks to see if the platform is right for you.And hey - it might not be.But if it is, well, that’s a game-changer for you and your brand.Try it for yourself right now.
Why settle for a lackluster social media management tool when you could be using Sked Social? With unlimited collaborator access, streamlined approvals and advanced auto-post technology that lets you schedule to all major platforms, Sked Social offers everything you need.
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