With over 500 million active users using the platform daily, Instagram is definitely one of the most popular social networks! With such a large number of users, it might be harder to differentiate yourself and make your Instagram profile stand out from the crowd. Although there are some proven ways to improve your Instagram presence but you have to be honest and critical with yourself.
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Do you feel stuck with your profile, not sure how to improve it? Do you want to get your business or yourself out there and attract more audience to your profile? If you answered yes to at least one or both questions, keep on reading. I will break down the key factors on how to create an Instagram profile that gets attention!
On-Brand Profile Picture And Searchable Instagram Name
One of the first important steps of optimizing the profile is to set up an on-brand profile picture which could be a picture of yourself or the logo of the business. Your profile picture is the first thing anyone can see, and it gives the impression of your brand, so make sure the picture is clear and logo is not pixelated!
The same goes for the name and username of your profile. Make sure that your name represents what the brand stands for and what you offer. The ‘Name’ in your bio is searchable and you can easily customize it! To fully take advantage of it, add one or more keywords to your name field, which describes you and your business best. Let’s say if you are a business coach, you can use your name + keyword business coach next to it. This way, your chances of appearing on the top of the search when using related keywords is much higher!
Optimize Your Bio
Just like the name field, bio is all about the keywords related to your business. Explain your business in a few catchy sentences, add the location where you’re based and link the website which you want to direct people to. You can also customize your link by using Bitly or add a couple of different links via LinkTree.
However, most importantly, be clear on who you are and what you do! Use emojis to make your bio more fun, add keywords that best describes you and your business and you can also use a few relevant hashtags (I would suggest adding a maximum of 3 hashtags which are the most accurate to your business). If someone visits your profile, they want to know who they are following and why they should follow, so give them a good reason to stick around!
Additional TIP: Show your personality and be yourself!
Create A Beautiful Feed
Do you have any favorite Instagram accounts which are always posting stunning pictures and you wonder how can my grid look like from the magazine?
Instagram is a very visual platform and therefore high-quality photos are a ‘must-have’! At the end of the day, one of the main reasons why you gain new followers is most probably because they love your pictures and your brand!
A beautiful and cohesive grid is one of the first things people notice on your profile and then scroll through several pictures. It’s very important to always use the same color scheme or the same filters for all pictures, ensuring the feed is eye-catching but also nice looking.
A great way of creating a grid is using apps like Planoly or Unum to help you visualize the 9-picture grid, so you can see how the combination of colors looks before it’s even posted!
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Be Consistent
If you’re rolling your eyes now, stop! I know you might hear this all the time, but that’s only because it does work! Consistency and being an active user helps the algorithm to showcase your content to a bigger audience.
Therefore, being consistent is the key to success and there are no exceptions! Posting at certain times and days allows your audience to know exactly when the next post comes up or what you currently working on. I would recommend posting once a day at the right time, meaning posting when your audience is online. You can check the best times in your profile insights, but generally speaking, the best times are morning, lunch or evening times.
If you don’t have time to manually post every day, you can schedule your content for a week (or more) in advance, so it’s automatically posted every day for you. Depending on which platform you want to post onto, Buffer, Later, Hootsuite or Planoly are just a few apps for scheduling!
Bring The Value to Your Audience
Ask yourself what value do I want to bring to my audience? Instagram is getting more and more real and what I mean by that is people but also brands are sharing their stories in a very authentic way. Storytelling is a big thing in 2019, and it’s something brands using to their advantage to connect with their community.
Quality counts over quantity and therefore it’s important to be selective on what you share with your audience! Talk about things or experiences which can people relate to. Share behind the scenes processes like what you or your team are up to, how your day looks like or ask questions you want your audience to answer. Instagram feed but also stories are a great place to share these insights into your brand! So what are you waiting for?
Use The Right Hashtags
Hashtags are such a huge topic on its own, but I will highlight the most important things when using it.
Did you know that Instagram post which has at least one hashtag averages 12,6% more engagement than posts without hashtags? That’s right! Using the right hashtags helps your posts appear in more search results, and therefore there is a higher chance that it will be seen! And what are the right hashtags? Every brand should use hashtags relevant to their brand but also the audience to make sure they are targeting the right people.
The maximum number of hashtags that you can use is 30 and it can be either added under your written content or you can make it look nicer by adding it to the first comment under the post. You can also use the hashtags in your stories to reach a wider audience.
In Conclusion
There are many ways to improve your Instagram profile, but I would say the points mentioned above are the main ones for optimizing your profile! Instagram game is an ongoing process and part of it is also experimenting on what’s working or not. However, most importantly, it’s about having a clear vision of what you or your brand is about and sharing this with the community of people who care and love the content you’re posting! Be consistent, share valuable content and use hashtags to show your content to a wider audience. By using your creativity and keeping it consistent, you will be able to uplevel your profile and reach the active community of people!
Let me know what helped you to make your Instagram profile better or whether you used any of the above suggestions!
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