“A picture is worth a thousand words” is an expression often used to describe the importance of sight to interpret expression and meaning, when contrasted to words. This concept is intrinsic to social media marketing, because images are generally the first thing that captures your audience’s attention.

Research has revealed that photos generate a higher level of engagement on social media than words alone. The same report highlighted 75 per cent of content shared by Facebook users was photos!  Understanding the critical role images play in building an online audience, highlights why image orientated social media platforms, such as Instagram, are so influential not only for private, but for business use.

While Instagram is often used by celebrities such as the Kardashian’s to flaunt their new and often surgically enhanced assets, (one of which is their father Caitlyn!), it can also be an effective tool to grow your online audience.

I’ve outlined 4 simple and easy ways to help you increase your Instagram followers below. If you need further assistance with your Instagram campaigns, it is well worth investing in a social media specialist.

MAKE SURE YOU ONLY POST HIGH QUALITY IMAGES

When posting photos or images on Instagram for your business, it’s unprofessional to look like an amateur. Which doesn’t mean you have to be a pro-photographer, it just means you need to produce high resolution, quality images. With the superior mobile devices currently available on the market, and numerous editing applications that you can use to enhance your photos, there’s no excuse for having low resolution, grainy images. If you’re time poor, there’s also stock photo websites where you can source quality images, such as Shutterstock.

POST CONSISTENT AND RELEVANT CONTENT

Communicating regularly is a vital part of any relationship, and with your online audience it is essential. For example, if your audience comes to rely on you for healthy recipes on Instagram, and you stop posting these for a period of time, you’ll find your followers will drop off once they’ve found someone else to fulfill this purpose.

It’s also important to post content that is relevant to your audience. If you’ve built a following by providing your followers with information on more specialised topics, by diversifying too widely from these, there’s a good chance you’ll lose them!

YOUR IMAGES NEED TO BE ATTENTION GRABBING

Whether you choose to incorporate interesting or amusing photos, or images with bright colours and eye-catching patterns, you need to grab and hold your audience’s attention visually with Instagram. It’s also a good idea to style your images, keeping to a similar theme, whether classic or contemporary, so your brand or business can be easily identified based on this.

WHY HASHTAGS ARE IMPORTANT FOR INSTAGRAM

By using hashtags with your images on Instagram, you will instantly grow your reach. The reason for this is all major social media networks now link hashtags to posts, so when your audience selects your hashtag, it will automatically show them all of the other public posts listed under that hashtag.

If you’re limited with resources and would like some help with your marketing campaigns on Instagram and other social media platforms, speak to the online marketing experts at Ad On Digital today! You can call the team on (07) 5586 1412 or send them an email if it’s more convenient.