Building an Invincible IG Profile - here's how!

Instagram is one of the most highly ‘populated’ social media platforms. With constant updates and new features on this application, it soon becomes more than a social platform, but a promotion and marketing channel for those who know how to leverage the extensive list of functions available.

Book: Instagram Power Author: Jason Miles

In this book, the author Jason Miles discussed the basic functions and ways to turn a social media profile into a promotion platform for individuals, businesses and non-profit organizations.

Understanding the Use of Instagram

As the saying goes, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. For starters, setting up your Instagram profile is one crucial step – you must clearly tell people who you are and what do you do, especially for business accounts. In your bio, write a short description about goods or services you provide, including hashtags, call-to-action button (for businesses) and website links if there are any.

In case you have no idea how to write one, FIND YOUR HEROES. Search for the people or businesses which you look up to, study and learn from (NOT COPY) their ways of setting up a compelling profile.

Basic functions on Instagram include posting of photos or videos on the feed and stories. IGTV (videos of duration above one minute), Live and Shop are other functions that have been introduced recently. This allows for users to share different types of content on their profiles. As Instagram is designed specifically for mobile phones, one might consider choosing portrait/vertical over landscape/horizontal orientation when sharing the content to optimize viewing experience.

Instagram also provides insights which are particularly useful for businesses. Once you switch your profile into a business account, insights will be available for you to check the performance of your posts. It goes beyond seeing engagement such as Like and Comment, but also number of shares, people who saw your posts and visited your profile. Even better, you can know who your audience is by looking at top locations, age groups, gender and their active hours. All this information helps one to understand the targeted audience. In doing so, one will be able to produce content or products that are best suited for this group of people and subsequently reach out to more of them.

Exploring Ways to Boost Profile Strength

A little-known fact on boosting your post is to leverage #Hashtags wisely. Since many are using hashtags, some just used it for the sake of using it. In fact, hashtags are extremely powerful – only if you know how to use it. The more popular the hashtag is does not mean it is better for you. In choosing an ideal hashtag for your business, make sure it is relevant, brief and easy to understand. Avoid choosing general hashtags with a high number of usage as it would be much more challenging to stay on ‘Top’ and ‘Recent’ tabs of the hashtag as everyone else are hashtag-ing the same. Use hashtags that are moderate in terms of number used and make sure they are relevant in order to reach the right audience.

After setting up your profile and understanding all the basics, now it is time to consider your content. It is important to have set a theme and if possible, stick to a visual style to make your profile more compelling. People follow you for a reason. Hence, you must give them the reason by offering content that impress, inspire, motivate, educate or benefit your audience. Either you share thoughts that your followers agree with, e.g. animal rights, feminism and so on. Or perhaps you own a brand that people love. No matter what it is, always bear in mind that social media is a platform for people to socialize. Offer useful and meaningful content on a consistent basis for your followers to maintain this ‘relationship’.

People love attention. Instagram is a place where you can give and get attention easily if you were to follow the FLCR method. As the name itself suggests, it means Follow, Like, Comment and Respond. To boost your profile strength in terms of followers and engagement, you would have to put in effort. Follow people of your niche, like and comment on other posts, and respond to any comments and messages from others. It is a form of acknowledgement on their presence and to show that you actually care about what they said, which will in turn make them feel good and subsequently become your super fans. Even prominent companies and famous brands are doing the same, e.g. W Hotel responds to each of the comments on their posts by either liking or responding to their comments. The logic is simple, in the real world, communications build relationships; in a virtual world, these are the necessary steps in order to build rapport with your audience by initiating some sort of interactions with them or by giving responses.

Aside from the organic way of building your profile, one may also consider collaborating with influencers. This is known as influencer marketing. It can be done in various ways such as sponsorship, paid review, discount or affiliate code or hire them as long-term ambassadors. This is because influencers' posts often provide a greater chance of reaching a wider range of audience (their followers). You could probably reach the same amount of people using advertisements, but the effect would probably differ. This is because word of mouth from someone we know (or someone we follow) is much more convincing than a random advertisement that pops up on your screen.

Conclusion

To conclude, Instagram has become part of our lives that we are using it from time to time. Wherever we go, whatever we do – we snap, and we post. It is undoubtedly a channel for people to connect and share meaningful contents on a real time basis. As people nowadays are shifting to a digital lifestyle, there are great opportunities out there for businesses to reach the right audience who are yet to discover their products and services. Therefore, understand the basic functions and utilize the above-mentioned tips and tricks are keys to maximize the potential of Instagram as a social promotion platform.