Guest Blog

6 Underhyped Growth And Engagement Hacks Your Instagram Marketing Agency Should Focus On

Is your Instagram marketing agency focusing on the right techniques? With more than a billion users, and one of the highest engagement rates in the social media world, Instagram is easily one of the most powerful tools for today’s brands to work with. Instagram makes it easier to connect with your customers through visual content and build a memorable identity for your brand. However, it also requires a great deal of focus and commitment if you want to learn how to get more followers on Instagram.  Working with an Instagram marketing agency can make it easier for companies to leverage all of the unique benefits that the visual social platform has to offer. However, it’s important to ensure that your chosen agency is leveraging the right hacks for astronomical growth.

Rebekah Carter

Copywriter

Instagram Marketing Agencies And Your Brand

Around 71% of businesses currently use Instagram for marketing purposes, and the number continues to grow. Instagram has a lot of potential when used correctly. Not only is it packed full of potential customers, but the people on Instagram also have no problem engaging with brands. Around 90% of people now follow a company on Instagram.

Though the opportunity is clearly there for companies to thrive on Instagram, it’s also becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd. As more organisations flock to the channel, it takes a lot of work and planning to make your company stand out.

Instagram marketing agencies handle:

• Market and audience analysis: Your agency can assess where you are in your market, and what kind of customers are most likely to be attracted to your brand.
• Content creation calendars: An Instagram marketing agency can handle planning for your entire Instagram campaign, including how long campaigns should last.
• Content production: Agencies also help you to create more eye-catching content, based on the marketplace, your audience, and your goals.

Boosting Instagram Marketing Agency Results

Crucially, most Instagram marketing agencies will also use tracking and reporting as a way to highlight the work they’re doing, and what it means for your brand. Being able to see how each activity enhances your Instagram image is crucial if you want to make sure you’re getting the best ROI (Return on Investment) from all your efforts.

If you find that your Instagram marketing agency starts offering less impressive results, that’s when it’s time to think outside of the box. Sometimes the most underhyped Instagram marketing hacks can have the biggest impact on your growth.

These are the methods we’d recommend trying:

1. Use An Instagram Growth Service

Instagram can help you grow your brand awareness and introduce new products to an active audience. Around 130 million Instagram users interact with shopping content each month according to the latest statistics. If you don’t have a way to bring more attention to your Instagram account, you can’t leverage that valuable engagement.

The more followers you have on Instagram, the more likely you’ll end up ranking higher on the Explore page and getting more attention from companies or influencers who might want to partner with you. If people see you already have a wide selection of followers, they’ll also be more likely to follow you too, due to basic crowd psychology.

Unfortunately, if you’re a relatively unknown brand, your Instagram marketing agency might be having a hard time convincing people to view your content and follow you. An Instagram growth service can overcome this issue, by reaching out to people who might want to follow your account and encouraging them to come and check you out.

The best services work by learning about your target audience, reaching out to potential customers, and liking their content, so they’re more likely to “like” and follow you in return. It’s a great way to get an initial boost to your growth, and get a better ROI from your marketing agency.

2. Put Emphasis On User Generated Content

User-generated content, or “UGC,” is another excellent tool for accelerating brand growth, and it’s something that works for every kind of company. User-generated content is the stuff your users make which you can share for your brand. If you’re a clothing company, user-generated content might involve people snapping photos of themselves in your outfits.

If you’re a makeup brand, you could encourage people to make videos of themselves on Instagram TV or Reels of their favorite makeup looks using your products. This is a great way to do some research into how people are using your items, but it also gives you tons of free, authentic content to use on your Instagram campaigns.

The easiest way to launch an Instagram UGC campaign with your marketing agency is to ask your audience to submit their photos, videos, and other content to you with a branded hashtag. Lush, for instance, uses the #LushCommunity hashtag to get people to submit their home-made content:

The great thing about user-generated content is that it shows your audience you’re interested in them and gives you more unique ideas to tap into.

You could even find micro influencers already sharing images of themselves using your products to help you ramp up your brand reputation. When your customers see other people using your products – particularly people they already trust, it instantly makes you more credible.

3. Run Contests

Speaking of user-generated content, contests are some of the best ways to encourage your customers to create amazing content on your behalf. Everyone loves an opportunity to get something for free, and your Instagram marketing agency can leverage this fact with engaging competitions.

Your contests should match the style of brand you’re trying to build, and your target audience, as well as the goal you’re trying to reach. For instance, if your fashion company is trying to gain more credibility, you might run a competition asking for people to show their favorite outfits made with items from your store. This gives your clothing more of an impact and gives customers ideas on how they can personalize your creations.

If you’re trying to encourage engagement, you might design a competition that gives your customers a chance to win if they comment on your posts @tag friends, or interact with previous posts. You could even work with influencers and other brands to enhance the impact of your contest and reach more people, like @GlossyBoxUK and @Vitaliberata do here:

Remember, the best competitions are easy for followers to enter, and they need to offer something your customers really want as a prize. Ask your Instagram marketing agency to track the results of each competition you run, to see what kind of contests generate the most:

• Engagement (likes, comments and shares)
• User-generated content (Videos, stories, and photos)
• Brand awareness (new followers and @mentions)

4. Tag Popular Accounts

Tagging your Instagram posts with the right words and phrases is one of the most valuable things your Instagram marketing agency can do when working on your social presence. You probably already know that popular #hashtags make it easier for your customers to find you. Even location hashtags can boost your presence in the right environments, helping you to reach a wider audience.

But are you tagging other popular content creators, too? This is one of the easiest ways to leverage the power of influential accounts on Instagram.

When you tag a popular influencer’s account, you increase the chances of them tagging you in return, so you can reach a wider audience. Tagging popular accounts, particularly if you have a connection with those people, also boosts your credibility. For instance @TheOuai always tags the  models and fashion stars the company works with on its promotional campaigns.

Of course, you shouldn’t just be tagging people at random. That kind of behavior could end up making your content look spammy. Only tag people who agree to work with your brand, individuals you showcase in your content, or people relevant to the message you’re sending in your caption.

Ask your Instagram marketing agency to track down some high-quality accounts your company might be able to partner with to expand brand reach. The influencers you reach out to can help you to reach new customers, while giving you advice on how to make your marketing campaigns stand out.

5. Ask Your Followers Questions

It’s amazing how easy it is for today’s businesses to forget that social media should be “social.” In other words, it’s not just about creating great content and showcasing it online. You should also be looking for ways to start real discussions with your audience.

The best way to engage your customers in an authentic discussion is to ask them some questions. You can do this by hosting polls and questionnaires on Instagram Stories, to get your audience engaged with trending topics at the moment. Alternatively, you can add questions to your captions and ask people to respond with a branded hashtag.

Even simple questions like “Which one do you have your sights Set on” in the example from @TheOuai above can encourage more engagement. These questions give your audience a voice, get people talking about your content, and might even encourage them to share your posts with new followers.

As an added bonus, the more questions you ask, the more you can learn about your customers and their preferences.

6. Don’t Skimp On Video Content

Finally, if your Instagram marketing agency is still focusing exclusively on photo content, then it could be stopping you from making the right impact on your audience. As valuable as photos still are on Instagram, the demand for video is growing all the time.

Video content gets around 2.1 times more comments on average compared to standard photos, and videos even benefit from a 38% higher engagement rate. You can create video content on Instagram with:

• Standard video posts: Creating basic video posts is the best way to spruce up your news feed with some more dynamic content. Experiment with things like behind-the-scenes brand showcases, and insights into what your team does each day to build credibility.
• IGTV: IGTV content is intended for long-form video content. This could be an excellent place to post some of your beauty tutorials or how-to videos to help customers use your product more effectively.
• Reels: Instagram Reels are one of the newer options for video creation on Instagram. They’re excellent for connecting with a younger audience, and only require a few seconds of content.
• Instagram Stories: Instagram stories are great for engagement and growth, you can combine stickers, videos, and photos in the same Story to tell a narrative rich in brand personality.

Huda beauty is an excellent example of a company who knows how to use video to get people excited about what their products can do:

Source

Make The Most Of Your Instagram Marketing Agency

An Instagram marketing agency can turbocharge your efforts on social media, showing you how to leverage everything from Instagram Stories to posts published at the perfect time to reach your clients.

Working closely with your Instagram marketing agency, you can plan the perfect Instagram strategy to optimize brand awareness and growth, while relying on specialists to handle the hard work of executing campaigns. Just make sure your agency is using the right techniques.

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