Suppose your post could get 50+ likes many years ago, even if you only wrote a simple caption and included five hashtags. Today, you must have a strategy before hitting Publish because the Instagram algorithm and users’ behavior have changed. If you do today what you were doing back then, your posts will be ignored!
How you format your Instagram posts can make or break your success in building an audience on Instagram. If you want Instagram to be useful for you, make sure your profile has a theme, your posts look fantastic, you write compelling post descriptions, choose hashtags strategically, and utilize other Instagram features.
It’s now more challenging to build an audience on Instagram because the competition has become stronger. For sure, your competitors are also using the platform for their brand. If you’re starting, it will be a long journey. But you can speed up your progress if you format your Instagram posts correctly!
In this article, we will walk you through all the steps required to format Instagram posts.
How To Format Instagram Posts
One billion people are using Instagram, and many of them publish posts many times a day. Given that people have short attention spans, you must catch their attention within just a few seconds if you want them to spend more time on you. Instagram is heavy on visuals, so start by making your posts visually appealing.
Step #1: Have a Theme for Your Instagram Profile
Having an awesome feed can make a person hit the follow button without a second thought because people are naturally visual beings. Hence, they tend to align themselves with anyone or anything that looks appealing to them. And that’s sometimes regardless of whether the content is relevant to them.
But more than that, “branding” an Instagram feed is a way of promoting your brand. And that takes us to the next step.
Step #2: Create Content According to Your Theme
People won’t be able to remember anything that changes constantly, so if you don’t use the same colors, fonts, styles, shapes, etc., in your marketing materials, your brand won’t stick to your audience’s mind. Consistency is important if you want your brand to succeed because it increases brand awareness!
Having a theme will help you stay consistent because you will need to create content in bulk to achieve the kind of feed you want for your Instagram profile.
Step #3: Write Interesting Post Descriptions
You shouldn’t stop at catching people’s attention. You must write engaging post descriptions, too, and pique their interest, so they see the value you offer. If the post looks fantastic, but the caption is meh, people will like it, but the chances of them going to your profile are low.
Step #4: Don’t Forget To Add Hashtags
Adding relevant hashtags in your descriptions will help you reach more of your target audience, so don’t forget to add hashtags! However, it’s important to note that adding too many isn’t good anymore, as other users may perceive you as desperate. According to HootSuite, one to three hashtags are enough.
Also, don’t use the same hashtags for all your posts, as doing so will limit your reach.
Step #5: Set the Location of the Post
This isn’t necessary, but if you add a location to your posts, you will be able to reach those who are currently in that location. This works like hashtags and is a good strategy for brands that want to promote an event that will occur in a specific location or businesses that have stores in a particular area and want to attract more customers.
Step #6: Tag Other Instagram Users
If you tag an Instagram user in a post, the post will appear on their profile. That will expose you to anyone who visits that user’s profile and checks out the posts they’ve been tagged in. But make sure that you tag only those who matter. If you tag people who have nothing to do with the post, that’s spammy!
This is also an excellent way to get an Instagram user’s attention if that’s part of your strategy. Businesses and brands have Instagram accounts. If your post contains products or items from them, you might as well tag them!
Conclusion
Even though there are one billion users on Instagram, it’s not guaranteed that you will reach all of them and turn them into your audience because your competitors are everywhere. To grow your audience, you should give them content that provides value and shows why you’re better than others.
Taking the time to format your Instagram posts tells people that you’re not there to increase your followers but to help them with something and improve their lives through your products or services or by sharing your expertise so they can find an answer to their problems – for FREE!
