Our top tips for an engaging Instagram account...

Instagram has become one of the most popular social media sites, especially with younger ‘mobile’ consumers. Many companies are realising the opportunities it offers in communicating with customers and how it can drive engagement.

These 6 tips will help you create a lively and engaging Instagram account!

1. Be consistent with your messaging:
Though the main focus of your posts will be photos, your captions and messages should be reflect with your brand. If you have a slogan or tagline, hashtag it and add it to every post, and pick tags that are relevant to your brand and your products, for example, a cafe may post pictures of their drinks and food and include the tags #coffeelovers #treatyourself with their photos.

2. Share a variety of content: Users want to relate to you, so use Instagram as a chance to give them a glimpse of who your company is, put a face to the people behind the brand.

3. Even with 200 million+ users, there are still popular times that more users are engaged with their account. Studies show that posting a picture between during the day, after 9pm (unlike on Facebook and Twitter) is a relatively quiet time.

4. Use hashtags: hashtags can improve the success of the content you post. Instagram is not all about following people and brands you like, it is also a tool to search and engage with new content that is interesting. Using the hashtag allows you to connect with unconnected users.

5. Use video! The Instagram video has become more popular than the video posting app, Vine. Not only are videos fun to post but they engage users. Give a tour of the office, snippets of an event you’re attending or a quick how-to.

6. Be arty with filers: One of Instagram’s best features is that users can instantly turn a simple iPhone photo into a high quality piece of art with the handy editing tools. People are drawn to photos with blue tints, over red or orange images and light photos are generally more popular than dark photos. The top 3 most effective filters are Normal or No Filter, Mayfair and Inkwell

For more help and advice on using Instagram, drop up a line at hello@hotgossipmedia.co.uk