Instagram marketing is an easy, inexpensive, and super effective way to grow your brand awareness, drive sales, and generate new leads!
Unfortunately, a lot of businesses struggle to implement an Instagram marketing strategy that goes beyond just posting consistently. Whether you’re an Instagram pro or new to the game, here are five ways boost your Instagram marketing using Later, a free Instagram scheduler:
Instagram Marketing Tips #1: Schedule Instagram Posts for the Week in 30 Minutes
Every business owner knows that time is money. So, if you’re looking to make better use of that ever-so-precious commodity, it makes sense for you to save yourself time and enlist the help of a free Instagram scheduler.
Taking 30 minutes to an hour one day to schedule Instagram posts for the whole week will not only make your life less stressful, but it will also leave you more time to actually engage with your Instagram community, which is so important if your goal with Instagram marketing is to make sales or generate leads.
If you’re looking to get started with scheduling your Instagram posts, you can sign up for a free Later account here. Once you’re signed up, you can immediately start uploading your content to your media library.
From there, you can then easily drag your photos and videos onto your calendar. When it comes time to post, Later will send you a push notification which opens your photo in Instagram for you. All you have to do is press “paste” in the caption field, hit “share” in your Instagram app, and you’re good to go. Voila! Time saved!
Instagram Marketing Tips #2: Design Your Instagram Aesthetic
So far we’ve talked about ways to optimize how you post, but what about what you post?
While it used to be the case that posting high-quality photos and videos was enough to attract new followers, today the overall look of your feed is just as important than the individual posts you share.
It’s something that a lot of businesses fail to consider, but building a unique and attractive Instagram aesthetic is a really powerful way to brand your business and get new customers. Take a look at the feeds of some of the most successful Instagram marketing accounts. Notice how great they all look?
So how do actually you go about creating an Instagram aesthetic for your account? Well, Instagram feed inspiration can take a lot of time and planning. But once you’ve found the perfect “look” for your feed, the next big hurdle is being consistent! And that’s where Later’s Visual Instagram Planner comes in.
Later’s Visual Instagram Planner is one of the best tools to plan and design the perfect Instagram feed. Once you’ve signed up for a free Later account, you can easily drag & drop your photos onto our visual planner, re-arrange them to see how they’ll look in your feed, and save to schedule them!
To get started with our Visual Instagram Planner, navigate your Later calendar and click the “Preview” button in the top right corner.
From there, you can easily design the look of your Instagram feed by rearranging specific posts. Once you’re happy, click “Save” and the changes will automatically reflect onto your calendar.
And the best part about it? We just released the feature on mobile too!
Instagram Marketing Tips #3: Find Your Best Time to Post
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times: If you want to generate a lot of engagement (and sales) on your Instagram posts, you need to post when your audience is most active!
Think of it this way: If you post when your audience is most active on Instagram, you’re more likely to drive engagement on that post. That engagement will translate into Instagram bumping your post higher up on users’ feeds (thanks to the algorithm), and even give you a shot at getting on the Instagram Explore page, which will result in even more engagement on your post!
On the other hand, if you post at random times without any strategy in mind, there’s little doubt that the engagement on your posts will be low!
So how do actually you find your best time to post on Instagram? Well, considering that every account has a different audience, in different time zones, calculating the best time to post on Instagram for your account used to be a pretty difficult process. It involved doing a ton of research and running countless A/B tests.
That’s why we created our Best Time to Post feature, which automatically calculates the top posting times for your Instagram marketing account! Yup, that’s right. No more A/B tests.
If you’re on one of Later’s business plans, your best times will be highlighted in your weekly content calendar, making it easy for you to schedule Instagram posts for when your audience is most active. If you haven’t upgraded yet, you can learn more about our plans here.
Once you’re upgraded, simply open your Later calendar settings by clicking the “gear” icon in the top right corner.
Next, toggle the feature from “Off” to “On.”
Once it’s enabled, your best times will be highlighted in your weekly content calendar, making it easy for you to schedule Instagram posts for when your audience is most active!
Instagram Marketing Tips #4: Curate Your Feed With User Generated Content
One of the biggest pain points for businesses on Instagram is finding enough content to post to their feeds. We totally get it: when you’re busy running a business, searching for fresh content to post your Instagram account is the last thing you want to be doing.
Luckily, there’s an easier way to collect a ton of great content for your Instagram marketing account: by relying on user-generated content (UGC).
If you’ve never heard the term before, user-generated content is basically any type of content (photo, video, tweet, etc.) that’s created by a customer, fan, or user. That means that anyone taking their own photo, posting it to Instagram, and tagging a brand or using a hashtag is creating user generated content. Most often, businesses will gather UGC by creating a branded hashtag and encouraging their followers to post with that hashtag.
But how do you actually collect all of this wonderful user-generated content? one of the best ways is by using Later’s Search & Repost tool, which lets you easily find, collect, and share valuable user-generated content (UGC) right from your Instagram community.
All you have to do is type in your branded hashtag into Search & Repost. When you see a photo you love, just click on the photo, select “Add to Media Library,” and continue to do this for all the photos you like.
Depending on how popular your hashtag is, you’ll want to spend a few minutes every day or week going through your hashtag and adding content to your Later media library.
When searching for user-generated content on Instagram, it’s better to use a tool like Search & Repost than to manually screenshot and repost a photo. Not only does Search & Repost maintain the quality of the photo, but it automatically pulls in the caption and username of the original post!
Instagram Marketing Tips #5: Grow Your Account Using Analytics
Unfortunately, a lot of Instagram users neglect to even look at their Instagram analytics. Or if they do, they’ll focus on the number of likes and comments their posts receive, rather than diving deeper into more important performance metrics.
The fact is that understanding how your content performs is so important if you want to develop a robust Instagram marketing strategy for your business. You should be aware of likes and comments, but also how different content types perform against each other.
So how do you actually collect these kinds of insights about your Instagram account? Well, one of the best ways is to sign up for a Later account and to access Later’s Free Instagram Analytics.
With Later’s free Instagram Analytics, you can learn more about how your posts are performing and discover which type of content gets the most Instagram engagement! You can view your Instagram account summary to view how many likes and comments each of your posts received in the last three months, including which posts were the most popular and the average number of likes and comments you receive per post.
To get started with Later’s Free Instagram Analytics, simply click on the “Analytics” tab in the Later web app.
From there, you can learn more about how your posts are performing and discover which type of content gets the most Instagram engagement!
And if you need more insights, Later also offers Pro Instagram Analytics with more detailed data about your follower and engagement growth!
If your goal with Instagram marketing is to make sales or generate leads for your business, it’s important to optimize your Instagram in as many ways possible! Whether it’s scheduling your Instagram posts for when your audience is most active or previewing the “look” of your feed before posting, Later offers a number of features to maximize the effectiveness of your Instagram marketing!
Ready to get moving with your Instagram marketing strategy? Later makes it easy for you to plan, manage, and schedule your Instagram posts!
