Take an eye catching snapshot, use the most popular filters and press upload button – that’s it. However, nowadays – it is not enough, because more and more people are taking photos and sharing their daily live moments with others.
In order to make your Instagram profile attractive and noticeable (which will stand out among millions of profiles), get high engagement rate or increase number of followers, check out these 6 interesting Instagram tricks.
Let’s get started!
1. More Hashtags
Probably you know that the limit on Instagram is up to 30 hashtags per post. However, some marketers say that such big number of hashtags looks so spammy and it is better to use around 3 or 5. Others affirm that using 11 hashtags provides you the highest engagement. Well, well, well…it is enough of guessing. During marketing studies it was found that the post which has 11 or more hashtags gets much better engagement.
In other words, we can say that there is a direct, positive correlation between number of hashtags and engagement (other people likes and comments).
So the more hashtags an Instagram post has, the more visible it is for other users and the more liked and commented it is. Only remember one rule – don’t exceed the allowable number of hashtags (limit of 30).
Another useful Instagram tip which is related with hashtags is opportunity to hide your hashtags and in this case they won’t look spammy.
If you don’t know how to do it… It is simple, you just need to precede hashtags with 5 dashes each one on the next line. In this case other user instead of hashtags will see […].
What is more, don’t forget to use hashtags that are more popular, relevant to your target, so it will help you to reach people who are searching for exactly what you are posting. Every time when you are writing hashtag you can see how popular it is, the numbers near hashtag show it.
Furthermore, in order to be unique and noticeable, you can create your own hashtag for your brand. Just check the availability of your created tag. Also you can encourage your followers to share your hashtag by suggesting them some bonuses, for instance, post’s regram. In will help you not only to boost your Instagram engagement but also make your brand more noticeable and likely can increase traffic in your website.
If you remember the times when using Instagram hashtags was so easy. You was posting a photo with a lot of hashtags, later you was coming back and deleting previously written tags, adding more and boom, magically the post was raised up in those hashtags categories and consequently the engagement was increasing once again.
However, this magical trick is not working anymore, now the post will appear in tags’ feed at the time it was originally posted. In this case, you need to put all the relevant hashtags when you are uploading the post and then you boost engagement.
2. No Instagram filters
As unusually it can seem, but Instagram filters don’t work so well for accounts of the brand. So, if you are in doubt, it is better to skip using Instagram filters.
What you can do, is to change a little bit colors, for example make it brighter, less saturated but more in blue colors. Photo saturation will be discussed in the next section. But what’s more interesting – marketing studies have found one factor that the photos which contain blue as the main color are generating more likes than photographs in red or yellow shades.
What is more, in case if you want to fix whiter pale colors in your photo, we suggest you use photo filtering apps, such as VSCO Cam and Adobe Lightroom CC. These photo editing apps are more professional, have a lot of various filters and can help to make your photo more unique.
However, trust marketing studies which investigated that photos without popular Instagram filters get higher engagement (more followers’ likes and comments), try this trick and you will see that it really works. As you know that first impression matters when it comes to your brand on social media, so make sure that you are proving the best image’s looks.
3. Less saturation levels
As the saying goes – less is more, sometimes it is really true. And in this case it also works. Saturation makes drastic effect on all colors of the photo which means it increases vibrancy of the photo. So, before choosing higher saturation, think again. If your goal is to get more likes, better choose saturation of max 3-5%, then photos look more attractive to users – studies suggest.
4. Call-to-action in caption
Perhaps you understand that a strong photo caption helps to boost your audience’s engagement, however you don’t know how to do it. In order to make your Instagram caption attention-grabbing, easy to read and causing interest of the audience, you need to use CTA (call-to-action) tactics.
These tactics help you to direct users into what they should do next. For instance, you are telling about your brand’s new product/service, then ask audience to check it on your website giving the link or ask to take a part in a contest.
Actually the key of CTA is to be as original as you can in order to encourage people to take action. If you want to pick up some ideas, you can find a lot of really good examples on the Internet.
In other words, CTA is about asking for comments, like and contests. It is the curious thing that posts which contain the word “like” are tended to get more likes, with word “comment” get more comments. It can sound strange but it is.
5. Photos with faces
Studies present that Instagram images which involve faces are more likely to get bigger number of likes than photos without. Additionally this type of photos receive more comments.
According to research, the pictures with faces have 38% higher probability to be liked and 32% higher probability to get comments. And it isn’t surprising. We naturally respond, pay attention to faces. Faces are powerful non-verbal communication. What is interesting that when it comes to age, it makes no difference on users’ engagement.
Also study noticed that gender doesn’t matter, is it a woman or a man. Even number of faces on the photo didn’t make difference on level of engagement. For instance, pictures of teenagers aren’t more popular than those of adults.
In addition to this remember that the accounts with more followers receive more interaction, but those who post frequently see a decrease in engagement level. The more you post, the more you are lowering the probability of any single photo to get bigger amount of likes and comments.
6. Well-considered background of photo
While taking a picture, sometimes people forget or pay a little attention to the background. And it is a really big mistake especially on Instagram platform where posts with busier background gets more likes.
Now we will talk about some great background ideas.
First one is paper. You may use different types of paper starting from newspapers, books, wrapping paper of brands or even menu.
Secondly, as a background you can use clothes and other fabrics. They can vary from blanket to clothes.
Thirdly, the wall can be a good background of your photo. If you find an attractively looking wall, so don’t hesitate to take some pictures. The best option is graffiti wall with beautiful, huge images on it. Actually a lot model agencies or clothes brands use this type of walls in order to make photo more interesting, colored and model’s look more eye-catching.
And last good suggestion for background is nature. It can be water canal, forest, mountains, field with flowers and so many other things. What you should do is to find the beautiful place and take a shot. As example can be Mango brand, usually they are using nature on their photos.
More interesting photo background will make people to stop and take a harder look at the photo. In this case the longer you can keep the interest of your followers, the bigger chance that they like your photo or even leave a comment on it.
And now you may see that it is not so difficult to make a photo with attractive background. Only you need to decide which type of background will match your idea and try to do it.
All in all, we are sure that after our discussion of the facts above, you must use Instagram like a pro. Nevertheless while trying to make a beautiful and visually appealing image, you should don’t forget that your photo reflects your personality or the brand, and need to appeal to your specific target audience.
