Instagram has attracted more people than any other social media website with 800 million active users and over 500 million using the platform on a daily basis. It’s little wonder therefore that more than 60% of the world’s top brands are currently using Instagram for marketing.

Instagram can help build up a better word of mouth and is a powerful marketing tool for businesses looking to expand their presence as well as the visibility of their products.

In order to maximize on Instagram and create an engaged audience, you should aim to create at least one post per day however, not all posts will perform equally in terms of engagement so let’s look at how you can really maximize your exposure.

As well as the creation of posts which we will go into further down this post, Instagram also offers other functionality for business users and it’s worth reading this 2020 Guide to Instagram to leverage on this marketing tool.

Use Carousels

Carousel posts beat video and image posts in terms of engagement, according to a study conducted by social Insider. As the number one social network for organic engagement, carousels offer a cost-effective, concise and engaging way for you to communicate with your customers and receive the greatest number of likes and comments.

Select Filters Carefully

Selecting the right filter for your image can make all the difference to the number of likes that you ultimately receive. Clarendon came up as the most liked filter of them all as it is great at conveying the energy of the picture and making the colors pop. After this, the most used filters are Juno and Lark which are great for outdoor photos and really help to brighten up elements like water and foliage. Filters and themes should reflect your company and promote a unitary brand image.

Leverage on The Power of Giveaways

Giveaways, contests, and DIYs work much better than regular messages at getting your audience engaged.

Limit Your Caption Lengths

Studies reveal that captions under ten words will attract the most engagement by 3.13%. This does not include hashtags.

Use Emojis

Emojis can increase engagement by up to 1.31%. The use of emojis in the caption of an image can increase engagement by 2.15% to 2.72%. In the case of videos, it will increase by 1.88% to 3.20%. For carousels, it goes up by 2.52% to 3.06%.

Use around 20 emojis in total to really maximize this leverage in engagement. Emojis help make your post more human.

Use Hashtags

In the case of hashtags, less is more. Look to use 2-8 in a caption and another 4-5 in the first comment.

Forget About Asking Questions

Contrary to popular belief, engagement rates are slightly lower when a question is used with a video.

Check What Has Worked in The Past.

Understand your own audience by analyzing posts that you have made in the past. Inside Analytics on Instagram is an important business tool and allows you to access follower count, profile views, website CTR, reach, impressions, replies, next story, and live views.