Hi all. Today we will talk about eight cool secrets and tricks in Instagram stories. No, today we are not going to learn how to make rainbow text or shadow text. We have tried to find more interesting topics.
Quickly add photos
The fastest way to add new photos is to press and hold the Your Story button. It is possible to create a new section or add stories to one of the previously created ones.
As for me, this is the coolest Instagram innovation in recent updates. To get started, select the desired photo and select the background that will serve as the cover. If you have saved pieces of paper in your memory, logos, frames, flowers - all this can be used. The “.png” format is perfect for our manipulations.
For this:
What to do if there is no “Copy” function in Android?
We will create collages in Android using the Over application. If you have a similar program, you can use it. It has all the necessary functions for working with a collage:
- Adding photos from the gallery and smartphone memory;
- Options for working with text, graphics, shadows;
- Adding video to stories;
- Working with layers - layers help you move an image above or below another image in the collage.
How to add any music from VK or YouTube to stories
Only a select few know this secret. In order not to bother with downloading and searching for songs, we do the following:
- Open any clip on YouTube, and then turn on the screen recording.
- We do as much as you need in seconds, then you can cut it right in the Instagram menu.
- Add recorded video to feed.
- Then there are several ways: fill a layer with color on top of the video or insert a photo.
- Reduce the size of the video itself and scroll through it with a swipe by the tap. The music isn't going anywhere
Don't forget to turn on the sound source - microphone in the screen recording settings, otherwise you will record a video without music.
Create a gradient of any color on Instagram
In this secret, we will also do without third-party programs and create our own gradient on the photo. Open any photo you like for stories. Then add any sticker to it. In our example, we used blue and pink hearts to create a pink gradient:
- Adding a photo to stories;
- Add any sticker;
- Stretch the sticker to a huge size so that it leaves blurry outlines of the same color;
- Save to the gallery or publish the result
What will happen in the end? You can see an example in the screenshot below.
Conclusion
Today we looked at some cool tricks for stories: creating a collage with and without programs (version for iPhone owners). Learned how to add a gradient of any color to a photo using sticker collections. We learned how to add any music from Vkontakte or YouTube to stories and save the result. This is just a small portion of chips. If you like such life hacks, write to us in the comments and we will release the continuation of this article.
Dozens of new features appear on Instagram every year. Not all work correctly, and some functions only cause inconvenience. Consider in this article, how some insta hacks can make your job easier.
Symbols in profile description
Perhaps you noticed unusual fonts in the profile description and perhaps wondered how this or that person did it?
ⒾⓃⓈⓉⒶⒼⓇⒶⓂⓄⓉⓃⓄⓈⓉ
In fact, these are not fonts, but Unicode characters. That's why regular fonts don't change in the profile description, but Unicode characters work.
Remember not to overuse them, as Unicode characters are not included in Instagram searches, and therefore your account name will not be indexed. At the same time, these characters can be used in moderation without replacing keywords with them.
Programs for changing the font:
There is a Fonts & Text Emoji for Instagram Bio mobile app that allows you to change your text to Unicode characters that will modify your profile name and description.
Popular browser versions include:
How to do?
- Open any of the specified services
- Enter the words you want to convert
- Copy generated symbols and paste into your profile
Life hack:
These fonts can be used in your Instagram Stories to make your stories stand out from the rest. At the same time, the text in Stories is not indexed anyway, so nothing will change except for the visual.
Hashtags and geotags in Insta Stories
To increase the organic reach of your stories, use geotags and hashtags. Then your stories will be displayed on them.
Thus, your story will be displayed by hashtags or geotags.
Hashtags and geotags break the aesthetic of Stories a little, so they can be hidden behind other stickers.
How to do?
To attract exactly your target audience, use targeted hashtags.
Fill the story screen with one color
Sometimes it is necessary to fill the screen with a certain color, painting over unnecessary objects.
How to do?
- Create a new story.
- Select the brush tool. Use the Eyedropper tool to find the color you want to fill the screen with.
- After choosing a color, swipe across the screen as if you were about to start using a brush. Instead of moving it, keep your finger in place. The screen should fill with the color you chose.
- Use the eraser tool to show only the parts you want to show.
Usually this is used to make interesting riddles in Stories, to draw attention to something, gradually opening a certain part of the photo with each new story, for example, to show a new product.
Upload multiple photos/videos to story at the same time
Often, during the shooting, it is not possible to shoot and upload immediately online stories, and I want to do it after.
How to download all the necessary stories at once?
To work with Stories faster, save them to a separate folder when shooting.
Archiving stories
Instead of taking up space on your phone, use this feature to reuse your stories or have access to them if you want to download them in the future. Enabling this feature automatically saves your stories after 24 hours. You can always explore your Archive whenever you want.
How to do?
- In the "Privacy" section, select "Manage Stories". Under Save, check Save to Archive.
- To access your archive, go to your profile. In the top left corner, you will see a small clock icon. When you open it, you will see your past stories.
Comment filtering
This feature is best for those who receive a lot of negative comments or spam from bots. In these controls, you can choose between automatic filters defined by Instagram or add your own words and phrases. 
How to do?
- Open Instagram and go to Settings.
- In the Privacy and Security section, navigate to the comment control.
- Here you can choose to "Hide Offensive Comments" (automatically) or add your own words (manually). If you select "Manual", you will see an additional option in your comments "Filtering the most frequently complained about words".
Here are just some of the life hacks on Instagram that many do not know about. Of course, these are not all the features that can be used, but most of these allow you to use Instagram with greater impact.
Write in the comments to the post how you used these tools and share your findings with us.
Technology
In this article, we will provide you with some interesting life hacks that you might not know about, and which will make it much easier for you to use this popular social network today.
How to use Instagram
Fonts in bio
To begin with, it is necessary to explain what a bio is. Bio is the information in the account, its presentation to the reader, what subscribers see in the very first place. It is located right next to the username, and usually contains information about the occupation, age and place of residence of the owner of the account.
Subscribers can be attracted with the help of emoticons and emojis, as well as a bright and informative description, but this does not always work, because the keyboard often limits our imagination. This can be fixed by working with some third-party sites, and adding a twist to the profile that other users will not have.
In order to get what you want from your mobile phone, you need a site called LingoJam. With it, you can choose any font you like and add it to your bio. Having opened the site on your phone, type your text in the left field. It will appear in the right field, from where it can be copied. After that, go to your account, click "edit profile" and paste the text in the "about yourself" box.
Text with an interesting font can also be added from a computer - it's just as easy to do as it is from a phone. To do this, visit the FontSpace website, where you can find many different options. There you can download the option you like in just a few seconds. To do this, select the font you want to use and download it by clicking "Download" right below it. After that, a folder will appear on your desktop, in which there will be fonts in the "ttf" format. You need to copy them, go to Instagram from a computer, start editing your profile, paste the text into the desired box and edit it.
Interesting accounts
Oddly enough, there are a large number of people of all ages who do not have an Instagram account. If you're part of this group but want to find a person, culinary profile, or handmade jewelry account without registering, you have two options. They will help you understand if you need your own profile or not.
The first way is to insert the account name directly into the link. In the search bar, this option should look like this: www. instagram. com/*account name* (all without spaces). After that, the profile you need will open in the browser, where you can view all publications. In addition, you will have the opportunity to hiccup other interesting accounts using the Instagram search bar.
The second option is also not particularly difficult. It will allow you to find the right person or company using Google or Yandex. You need to enter the following phrase in the search box: site:instagram.com [account name]. By pressing enter, you will be taken to the page you need - it will be the first among all possible results.
Hidden Stories
Since stories appeared on Instagram, if not everyone, then every second owner of the account uses them. In them, you can temporarily share photos, videos, information, and just funny masks with subscribers. But what if you don't want a certain person to see your stories, but you can't block them?
For such cases, Instagram provides one very useful feature. With it, you can hide stories from certain people. To do this, you need to go to your profile and click on the "History settings" section.
After that, a line will appear at the very top, allowing you to select the accounts from which you want to hide stories. Choose the profiles you want and post whatever you want - this person won't know. You can edit the list at any time and re-open access to some people.
See also: Sugar Tabar: 5 facts about a zombie girl who wants to be like Angelina Jolie
Instagram user
Multiple Accounts
Sometimes it happens that you either open a business for which you need to create another profile, or you just want to reach a different audience, or you want to run accounts in different styles, but do not know where to place them all. Many cases, one solution.
From the same gadget in the Instagram application, you can manage several accounts at once, and this is solved with two clicks. To do this, you need to go to your own profile, click on the name of your account in the upper left corner and click on the "add account" item. After that, you can come up with a username, password and use your imagination to create a new profile.
To switch between accounts, you need to go to any of your profiles, click on the account name in the upper left corner and select the one you need at the moment. Notifications from all accounts will be sent to you periodically, but the priority will still be the one that is open in your application.
Actual
First, let's figure out how to use it, and what it is for. Active Instagram users can't live a day without stories - small posts that last 24 hours and are deleted automatically after this time. They are needed in order to share with the audience information, videos and photos that you would not want to see on your profile on an ongoing basis.
However, if you still added a photo, video or information to the story, you think that it belongs there, but you are afraid that important information will slip away from you - this item is what you need. You can add a story to "Highlights". Now we will tell you how it works.
All stories and publications are saved in an archive that is visible only to you. It can be found by clicking on the watch face icon on your profile. In order to add a specific story to "Relevant", go to your profile and click on the plus icon labeled "New". The archive of stories will immediately open, and you can choose what you need. This will allow you to sort your stories and keep them until you decide to delete them yourself. Collections can be renamed and supplemented whenever you want.
Lux
Many Instagram users post photos at least a few times a week. Landscape lovers have a particularly difficult time, because on a sunny or cloudy day, there is often a problem with the light in the photo. Sometimes it's too bright, and sometimes it's the other way around.
In addition, such pictures often look much more effective with contrast, but not everyone understands how to actually edit photos. And not everyone has the patience and imagination to manually deal with shadows, light, details and contrast.
Then a very useful feature comes to the rescue - Lux. It was introduced back in 2012 and is still an assistant for Instagram lovers. Lux automatically brightens the photo and adds contrast. It's perfect for landscapes, low-light photos, and photos with too many shadows.
The user, moreover, can independently adjust the percentage of applying Lux to the photo. By default, it is 50, but you can either add brightness or remove it by moving the slider to the right or left, respectively. You can activate the function by clicking on the sun icon above the photo at the processing stage.
See also: How to take beautiful photos on your phone
Instagram hacks
Post in history
Not so long ago, one very interesting and very useful feature appeared on Instagram. Now each user can announce a new post right in the story. Yes, that's exactly what you were thinking. Everything is extremely simple.
Now, instead of clicking on the profile and then looking for a new post, subscribers can go directly to the desired post, because this feature allows the account owner to place it as a sticker right in the story, thus informing people about it. Readers will only need to click on the photo in your story and they will be immediately directed to the publication.
In order to activate the feature, you need to click on the paper airplane icon, which is located directly below the publication. After that, click "Add post to your story", this will automatically attach a background to your photo in the story and allow you to choose the size of the sticker, as well as the quiz you want to draw attention to. This even works with other people's posts.
Hashtags
First, let's figure out what it is and what it is eaten with. Hashtags or tags are topics, words or phrases that people write after the "#" sign. They can bring together different topics, people and communities. By clicking on a hashtag, you can see publications on the same topic, tagged with the same tags. They help bring any idea or topic into trend. They are used in many browsers, social networks and on many sites.
So, hashtags can unite any topic that can interest you. For example, #horses or #pencil_drawing. If you are interested in any area, Instagram gives you a unique opportunity to subscribe not only to people, but also to tags. By subscribing to the hashtag, you will see the best posts on your favorite topic in the feed.
And to do this is very simple. To do this, you need to click on the search icon at the bottom of the screen - after that, the recommended publications and the search bar will appear. If you click on the search bar, four options will appear - "best", "people", "tags" and "places". Select the "tags" option and enter the hashtag you're interested in. After that, go to it, click "Subscribe" and enjoy thematic publications.
Text in history
Now the text can be posted in the story, regardless of the photo and video. To do this, you need to turn on the feed - the house icon at the bottom of the screen, then click on the camera in the upper left corner and scroll the bottom line in the history to the left until you find the "Text" option.
Use of social networks
Downloading photos and videos
With a high probability, it can be argued that many of you have encountered such a problem - it is impossible to download photos or videos from Instagram. In this case, it would seem that users have one way - to take screenshots and crop. To be honest, it's not the most comfortable. But we hasten to please you.
There is not a well-known service that will help you download your favorite photos and videos directly to your phone without cropping anything. To use it, visit a site called insta-downloader.net. On it you will immediately see an empty line. You need to insert a link to the photo or video you are interested in.
Once you've pasted the link into the box, click "Download photo". When the download is complete, you will be able to store and view videos and photos on your gadget outside of the Instagram network. This method takes a little more time, but the image quality will be much better than a cropped screenshot.
Reposts
First, let's understand what a repost is. Repost is copying an entry to your page either indicating the author, or copying information or photos with his name directly from his profile. At the same time, copying without attribution is not considered a repost.
The application is called very uncomplicated - " Repost" , and they can use it as owners IOS and Android . After installing the application, you need to follow the steps below. To get started, select the post you like, click on the three dots and copy the link. Then open the downloaded application - the copied link will appear there automatically.
A few photos
Oddly enough, many Instagram users are still unaware that it has a feature that allows you to post multiple photos at the same time. Then, in the publication, they can be scrolled through. From 1 to 10 pictures are placed in one post, and you can apply your own effect to each.
In order to implement this idea, you just need to click on this sign when choosing a photo to publish, then select the number and order of photos. The following are the usual steps for posting pictures on Instagram. Understanding which post contains several photos is not difficult. Under it there will be dots in the appropriate amount.
Archive
Not only stories, but also directly publications can be sent to the archive. They will not disappear anywhere, they will simply be temporarily unavailable for subscribers, and you can always undo this action. If you are not sure about the post, or just want to temporarily hide already published photos from subscribers, this function will become your faithful assistant.
You can temporarily archive a photo with text, it will disappear from the profile and will be available only to you. Subsequently, you can easily return the publication to its place, and it will appear in the same time period when it was originally posted.
In order to add a photo to the archive, you need to open the post, click on the three dots above the photo and select "Archive". To view the photo, click on the clock icon in the upper right corner, and then select the "Publications archive" section.
In order to return a photo to your profile, follow the same operation as with viewing, then open the post you want to return, click on the three dots and select "Show in profile". Archived posts are only visible to you.
Instagram, instructions for use
After publication
Active Instagram users have probably come across posts with a huge number of hashtags more than once, and, perhaps, they themselves were their authors. There is also a function on the network that allows you to publish the same post, with the same photo and text from Instagram on Facebook, VKontakte, etc. However, there are many tags that look out of place.
Once the post is published in the right place, click on it directly on Instagram, click on the three dots to the right of the account name and select "Edit". Now add as many tags as you like and save the post.
Compare photos
Instagram has one very handy feature, which, unfortunately, not everyone knows about. And it lies in the fact that you can view the photo before and after processing with one click without leaving the application. And for this it is not at all necessary to open the picture in the gallery or on another device.
To view the photo before processing at the editing stage, after adding the effects you need, click on it and hold for a while. You immediately open the photo without filters, and if you release, the edited one will appear again. This useful feature allows you to compare colors, sharpness and contrast in pictures and improve them.
Two-factor authentication
Many of you probably haven't heard of this Instagram feature. It is very useful for those who are afraid of losing their account or who have valuable information in their profile. Two-factor authentication allows you to add another layer of security to your blog with a verification code and ensures that it is the owner of the account who is logging in.
In order to activate two-factor authentication, you need to go to your profile, click on the three dots in the upper right corner, select the appropriate section in the settings and activate the security code requirement.
If your account is not yet linked to a phone number, you will be prompted to do so and then given a code. After that, you can be sure that your account is twice as secure as before. This feature is useful for everyone, not just for owners of large blogs.
Turn off comments
For this Instagram provides one very handy feature - you can disable comments for any individual post. After you have posted a post, open it, click on the three dots above the photo and select"Turn off comments". After that, your subscribers will not be able to speak under this post, but this option will remain for other publications.
Therefore, we immediately ask: how to promote your business on Instagram?
How do you make your business stand out from other photos and videos? How to travel on Instagram if you do not have a full-time professional photographer? Let's deal with you in order.
Why businesses need to run their own Instagram
The potential of Instagram for a marketer is huge. But it is expressed in user behavior, not in specific numbers.
Users connect with the brand
Research shows that the brand has advantages:
Here's what foreign marketers say.
- Mike Hayes, Ben & Jerry's Internet Marketer: "As soon as Instagram launched, it immediately showed its suitability for use in marketing. It's a communication channel where visualized stories can be told."
- Jessica Loria, Director of Brand Relations at Chonobani: "Instagram is a great platform for us. It allows us to show how people are using our products and inspire new people to buy."
- Rachael Jo Silver, SMM Specialist and Content Strategist at Birchbox: "This social network has sky-high audience engagement rates compared to other media."
Formula for success
The success of Instagram leading companies lies not only in beautiful photos, but also in:
- a clear strategy, understanding the audience;
- correctly chosen frequency of publications;
- communication with the audience;
- creating your own style.
By putting all the elements together, you will achieve success.
Here is an example of a foreign company Madwell: 716,000 subscribers, from 7 thousand to 10 thousand likes under each post.
From Russian speakers, look at least at this profile:
He immediately grabs attention with unusual photographs. These are not just shoes, but a skillfully told story under each photo. The secret of success is in the emotions that each post evokes. Look at this picture:
A very short but powerful message. The target audience of the store will definitely hear it. The store focuses on young customers and speaks to them in their language - the words of rebellion, nihilism and defiance of society. Thus, the brand inspires trust and those emotions that contribute to spontaneous decision-making.
How to create your own promotion strategy on Instagram
Select goals
Don't spray. Just formulate no more than 2 points of what you want to achieve. For example:
- show your products, talk about services;
- create a community;
- increase brand confidence;
- show the value of the company, corporate culture;
- advertise the product to potential buyers;
- increase brand loyalty;
- talk about company news.
To understand what to look for, answer these questions:
- How do you use Instagram?
- How will it help you achieve your marketing goals?
- How much time are you willing to devote?
- What budget can you spend?
- How will your profile differ from profiles on other social platforms?
Using the example of the foreign company Buffer, I will show how planning takes place.
The priority goal is to create a community around the brand. Literally, marketers want to cultivate a loyal subscriber. For this, experts have developed a separate section. In it, they show the work of 4-6 employees per week. This sets up a connection with the audience.
The second goal is to increase the engagement of the audience in terms of each post. Currently, the figure varies within 1.75%, which is slightly higher when compared to other profiles in the company's subject. To achieve the goal, there are strict criteria for the quality of the content.
Demographics
Here is the data from the Pew Research Center:
Marketing is about delivering the right message at the right time to the right people. Therefore, we repeat the phrase that you constantly meet everywhere (including on our blog): you need to understand the target audience. Not convinced? Then look again at Sintenzia's profile. It is unlikely that a person over 30 will buy such clothes. However, the brand is growing and developing. The thing is that marketers understand the audience.
And here is the data from Sprout:
Finally, here are the data for Russia:
Do you already know the target audience of your product? Then it's time to correlate it with the data and find out what kind of buyers you will find on Instagram.
Profile Optimization
Description
This is the home page of your brand. On it, provide brief information about your business. A good description is one that allows you to get some of the traffic back to your site.
Make sure your description is representative.
Here is an example of a profile header design for the popular Aviasales aggregator. It is convenient because if a person is interested in the brand itself, he can easily find an account through a search. At the same time, if the user is interested in tickets or hotels, he will also find the company profile.
- include a slogan, brand name (for example, like Nike) in the description;
- add information - who you are and what you do.
Large companies also mention the branded hashtag. Here are some foreign examples:
And here are the Russian speakers:
Image
This is the best way to showcase branding. Make your profile recognizable to different people (including those who ended up in it by accident). Therefore, we use:
- logo;
- trademark;
- mascot.
For example, Buffer uses the logo:
Link
Many companies use it to redirect traffic back to their website. Use it wisely. Maybe it's better to use a specific commercial page of the site?
For example, Gary Vaynerchuk makes a corresponding post every time a new material is published on the site and says that the link is in the profile header.
Contacts
If you add contact information, you will get another communication channel and reduce the likelihood of losing a person. Since 90% of users use their smartphone to browse Instagram, it is easier for them to call you.
You can use the service to generate a link to a page with all your contacts so as not to clutter up the description with phone numbers.
Content strategy
How to set directions for different types of content
Content is the heart of your account. 95 million photos posted daily is the reason why over 300 million users open the app multiple times a day. Therefore, content is a central part of your Instagram marketing.
What to write about?
Before thinking about the visual style of the presentation, let's decide on the type of publications. For example, Nike Running often talks about their running shoes:
And big brands pay attention to community and culture:
We at the SEMANTICA studio run Instagram to show the life of our studio, to give it a human face. We talk about our employees, about local memes.
Buffer has a separate section #BufferStories where authors talk about the life of the company and publish customer stories.
Despite the fact that Instagram is focused on short texts, you can also publish long reads. In this case, captivate the reader from the first words of the description - start with a story about the problem that you will help solve.
Here is an example of a Voronezh photographer. We take into account the text: it is focused on the target audience - those who are interested in photography and promotion on Instagram. The first sentence is a direct description of what a person will get after reading - advice from a current photographer with cool shots on how to make your own profile as bright and attractive.
Even here (despite the fact that the content is visual) people appreciate the educational materials.
Building a publishing plan
The foundations of any content strategy lie in business processes. This is a kind of riverbed, these are separate thematic columns or sections.
Any business has the potential for profile development. Use your employees' stories, cultural events, and your products to find ideas and themes for photos and videos.
For example:
- Backstage.
- User Content.
- Product story / short demo.
- Education.
- Corporate culture.
- Entertaining content.
- Buyer stories.
- Getting to know your employees.
- Memorable moments from the life of the company.
Right now, open a notepad and jot down some ideas. I'm sure you have them. Start with some core values that apply to your company and then write whatever comes to mind.
Recorded? Excellent. Now look at the resulting list, and try to combine similar records into clusters. Think of a name for each. This is the main idea of each direction, heading.
3 Examples of Content Ideas Abroad
Saturday Night Live's Instagram is an analogue of our Evening Urgant. They work in two directions: they show what is happening behind the scenes of the studio and publish unique videos. When fans check Instagram, they see either their favorite artist or an interesting piece of backstage life - then , which is not included in the main release on television.
By the way, our evening show account has a similar content strategy. In addition, he publishes interesting snippets from episodes:
FedEx is a delivery service to the most remote corners of the world.
Oreo is a well-known cookie brand. They often use entertaining texts under photos, and sometimes make funny pictures.
Stories on Instagram
Stories appeared in August 2016. How can a brand use it? To start off, 33% of all stories a user sees come from brands. 1 out of 5 stories gets an organic response from the audience.
What stories can be used for
Helpful or funny content
- Polls.
- Live broadcasts.
- Interesting facts and information.
- Checklists, short step-by-step guides (can be split into several pictures).
- Schedule of work, schedule of events.
- Announcements, important news.
- Hot vacancies.
- Event announcements.
Selling materials
- Photo of goods.
- Useful material with a link to the product.
- Offer of the day.
- Selling story.
- Product overview.
- Video about how your product works.
- Favorable promotions, discount coupons.
- Holiday items.
- Targeted advertising.
Social Proofs
- Customer reviews.
- The process of preparing / creating a product.
- Success stories.
- Photos of employees, office, store.
- Photo report from the event.
Also in stories, many SMM managers publish calls to action - to go to the site, to subscribe, to send a message to direct.
Features of creating stories
You can upload both a photo and a video. The maximum duration of a story is 15 seconds.
Video extensions are .MOV, .MP4, .gif, the minimum resolution is 720p. The maximum video file size is 2.3 GB.
If you have 10k followers, you can embed links in stories.
Content Plan: 7 Steps to Success
After you have found ideas for content, it's time to create a unified publishing plan. A content plan will help determine style, aesthetic perception, post frequency, and more.
1. Style
Style ensures consistency across all materials used in marketing.
Therefore, think about how your content distribution and business promotion sites are similar, and how they differ. For each piece of content, decide how to present it:
- composition;
- color palette;
- filters;
- fonts;
- quotes;
- hashtags.
2. Composition
Composition is the placement, arrangement of objects in a photograph. It's about art, not marketing. In addition, not every marketer is a professional photographer with taste.
Therefore, here are 3 universal tips for any occasion:
- Solid background color.
- Compliance with the rule of thirds.
- Free space in the center or at the top of the picture for the inscription.
3. Color palette
The choice of permanent colors is a sign of permanence. And persistence is the key to excellence. If you have your own palette, great. But this does not mean that you cannot use other colors or that you must use only these. We are not in Sberbank.
It's just that people will be more accustomed to associating your brand with certain colors. For example, write in the comments what color do you associate SEMANTICA with?
India's largest fruit drink brand, for example, has this colorful and fresh profile. Juicy!
And here is the profile of Mad Kitchen.
4. Fonts
If you apply captions to images, make sure the fonts are consistent. Use those that match the brand and are used on websites in emails.
Here's how Headspace does it. It maintains matching fonts on every photo.
And the special design of the text - as if in a program window - catches the eye of the user when he just looks at the recommendation feed.
5. Filters
It is they who make the picture look like it was taken on a professional camera, and not on an amateur soap dish. If there is no expensive photographic equipment, filters will help you.
This is a way to improve a photo in a few taps. Filters can radically change a photo, for good or bad. Therefore, we adhere to moderation and choose a few basic filters that emphasize the value of the brand in the best possible way.
For example, for a coffee shop, Sunrise is great, which gives the photo warm, cozy tones.
6. Signatures
On Instagram, they are limited to 2200 characters. If the photo description spans more than 3 lines, they are truncated with an ellipsis.
This is an opportunity to complement your content. Someone uses it to exchange stories, tell their experiences. And for some, this is just a caption for the picture. One way or another, this is an opportunity to create a trigger for the target action that you expect from the audience.
7. Hashtags
A Track Maven study found that posts with more than 11 tags are getting more and more popular.
Tips for using hashtags:
- Do not use swear words, words associated with violence and immorality. Such tags are blacklisted, and posts with them are poorly ranked.
- Don't imitate bikini girls who just got their nails done - don't write tags in solid text. You are the face of business, be serious.
- Don't use tags inside the text, it annoys readers. Better put them after the description to the photo.
- Brevity is the sister of talent, so it's best not to #write long hashtags together.
There are services for tracking popular tags and analysis:
- instag.ru - a large database of popular tags. You choose your topics and look for those that fit your publication.
- websta.me is also a tag database, with it you have the opportunity to analyze the effectiveness of Instagram marketing and see how many users used a particular hashtag.
- instagramm.ru - shows popular tags and profiles. You can find a person from your field who maintains an account, look at his hashtags and choose something for yourself.
- stapico.ru - in addition to the ability to use the service as a full-fledged desktop application, you will also see statistics on popular tags, profiles, and you can analyze your own account.
Time and frequency of publications
In fact, now the time of posting does not play a decisive role. Smart feeds have appeared on social networks - algorithms that select for you those posts that will be of interest to you. You can find both a fresh entry and one that the author published a day ago.
Because of this, the importance of posting content at the right time decreases, and the ability to get into the heart of the target audience becomes even more important.
The algorithm for ranking posts on Instagram is based on how quickly your post collects views and likes. Therefore, the issue of publication time cannot be completely ignored. Here's a couple of tips for you.
Consistency and posting frequency will help your followers know when to expect your next post. Union Metrics conducted a study of major brands. It turned out that large companies make 1-2 publications daily. Moreover, those companies that made more than 2 posts a day did not meet with negative feedback from the audience.
The main idea is this. Try posting once a day and test additional posts.
Now time is only one of the factors that the publication ranking algorithm takes into account. For you, as a marketer, the following information is important: publish content at a time when it will receive the most participation from the audience.
The easiest way is to use comments, reviews as well as user experiences.
The content will help you find a reason for the next publication, and will serve as social proof for the audience.
2. Take pictures of people
Georgia Tech analyzed 1.1 million pictures on Instagram. They found that the image, which contains the face of a real person:
- collects 38% more likes;
- generates 32% more comments.
3. Share posts on social networks
Particularly on Facebook. The BuzzSumo service conducted its research of 1 billion messages from more than 3 million brands. We found out that if an Instagram post was shared in the community on Fb, it received a higher engagement rate.
This is a service that allows you to upload videos up to an hour in vertical format. The idea of the launch is to arrange television on the Internet.
The main focus is on celebrities and large companies.
So, celebrities have the opportunity to record long videos without forcing the audience to go to other venues. Over the past year, video content has become more popular several times over the previous year.
- 54% of users prefer video to other content formats (up from 23% last year).
- 57% of smartphone users watch videos 30-40 minutes long to the end.
This means that you have the opportunity not only to attract a person, but to interest him and captivate with your content.
roller requirements
- Format - MP4.
- Format - 4:5, recommended - 9:16.
- The maximum size of a 10-minute video is 650 MB.
- The maximum size of an hour video is 5.4 GB.
For each video, you can add a cover.
What content can be posted on IGTV
For example, you can post an hour-long video of eating a burger and get 1 million views, just like Netflix did.
But seriously, I will repeat the familiar phrase again: what the target audience needs.
To do this, answer 3 questions:
- Who is viewing your profile? You can find similar profiles to your account and see what your competitors are posting.
- What is the profit for a subscriber? Can you keep the user's attention for an hour? This is possible if your video solves the user's problem.
- How will video fit into your content plan?
Instagram marketing analytics
As with any promotion, Instagram marketing is nowhere without performance analysis. Question: what to analyze?
Profile Metrics
- The number of subscribers.
- The total number of impressions.
- Reach is the number of unique people who have seen your posts.
- Profile views.
- Follow the link in the description.
- Clicks on calls and emails - how many clicks were on links to contact you.
- Posts - the number of posted posts in the profile.
- Mentions - how many times your profile was marked by third-party users in photos and in descriptions under the photo.
- Brand tags - how many times users used your branded hashtag.
Publication metrics
- Impressions - the total number of times a post has been viewed.
- Reach - How many people have seen a particular post.
- The number of likes.
- The number of comments.
- Number of saves - how many users have saved your post.
- Engagement - how many unique users reacted to your post - liked it, left a comment, saved it.
Story Metrics
- Impressions - how many views the story received.
- Reach - How many unique people have seen the story.
- Exits - how many people closed the story.
- Responses - how many users responded to a particular story.
I will not confuse you with formulas for calculating other composite metrics. There are a lot of them. And if you use services, then some of them use different ratios.
For convenience, the calculation of indicators and the collection of statistics can be entrusted to special tools.
Let's do this. Surely you have questions that need an answer. Write in the comments what you are interested in reading. And we will answer this in the following articles.
In this article, we will talk about the best tips and life hacks, as well as how to become an expert on the Instagram social network.
Navigation
Instagram has long won the hearts of many Internet users. In particular, this applies to the foreign audience, since if we talk about the Russian audience, then it has only 15%.
But it is worth noting that even 15% of the Russian audience is more than enough. After all, the total audience of Instagram today is more than 400 million registered accounts. At the same time, it is on Instagram that the female audience prevails.
Keep your content in a tight grip
The main success of many users on Instagram lies in interesting and unique photos. Therefore, if you want to reach a multi-million audience, then you need to follow this advice.
Never take a picture using the Instagram app, as the photos taken through it are very inferior to the photos taken with the standard camera. Use only manual camera settings, play with light sensitivity and shutter speed, try to bring the photo to the maximum quality.
Get creative with your editing and filtering process
In no case do not impose thousands of different filters on the photo, as this will only spoil its atmosphere. It is better to use a special photo editing program that has a lot more options than just playing with color filters.
Make your profile more detailed and high quality
Do not forget that it is important not only to post good and high-quality photos, but also to properly present yourself to the audience. Thus, you need to approach the design of the profile more responsibly, and fill it out to the end, in as much detail as possible.
For example, if you are a model, then write in the field "About myself" a short biography about his career.
Be careful with #hashtags
The easiest way to promote on the Instagram social network is to use the most popular and least competitive hashtags when you post your next photo. Thus, you need not just write them, but bring them as close as possible in the meaning of your photo.
Keep in touch with your audience
Did some stranger like or follow your Instagram profile? Then this is a good reason to start getting to know him. If your photo was commented on, then you, too, would do well to reciprocate.
Well, let's list what tips you need to follow on Instagram.
What life hacks are there on Instagram?
Hide unnecessary/unused filters
Despite the huge number of color filters on Instagram, a large part of the audience still uses a third-party application to edit and improve the quality of a photo. But as you remember, Instagram got its popularity precisely for a lot of interesting color filters. Therefore, if for some reason you only use 2 or 3 filters and want to remove unnecessary ones, then you can do this without much difficulty.
In order to hide or sort unwanted filters on your Instagram profile, you need to follow our instructions:
- First of all, you need to upload a photo, that is, only in order to get into the filter selection setting for the photo.
- Now you just need to scroll to the right and go through all 40 filters, and only after that you will see a gear button with the name "manage" to be clicked.
- Then you will be taken to the settings menu of the filters themselves, where you can either remove them and leave the most necessary ones, or sort them as you wish.
- To raise the filter of interest, you just need to click on it and drag it up, as shown in the picture.
- Now, if some filters interfere with you or you don’t use them at all, then to remove them, you need to click on the checkmark to the right of them.
Hide bad profile picture
After all, not every selfie and photo comes out with a good shot, a smile or the right light. Therefore, if you found a similar photo in your profile and did not want your subscribers to see it, then you can not delete it, but simply hide it out of sight.
In order to hide unwanted photos on your Instagram profile, you need to follow our instructions:
- First of all, you need to go to your profile, and then click on the portrait icon.
- After that, you need to mark one or more photos, and then click on the button "Hide from profile".
Follow the interests of our friends/followers
A great opportunity that is only available on the social network Instagram. Thus, to find out what your friend or colleague is interested in, you just need to find an alternative feed with the best photos that they have chosen for themselves.
Browse the photos you like
Surely a popular life hack for all users of the social network Instagram, as sometimes it happens that you scroll through the feed and cannot find the desired photo that you liked.
We publish a photo for "our"
A typical situation occurs when you run a business account and would like to inform your colleagues about something new and interesting. Therefore, if you want to publish a photo for a narrow circle of people, you need to use the function « InstagramDirect".
Sending a picture you like from the feed in a message
We collect a huge number of likes on the photo
Statistics showed that bright and saturated photos get much more likes. Therefore, if you want to significantly increase the number of likes on your photos, then you need to add brightness and rich colors to them, you can do this using a regular graphic editor.
- Photos with a blurred background or so-called "bokeh effect" get much more likes than photos without a blurred background.
- Photos clearly dominated by blue inks get 26% more likes than photos with red inks. For example, a photo with a blue sky will get more likes than a photo with red roses.
- Photos with predominantly one color in the image gain more likes than photos with multiple predominant colors.
- Lower the saturation level on new photos, and only after that publish it on your profile.
- Photos with crisp texture get 82% more likes than photos without texture.
The above life hacks will allow you not only to get much more likes, but also to grab more attention from the general Instagram audience, and thus it is possible to get subscribers.
Well, today we have sorted out a huge number of life hacks and told you the best tips that, if applied, will make you an Instagram expert.
Video: How to become an Instagram expert?
