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If you’re on Instagram and have a business profile, you know how powerful this app can be for a marketing tool. If you obtain a following large enough, you can lead them to the new product you’re selling and achieve success. On the other hand, you can also spend hours and hours trying to grow your account, only for it to go nowhere.
Instagram can be a tricky beast, and growing it requires some skill, research, and clever posting. This article will introduce the concept of impressions, explain how you can increase your number of impressions both organically and with FollowersId or similar services, how you can boost your Instagram account, and it will give you a better idea of what makes a post great. Let’s begin.
First, What Are Impressions, Anyway?
When you do some research on Instagram, it can be frustrating to see all of this terminology and have no clue what it means. First, let’s discuss the difference between reach, impressions, and engagement.
Reach
Your reach describes how many people saw your story or post on Instagram. The reach algorithm counts each unique user who saw your content. You would think that reach includes all of your followers, but not all of them will see your post at any given time. Rather, reach describes people outside your follower sphere as well. People who saw your post because someone else liked it or because it was recommended to them.
In other words, the more reach you have, the more people will see your brand.
Impressions
We get to what this article is named after, which is the impression metric. Impressions describe how many times your content was shown to users in total.
Now, this does sound similar to reach, but it can include multiple viewings from the same user. In other words, a person sees your content via reach, and then when they interact with it, it’s considered an impression.
You can have great reach, but you’ll have low impressions if the people you’re reaching out to don’t like your content.
Therefore, the question for all business owners is “How do I gain more impressions?” Growing your Instagram and your brand, in general, requires you to get as many impressions as possible. People not only need to come to your content but to interact with it. This sentiment applies double if you’re using Instagram for your business and your posts have a call to action.
How to Get More Impressions
1. Look at When Your Audience Is Most Active
Instagram’s feed does use an algorithm base to deliver content. In other words, it delivers posts to a user’s feed based on what it thinks they will be interested in. Right now, Instagram does not have a way to disable it, unlike some sites that allow you to view posts from your followers by most recent.
Despite this, timing your posts is vital. Posting when your followers are most active can increase their chances of seeing your posts on the algorithm.
You can use Instagram Insights to view when your followers are most active. Also, you can schedule your posts, which works if you’re busy or asleep when your followers are at their most active.
2. Make Content that is On-Brand and Appeals to Your Audience
This step is common knowledge, yet you would be surprised at how many businesses do not know their audience and post whatever they want. As a business, you need to research your audience, which you can start off with by looking at Instagram Insights and seeing what they would enjoy. For example, if your business is fitness-themed and is marketed towards young adults, posting about ways to stay active in college could help.
You can also view your previous posts and see which ones are performing their best. When you find posts that are working, think of how you can keep that train going. Making unique content that is on a similar level to the posts that perform well can ensure success.
3. Create Content Designed to Get People Commenting or Performing an Action
One common but effective way that people will drum up engagement is to create posts that are designed for comments.
For example, if you have a business on Instagram that sells hot dogs, you might make a post asking, “What do you like on your hot dog?” This question is relevant to your business, and it can get people to comment. Comments mean impressions, which can drive engagement further.
Another way to get people talking is to have a contest or giveaway. While you should use these strategically, it can be a great way to bring in new followers and get current followers to engage with your posts.
4. Use Videos, Live, and Reels
Some business owners might see Instagram as an app dedicated to photos and photos alone. But this is simply not the case. Many users tend to prefer videos, which can be a great way to bring impressions, and many love Reels as well. Reels are short-form videos that many users will love. With videos and reels, you do want to craft something that’s on-brand but is worth watching over and over again.
This is one of those cases where you might want to look at your competition to see what they are doing. Depending on your business, you might want to go with videos or reels that are funny, interesting, informative or a combination of everything.
Live video works as well, and your audience can interact with you in real-time, creating exclusivity. Not only that, but you can go live when your audience is most active to see the best results. Do not be afraid to experiment with all of the above to see which works for you.
5. Use the Right Hashtags
Hashtags are vital for any Instagram business, as they can help users find your content based on the tags you use.
Now, the art of the hashtag can be complex, with much contradictory information. Some will tell you to use up to three hashtags, as too much can lead to your post sinking in the algorithm. Others will ask you to use as many as possible.
The answer is to experiment and see which works best for your business. With that said, we do know that you should do some research to find the hashtags on Instagram related to your business. While popular hashtags work well, hashtags that appeal to certain niches can work excellent due to how little competition there is for them.
You can find several social media tools online to help you find the trending hashtags and tell you what hashtags work well based on keywords. Again, this does require some research, but once you know what tags to use, you can drive that engagement forward.
6. Create User-Generated Content
Another way to drive impressions to your account is to have your users create the content. For business accounts, this can involve posting pictures of people who use your products.
For example, if you sell pants, posting pictures of your customers wearing your pants is an ideal way to go. You could also have art contests, where the artistic side of your customer base submits their artwork for you to post, with the winner earning a prize.
User-generated content works well because it centers around the person. Your average user would love to get their name out, and user-generated content is a bit of an “I’ll scratch your back, and you’ll scratch mine” situation.
7. Promote Your Posts
With social media, you can get impressions through strategic posting and picking the right hashtags, but money talks. If you create a post you believe will reach the right audience, then why not spend some money to promote it? This post can reach many more people and therefore generate more impressions.
Obviously, you want to be smart about promotion. Don’t promote every post, but instead, promote something that can appeal to your audience while explaining more about your branding.
8. Always Change Strategies
With Instagram and other social media platforms, what the audience wants and how the site works is always changing. You need to be ahead of the game, from algorithm tweaks to added new features. Too many businesses fail due to using a strategy that worked once but hasn’t worked in a long time.
Always do your research or be ahead of the game. Social media marketing changes quickly, so don’t treat it like something that will last for years and years.
9. Interact with Your Audience
Another great way to increase your impressions is to interact with your audience. With businesses, many followers do not expect them only to provide a service. They want an account that can answer questions promptly, banter with them, and make an enjoyable experience.
Do not be afraid to like comments, reply to them, and have a conversation with your guests and followers. You might find that it can boost your impressions quite a bit.
10. Paid Impressions
Finally, we have our last option to spend money on impressions themselves. Yes, this is possible. There are many social media sites dedicated to similar services. Buying impressions is safe, and it can work as part of a well-rounded marketing strategy. It can be a quick way to make your account noticed.
Conclusion
Having an Instagram account can be great for business, but you need to be vigilant. Impressions matter in Instagram, and not having enough impressions could drop your account down in the algorithm. However, by researching your niche, making posts that will appeal to them, creating engagement, and spending a little money on advertising, you can succeed.
Photo by Deeksha Pahariya on Unsplash
Release ID: 89072376
