Given its huge popularity and its visual focus, Instagram has emerged as the ideal social media platform for those involved in the creative arts, especially graphic designers, to promote themselves. However, with a large number of graphic designers competing for eyeballs, it can be tough for them to stand out and get noticed. Some age-old Instagram marketing tactics refreshed to meet the new challenges of the current environment:
Craft a Compelling Bio
As an Instagram user, there’s no escaping the importance of the bio section. Given that it serves to introduce you to your target audience, you need to make sure that every word you put in your bio counts. Not only does Instagram have a limit of 150 characters but also it is the only place in your account that you have the liberty of including a clickable website URL. Some of the top things you need to include in your bio are your name, the kind of graphic design services you offer, a snippet of personal information to make your account more relatable, and a link to your online portfolio. Since an increasing number of clients are looking to engage local talent, including your location and the most important hashtag can be useful. According to Huffington Post, including your photo in the bio can increase the authenticity of your Instagram account.
Include Captions That Add Value to Your Posts
By using carefully constructed captions, you can add value to the customer’s knowledge and perception of your designs and encourage them to interact with you in various ways such as liking, commenting, sharing, going to the bio section to click on your website link, etc. By using captions, you can also teach your followers something that can be of value to them. You can, of course, also entertain them by infusing humor in your captions. However, you should not attempt to explain what the picture is all about because if it is not obvious, you should not be posting it at all. If you want to encourage people to follow you, merely asking them to do so does not work unless you give them a good reason how they will benefit. In the initial stages, if you are facing difficulty in attracting followers, you can buy real Instagram followers for a pittance.
For the captions to be effective, you should keep them simple so that users find them easy to read. Make the sentences short, simple, and crisp, and split up the text into paragraphs so that they are easier to comprehend. Remember, a lot of content is accessed on the fly or while the user is multitasking, so avoid any complexities. Whenever it is possible, keep the captions interactive by encouraging users to respond. The more the users comment on your posts, the stronger is their loyalty and the community. Remember to make the captions relevant to the photo to avoid confusing your followers.
Use Hashtags Strategically
Hashtags are critical for boosting the visibility of your Instagram posts. Users looking for content on a specific subject can only conduct a hashtag search, so graphic designers need to use hashtags strategically. Even though Instagram permits a maximum of 30 hashtags, research reveals that the optimum number is between seven and eleven. The hashtags you use have to be relevant to what you are doing because using irrelevant hashtags does not serve any purpose. Learn to use a balanced mix of popular hashtags and hashtags that are specific. Using only the popular hashtags can lead to your content being lost in the avalanche of posts with the same hashtag, and it is quite possible that your content may not be seen by the users at all. On the other hand, specific hashtags have a far lower search volume but have the advantage of making your posts visible to a more interested audience. Inserting the hashtags in the first comment after the photo can help to declutter the post.
Conclusion
It is not only important to post regularly to avoid your users from forgetting you but also, you should aim to post at the times your target audience is most active on Instagram so that you get the maximum exposure. Since people like certainty, you should aim to post consistently at a particular time of the day so that your followers know when to expect your posts. You don’t need to post daily but even if you are posting a few times in a week, ensure that you post on the same days to be consistent. Even if you have a lot to share with your followers, you should resist the urge to publish all the content at the same time and then remaining silent for weeks. Ideally, you should space out your posts so that you can appear to be active over a longer period. Also, flooding the feeds of your followers is a bad idea since they can get irritated and unfollow you.
