Glamping in Odom in the mountains of Lebanon, your favorite meal? A rare plant in your backyard? Or your latest handmade creation? Some of us need to grow our businesses on Instagram to weather the Covid storm but stay true to our eco values. How can we get the right green likes?
If I may ask you, why do you think someone will publish a post on Instagram, and the post will perform extremely well, whereas another person will publish a similar post, and the post will struggle to even get noticed?
I know you might say that the reason is linked to the number of followers and reach that each individual has. But what about a scenario whereby the two posts come from the same person and yet one does better than the other? Can we still link the difference in their performance to the reach and following of the creator?
Of course, we can’t.
Although we cannot ignore the influence of reach and following on post performances, the biggest reason why posts perform differently is mainly because of their theme (the type of posts that they are)!
On Instagram, some posts naturally garner more interest from viewers than others, not because the creator has used the best hashtags but because their tone appeals to a majority of the Instagram community – that is, they’re the types of posts people like.
So, what kinds of posts exactly fall into this category?
Posts featuring influencers
There is a reason why an average influencer marketing campaign on Instagram would return $5 for every $1 spent. Instagrammers really love and trust influencers. So, when they see a post featuring any one of them, they naturally feel connected with such a post, irrespective of whether they’re following the account from which the post has been published.
So if you’re looking to garner lots of interests for your product posts on Instagram, you may want to consider featuring an influencer in the post. Just make sure the influencer is relevant to your business industry.
Behind-the-scene posts
Everybody knows that a lot of efforts go into the production of a product. Unfortunately, we don’t always get to see these “efforts” firsthand. Most brands just come out with the final products and showcase them to us.
But when someone deems it fit to share a behind-the-scenes video detailing the production of their products, they tend to get a lot of attention from people because this is not something that happens every day.
Informative content
I think we will all agree that informative content like how-to guides, tips, and tutorials are always amongst the best performing posts on any social media platform, Instagram inclusive. And the reason is because this type of content answers the questions of people.
Whether you’ve got a photo showing people how they can use your product or a video detailing the correction to a misconception in the industry, an informative content can get you some of the highest engagements you’ll see on Instagram.
Lighter, bluish-tinted images
It’s been proven that Instagrammers are more attracted to bright, light images than they are to dull, dark images. So if your images are looking dark, gloomy, or dull, endeavor to lighten them up with filters or re-snap them before posting.
Unlike what on Pinterest where reddish tint photos are adored, Instagrammers prefer to see photos with bluish tints in their feeds
Posts showing relationships with community
By virtue of patronizing them, an average human feels like brands are duty-bound to give back to the community supporting them. Realistically, though, this is not something that happens too often, so humans have learned to live with the fact that not too many brands love to give back to the community.
If your brand, however, does this – at least – once in a while and you post it on Instagram, you can expect such a post to generate tons of views and engagements. Because people know how reluctant brands are when it comes to supporting communities. So, when they see someone showcasing their efforts on IG, they can’t help but show some love.
Images with textual characters
Why do you think motivational quotes do extremely well on Instagram? The reason is because Instagrammers feel connected immediately to an image when they can see a block of text to read on it. As they’re scrolling through their feeds, if they stumble upon a post that has a catchy line of text on it, there is no way they wouldn’t scroll back up. Not to check what the image is (they’ve seen lots of images for that day already) but to read what the text has to say.
User-generated content (UGC)
Before someone decides whether to patronize your business or not, one of the first few things they’ll check out for is whether you have the social proof to show that your business is, indeed, genuine and reliable. This is why UGCs perform extremely well on Instagram.
UGCs, which are contents from satisfied customers, can either be published by customers (while tagging the brand) or the brand itself. Either way, they usually do extremely well on the platform because of the assurance and confidence they give to people.
So, if you’re a small business owner, you can encourage your customers to create a UGC and then share it on your page.
