In today’s media-driven world, having a solid social media marketing strategy is crucial to enable you to stand out from the rest. If you have been a keen social media marketer, you are already keeping an eye out for Instagram. While other platforms such as Facebook continue to strive to bring people together by sharing what’s on their minds, this visual media giant has established itself as one of the prime social media marketing platforms for brands.

With over 25 million businesses and more than a billion users as of 2022, Instagram seems like a safe haven to market your brand. The platform also boasts of having over 95 million photos and videos uploaded every day, making this one of the most popular social media giants. As you can see, these numbers are huge.

Regardless of your audience — based on age, gender, location, etc., you’ll be sure to reach them on Instagram. But the main question comes, with all the noise on Instagram, how can you get your company’s voice heard? How do you ensure that your posts reach your target audience? Your answer lies in establishing a killer Instagram marketing strategy.

This article will take you through all that you need to know regarding creating a solid Instagram marketing strategy in 2022 to propel your business further.

Understanding Instagram’s algorithms

Before you set out creating and investing in an Instagram marketing campaign, it would be prudent first to understand how it works. The ever-mysterious Instagram algorithm was introduced back in 2016. The visual media giant announced that they would be replacing the chronological feed with an algorithm.

According to Instagram, the increased popularity of the app made it a lot more challenging to continue keeping up with all the photos and videos posted daily. They had to change the algorithms on how posts would appear on people’s feeds, as an average of 70% of users missed out on their important feeds when it was shown in chronological order.

In light of these revelations, the new algorithms would theoretically help users see more relatable posts on their feeds. This new feature was responded with a less-than joyous reaction from users, as there are now tons of factors that affect algorithm-based feeds, such as how much engagement a post receives or how long one spends looking at your post.

All in all, having your posts rank higher on the Instagram feeds is not an impossible task. All you need is a solid marketing strategy that you ought to execute to the latter. There are many factors that you need to consider when creating an Instagram marketing strategy. Do not fret if you’re new to this, as you can easily learn them by taking online courses on some of the best learning platforms on the internet.

To get you started, here are the best Instagram marketing strategies to follow in 2022:

Set clear goals and objectives

The first thing to do before embarking on any project is to indicate all your goals and objectives. What do you wish to gain from social media marketing anyway? Depending on the nature of your business, you should always strive to come up with ‘realistic’ goals. Some of the most popular business goals to check on include:

• To increase brand awareness – this means having your name out there and becoming an authority in your niche. Remember that creating brand awareness doesn’t necessarily mean publishing promotional messages. You should also emphasize on posts that showcase your personality and values.
• Grow your audience – expanding your audience entails introducing new folks to your Instagram page and, ultimately, your brand. Here is a guide by snsflow.com, that will help you grow your followers on Instagram.
• Generate leads – having many followers on your social media platforms doesn’t automatically guarantee that they purchase from you. Strategies, like email marketing and generating leads using Instagram email finder tools are some examples of the effective methods for turning those page visitors into leads.
• Drive traffic to your site – if you are laser-focused on getting more traffic generated to your website, social media can make that happen.

Determine your audience

Who are you trying to reach out to using Instagram marketing? It would help if you knew who most people on the app are and whether they would be interested in whatever you wish to market. Once you understand their demographics, you can go further to understand more about them – to enable you to curate relevant content for them. Some of the things you may also need to check out are:

• What hashtags do they like following?
• Why do they follow brands like yours on Instagram?
• What competitors are they following and why?

Audience research takes a little longer, but it is crucial to identify your Instagram marketing strategy.

Analyze competitor content

Apart from determining who your target audience is, you should also take some time to analyze your competition. Remember that you’ll both be targeting the same people, so it would be ideal to check them out and see what they do to keep their engagement levels high. If you see a sector that they’re doing well in, device methods that can help you become better. Some of the things to consider include:

• How are their engagement levels like?
• Do they respond to comments – and if so, how?
• What hashtags do they use and follow?
• What types of questions are their followers asking?
• What type of content do they mostly use?
• Do they have a convincing call-to-action?

Create a content strategy

Another crucial bit that defines your marketing strategy is identifying what you’d like to publish on your Instagram account (and at what time and intervals). Content creation takes a considerable amount of company resources, so you want to be getting it right. Instagram marketing requires you to publish content such as photos, videos, stories, and user-generated content. You can consider using Instagram marketing tactics such as:

• Contests and giveaways
• Influencer marketing
• Carousel posts
• Collaborations.

All this is done while still ensuring that your feed is aesthetically pleasing.

Another important part of the content strategy is to create a content calendar. After you’ve known what to post, you should thereafter consider when to post. Plan your calendar ahead of time, taking into consideration major announcements, public holidays, and any pre-planned offers.

Track your progress

The good thing about Instagram marketing is that you can always test, learn, and optimize your content. There is no point in spending more time creating and posting content that no one is interested in. Therefore, keeping track of your progress is a vital part of your Instagram marketing strategy. You can use the inbuilt tracking analytics to check on your average number of visitors, how much engagement your posts received, which posts perform better than others, etc.

Through Instagram analytics, you’ll not just learn which type of content your audience would appreciate the most, but you’ll also know the best times to engage with them, understanding their demographics such as location and age, as this will enable you to curate targeted posts and offers in the future.

Parting words

There are many other ways of creating a winning Instagram marketing strategy in 2022. However, these five tips will get you started, taking you to rank higher while establishing yourself as an authority. Good luck creating your marketing strategy.