How To Use Instagram Features For Better Engagement and More Followers

Reels

Reels are instagram’s most popular feature and have the propensity to put you in front of a brand new audience. Here’s some tips on how to utilise this feature for your business to reach more people.

• Always use captions
• Don’t upload a video with the TikTok watermark. Instagram’s algorithm won’t promote Reels with a TikTok watermark on them. Pro tip: Use this https://snaptik.app/en
• Share Reels to your Instagram feed. After you’ve shared it to your feed, you can also share it to Instagram stories. This increases your chances of people seeing your Reel.
• Post new Reels consistently. Plan your content. Check your insights to learn what your audience is engaging with. Produce more of that.
• Pay attention to ‘trends’ this could be a popular sound clip/music/ (they usually start on TikTok) Get a head start on creating content before everyone else.
• Write a good caption for your reel. Use this to educate your patients or to address their questions or concerns.

Instagram Lives

• The thought of going on Instagram live is scarier than in actual reality. No one is expecting you to be perfect here – it’s live. Slip ups CAN and WILL happen.
• Instagram lives are so powerful because they’re authentic and organic. Your followers want to see the real person behind your brand. This is a different way to engage with your audience if you have a big announcement.
• When you go live, Instagram sends a notification to your followers letting them know that they should tune in.
• Partner with another business on your Instagram live. This could be the business page for the salon where you are about to run your clinic from.
• New feature: You can now set a ‘going live reminder’ for your followers. This will appear directly under your bio. Use this feature if you plan on doing a live story for a big announcement.

Instagram Bio

• Fine tune your bio so potential new followers know exactly what you offer in a few sentences.
• The name field in your bio is completely separate from your username. It’s a valuable SEO feature: you can customise it in your Instagram bio to reach even more people as they search the app.
• Using targeted keywords instead of your username in this field is a great strategy for your brand or business to become more discoverable by potential new followers.

Direct Messages

DM’s are the most powerful tool you have to directly communicate with your followers. It’s important that you take the time here to build genuine connections with your followers and get to know them. If a follower ‘reacts’ to your stories with ‘heart-eyes’ or a ‘clap’ take the time to speak to them and thank them for their feedback. The more often followers engage with your posts the more likely your posts will show up on their feeds. Plus if they are engaged with your content they are most likely to share with their followers. It all comes back around.

Stories

• Use captions when you’re speaking so your hearing impaired followers can enjoy your stories too. Also consider that some users watch stories with the sound off.
• Make sure you use the link feature to direct your followers to your website or booking system if you’re chatting about a particular treatment.

• Make full use of the interactive features Instagram offers like Q&A’s, Polls, Quiz. Give your audience a reason to engage with your clinic!
• Save important stories to your highlights
• Try to post at least once a day so that you stay at the top of your audience’s news feeds

Carousel posts

The carousel post is a great feature to create educational content for your page. You can add up to 10 images here.

Encourage your audience to SAVE a post. Instagram’s algorithm recognises a ‘SAVE’ by your followers as a more powerful metric to measure how useful your content is to them, than a ‘LIKE’. Creating content that your followers find important or are more likely to share/save tells the algorithm to ‘show me more of these posts’ this way you’re more likely to show up in your followers feed and on the Explore page (where you can reach a whole new audience)

New feature: Post reminders. This new feature allows you to set a reminder on your posts. If you have an upcoming announcement use this feature so your audience gets a reminder!

The most important tip

Don’t focus too hard on your follower count. Spend your time producing content for YOUR audience. This could look completely different to your competitors audience. Find your niche. Implement your marketing strategy. Deliver on your content strategy.

Follow us over on Instagram for more great tips on how to get more patients for your aesthetics business.