Focus on quality

You don’t want to stand out in a user’s feed for the wrong reasons, so ensure you are creating high quality images - nothing low res, grainy or blurry. If you’re working with phone cameras, try to use natural lighting as much as possible and watch some videos about composition and photography in general. Importantly, if you’re just starting out, pay attention to other brands and learn from them.

A picture’s worth 1000 words

It may seem obvious, but an image covered in text isn’t an image, so refrain from overusing text in your Instagram posts, and move calls to action and other dialogue, to the caption. If it is necessary to include text in the image, follow the 20% rule that Facebook applies to its advertising - they reject any ad with text covering more than 20% of the total image.

Engage

Instagram has an abundance of authentic and high quality images, created by users themselves, and you need to make sure you capitalise on that. Content created by a customer is more likely to resonate with their peers than content created by the brand itself, so it’s important to engage with the platform - get sharing, liking and commenting.

Build

Encourage your existing customers and audiences on other channels to interact with you on Instagram. Followers gained this way should be more engaged, are more likely to act as advocates and can give you secondary access to their followers. PPC, partnerships, competitions and more can all offer quick ways to increase followers.

Instagram’s status as a major social channel is now undisputed and it’s an easy channel to add to your content marketing strategy - with time and effort, you can build your brand and deliver solid ROI.