There are lots of guides out there for Marketing, but I still get asked by my clients for fundamental guides and crib sheets. My next series of Blog posts and LinkedIn articles will address this and we are starting with a guide to Instagram posts.
The text that follows is carefully constructed to show you the key elements of an Instagram post, especially post length, where, unlike Twitter, more is better than less, with regard to content. Keep a close eye on the character count, here we go:
~Instagram Headline Goes Here~
The ideal Instagram caption is 125 characters (including spaces) fully visible in the news feed
The title & sentence above are exactly 125 characters long and should be a guide for you as to what is actually visible to your followers in their feed. What you write there needs to capture the attention of your followers, to get them to stop and expand the feed to read more.
Research from Hubspot and Mention shows that captions 500-1k characters receive more engagement.
The preceding text is actually 500 characters, but don’t worry, the research shows that your post engagement still goes up, even if you write extended captions, perhaps even as high as 1,000 characters. Just remember, when calculating your character count, you should include spaces, as Instagram does. Also remember that this character count needs to include any hashtags. The research shows that the average Instagram post actually includes 10.74388 hashtags, but using 5-6 can be more effective.
We just hit 1,000 characters, it’s quite a lot of text isn’t it? Instagram actually allows up to 2,200 characters in a post! Post with 1k-2k characters actually receive the most engagement. It can be a real challenge to keep writing posts this length, but it can definitely be worth it, just remember to keep the content relevant. A little bit more useful advice on hashtags. Try to stay away from overly popular hashtags and focus your efforts on more relevant ones to your content and brand. Other things to think about for an Instagram post are:
Location: Tagging your post with a location can aid content discovery, especially important if you have a location specific business.
Times of day to Post: Look at your Instagram Insights – you need to have a business account to see this. It will show you where most of your followers are and best practice is to post around midday for your largest pool of followers – unless your post is about something specific to a weekend.
Phew! we just hit 2,000 characters!
200 characters left & I haven’t mentioned the ideal #InstagramImage size 1080×1080 #tagging accounts #InfluencerMarketing #video or more general tips for #InstagramMarketing #MarketingHelp
Instagram Marketing can be challenging, but following the guidelines on image size, post length, relevancy and hashtags will help you boost your follower engagement
~ Dave Mutton, founder of Dave Mutton Consulting
Want to know more about Instagram Marketing?
If you need help with Instagram, or any other marketing channels, please contact Dave Mutton, founder of Dave Mutton Consulting.
dave@consulting.mutton.co.uk
www.consulting.mutton.co.uk
Twitter: @dbmutton
LinkedIn: Dave Mutton
