Using social media to promote your business can result in several benefits including brand awareness, customer connection and increased revenue. But as social media algorithms change continuously, it can be hard to keep up with what does and doesn’t work on the various platforms.
Consistent engagement
The key to social media growth is to remain active. Post, comment, like, share and respond to your followers as much as you can (as your page rather than personal profile) to work towards boosting your engagement. Consistency is what matters.
Be relevant
To engage your audience, you need to share content that’s relevant to your audience. Think about who your audience consists of and map out topics and information which is relevant to their interests.
If you use social media to promote your business, my advice is to regularly research the latest trends and updates, so that you can create relevant content and get it seen by your followers.
Recent social media trends
There has been a massive shift in the past 12 months toward video. This has been heavily influenced by both YouTube and TikTok.
In February 2022, Facebook revealed its focus was heading towards Short-Form video, as in reels and stories. This is because their aim is to keep people scrolling.
Likewise, Instagram is focusing more on Reels (90 seconds) and Stories (15 seconds).
If you’re new to Reels or would like to know more, I recommend this article on “How to use Instagram Reels for Business”.
Understanding Instagram ranking
Instagram is a widely popular social media platform for photographers and our audiences. What’s important to know about Instagram is that it doesn’t have one algorithm that oversees what people do and don’t see. Instead, it uses a variety of algorithms to determine the ranking of posts.
Key ranking signals for Instagram
At the time of writing, August 2022, the following are some examples to consider:
For the Feed and Stories, the key ranking signals are:
- Information about the post: How popular a post is, when it was posted, how long it is if it’s a video, and if it’s attached to a location.
- Information about the person who posted: How many times users have interacted with that person in the past few weeks.
- User activity: What a user might be interested in and how many posts they’ve liked.
- User history of interacting with someone: How interested a user is in seeing posts from a particular person.
For Explore, the key ranking signals are:
- Information about the post: How popular a post seems to be and how many and how quickly other people are liking, commenting, sharing, and saving a post.
- User history of interacting with someone: How interested a user is in seeing posts from a particular person.
- User activity: What posts a user has liked, saved, or commented on and how they’ve interacted with posts in Explore in the past.
- Information about the person who posted: How many times users have interacted with that person in the past few weeks.
For Reels, the key ranking signals are:
- User activity: Which Reels a user has liked, commented on, and engaged with recently.
- User history of interacting with someone: How interested a user is in seeing posts from a particular person.
- Information about the reel: The audio track, video data such as pixels and whole frames, and popularity.
- Information about the person who posted: How many times users have interacted with that person in the past few weeks.
So, each part of the Instagram app uses similar ranking signals, but their order of importance varies.
Social media for your business
Again, the key to social media growth for your business is to be active. Boost engagement by posting, commenting, liking, sharing, and responding to your followers (as your page) with genuine responses. And remember, authentic content that represents your brand AND appeals to your target audience is essential.
Did you know Instagram has a blog filled with useful information? Check it out here: [Instagram for Business | Official Blog]
