A Step-by-Step Guide: How to Post on Instagram Effectively

Imagine walking into a crowded room, filled with people that are just halfway paying attention. Some of them might be chatting, others are just scrolling on their phones, and the rest may be staring into space or hanging in their own little world.

Now, take that picture and imagine trying to get them to stop whatever it is they are doing and turn their focus to you and nothing else.

It seems impossible, right?

The likelihood of getting every head to turn to you and focus only on you in a large group or room is decidedly challenging. But this feeling is exactly what it is like when you post on Instagram.

That post you make is just one among millions on the platform, and every post is vying for attention. The good news is that when you use strong strategies to post on Instagram, you can do so more effectively and capture the attention you are after.

Check out our step-by-step guide to post on Instagram more effectively.

🚀 Know Your Instagram Goals

What are your posting goals on Instagram? Are you trying to start earning money or become an influencer? Perhaps you want to accomplish a certain number of followers or get a certain level of engagement each week.

Your goals will be unique and that’s quite alright. The important thing is to set goals and define what they are. You can have a unique goal for every post you make as well as overarching goals for your Instagram profile.

Are any of these things part of your goals?

• Maximize engagement
• Grow Instagram presence
• Increase shares
• Get more views
• Drive website traffic
• Increase brand awareness
• Share personal moments

As you work to define your goals, think about what you want to accomplish here.

With each post, ask yourself what you want to accomplish. Of course, you will need broad objectives as well. Each post you create should align with these goals and objectives.

👀 How Well Do You Know Your Audience?

You get to define your target audience. You have a service or a product that is meant to appeal to a specific group of people. It’s perfectly ok if people outside of that target audience are interested in what you offer.

However, knowing and defining a target audience will help ensure that you create content that works for that audience. The goal is to create IG content that will resonate with them.

If you have never defined a target audience, take a look at your analytics and try to narrow down who your audience is. Realistically, you should have a target audience just from having a business, but you can work backwards to determine this as well.

Consider things like interests, behaviors, and demographics. What does your audience tend to engage with more or what are they most likely to engage with?

Once you know your audience, tailor content that is befitting of the audience.

📲 Success Comes from High-Quality Content

There are plenty of people and businesses that post something just to be posting. But that’s not always effective. Avoid posting things that are not really great quality and instead focus on quality content.

You should be consistent and engaged, but don’t waste your time or your audience’s time by posting something that looks awful or doesn’t really fit the bill.

Whether you’re posting carousels, photos, videos, stories, or all of the above, it’s important that the quality is high-resolution, it’s consistent with your branding, and the entire detail is well-composed.

Remember that Instagram is designed to be a visual platform. If you want to stand out, content should be clean, eye-catching, and impressive.

When something is lackluster, blurry, or not even worth looking at, it can quickly turn people away. Use a great app to help improve your content before posting. The better quality your content is, the more likely it is to impress.

📖 Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Caption

The caption that goes with your post is also very powerful. Yes, Instagram is highly visual and people are viewing your photos or videos. However, that caption is ultimately what tells the story or explains the content.

You can use your caption in different ways. We recommend integrating different caption uses.

For one post, you might tell a story. For another, you will write something concise but meaningful. No matter what copy you are adding to the caption, make sure it fits. Use that caption to provide context and add value to the visual part of your post.

The caption should be designed to help engage with your audience. You can keep it conversational and simple. You can tell a story when it’s relevant. It’s always ok to add some emojis for a touch of personality.

Oh – and one more thing – don’t forget the call to action! It’s an important step that shouldn’t be overlooked.

#️⃣ Hashtags are Great When Used Wisely

Instagram allows a user to post up to 30 hashtags with every single post. You certainly can use all of those if you want to, but there is nothing that suggests more hashtags leads to more engagement.

What research does suggest is that a few well-placed hashtags is important and can be quite effective. Find a happy medium and tie in some hashtags that work for your post.

Here’s a great example. Maybe your brand is beauty care products. If you are posting a video of how to apply lip liner, you can use hashtags that are appropriate for lips and lip products as well as makeup.

We recommend creating a branded hashtag that you always incorporate to establish your brand. In addition to that, try a couple of trending hashtags that fit as well as some industry or product-related hashtags.

Keep in mind, you don’t need to use all 30, but you can use up to that many if you have that many great tags to squeeze in. You can do some research to discover some popular or niche hashtags that might be a good fit.

Quality is more important than quality, but always use at least a couple for your posts.

⌚ What Time Should You Post?

Timing really is important and it boils down to when your audience is most active with your posts. Once you discover a peak time for engagement, that is when you should target posts.

It can get confusing here because the optimal post timing might vary from day to day or even across different industries.

You might have a close friend who is doing amazing things for a favored charity. They post at 10 AM every single day. But when you post at 10 AM it never gets any engagement.

That’s because you’re appealing to a totally different audience. You need to post at a time that works for your audience.

You can look at Instagram insights to get a better idea of when people are most active from your followers. This might help you better define a time to post.

Posting at an optimal time will help ensure your posts are more visible and that they get the most engagement possible. You can also use schedulers to help simplify your posting process. This just allows you to create and schedule ahead of time rather than anxiously waiting to press the post button right at that optimal time.

🧑Never Stop Engaging with Your Audience

Listen, when we say never stop engaging, we don’t mean you have to stare at your notifications 24/7 and respond to someone immediately. We mean that even as you grow and get busier or get higher levels of engagement, you shouldn’t just drop off the engagement world. There are some influencers out there who never respond to comments or messages.

It is our opinion that engaging and being responsive is so important to keeping your audience engaged, but also to building a community on Instagram.

People always notice when you take the time to respond to their questions and comments. They also notice when they ask a question and it never even gets acknowledged.

The algorithm notices engagement. Being more engaged and encouraging your audience to be engaged is going to help boost your visibility while also establishing credibility and loyalty with your audience.

📊 Monitor Performance and Be Willing to Adapt

You will never truly know what is or is not working unless you’re paying close attention to the details. It’s always a good idea to monitor how any post performs.

It helps you better understand what your audience is looking for. Pay attention to metrics such as likes, shares, comments, and even profile visits. THis gives you helpful insight to determine what does or does not work.

When you monitor performance and analyze using the tools Instagram provides for you, then you can adjust or refine your strategy to be a better fit. You might find your audience doesn’t seem to care for a specific type of post. At the same time, you might also find that they really enjoy certain posts. Test things out, monitor them, and adapt when you need to.

Conclusion

Posting on Instagram effectively isn’t just going to happen overnight. You need to pay attention, know your audience, and just be consistent in working to build your Instagram profile to meet your goals. When you use these steps, you can work to appeal to your audience and get the most out of your efforts. You got this!