10 Instagram Marketing Strategies Guaranteed to Grow ANY Business 2024

Your Instagram marketing strategies isn’t working as well as you want right now because things have changed and what used to work even a few months ago is dramatically different than the strategies and tactics that we’re seeing succeed on the platform right now. The good news is that I’m going to clear all that up for you today by showing you what’s actually working and giving you actionable strategies that you can apply right now to grow faster and get instantly better results for you, your business, or any business you want to apply this to. Here’s what we’re going to cover. I’ll show you the best kind of content to post because not all content is created equal.

And I’ll give you the best time to post it so that your content has the best chance of success possible.  

I’ll also give you proven and profitable strategies to increase engagement, get more followers, so much more. Essentially, you’re getting a behind-the-scenes look at the exact same strategies I use whenever I’m creating social media marketing campaigns, for companies like Meta, Amazon, Google, Adobe, Canva, Logitech, and many more.

How the Instagram algorithm works

As fancy and complicated as the Instagram algorithm might sound sometimes, it’s actually pretty straightforward. So if your account isn’t growing as fast as you were hoping, or your content isn’t getting the reach that you expected, it’s usually just because the algorithm is having a hard time doing its job. 

But don’t worry, because once you know what the algorithm is looking for, you can simply follow the rest of the tips that I’m gonna be giving you throughout this article in order to make the algorithm work to your advantage. You see, the algorithm only has two jobs. Number one, to find content for people that they might enjoy, and number two, to show them as much of this enjoyable content as possible. they stay on the platform forever and ever and ever.

So the secret then is to help the algorithm by being clear about who your account is for and then optimizing your content for your fans, followers, and audience. Because if they like it, then so will the algorithm.

Optimize your bio

If you want to grow your Instagram account, then you need to give people a reason to follow you. and your bio is the perfect place to make that happen. First, make sure your name is clear, but you also might want to include a relevant title or keyword or some kind of a statement to help people instantly understand what you do. Then use the first line to describe what you do. Think of this as a good opportunity to showcase your USP or unique selling proposition. Use the second line to describe why you’re worth following. If you have any social proof, you can put it here. Otherwise, you can give someone another reason like daily tips on XYZ or content designed to help you ABC. 

All these letters. For the third line, add a CTA, or call to action, that tells people what to do next. And then use the link in your bio to send people to the next step in your marketing funnel or customer journey, whatever you want them to do next. 

Use Story highlights 

are an easy place to condense some of your best and most important work as well as drive traffic to your offers and to your business. Aim for three to four story highlights and see if you can create a highlight for each one of the following categories. First, a highlight about who you are, what you do, some kind of introduction or indoctrination into your world. 

Next, a highlight reel of your best work. These could be a portfolio, results, case studies, testimonials, anything that actually shows that you know what you’re doing. Third, showcasing some of your best pieces of content is a pretty good idea here as it’ll further establish you as an expert or authority on the subject. And then finally, consider adding a story highlight that offers a lead magnet or something that you can use to get them onto an email newsletter. Okay, next I’m gonna share with you what kind of content is working best on the platform right now. And after that, I’ve got some really important info to share around what is the best time to post in order to make sure that your content gets seen by as many people as possible. 

But first, I’ve got something to share with you that I think you’re really gonna find helpful. 

Instagram Content Format

Now, let’s talk about what kind of content to post and the best time to post it. When it comes to what kind of content to post or what format to use, I’ve got some good news for you, especially if you’re scared to post videos or have heard that reels are the only way to grow. Because while it’s no secret that Reels have indeed been getting a lot of attention over these past few years, they’re not the only way to grow and to get attention. 

The real secret to consistent and predictable growth is to find a style and content format that works for you. So here’s how I think of it and break it down for people. Text and graphic based posts work just fine. Single images are good, but if you can create carousel style posts, you’re likely to see an uptick in engagement and growth. For most of your content, you want to stay focused around a single area. or niche, but stories are a really good opportunity to go off topic and talk about things and themes that are outside of your niche or primary area of focus. The part about staying focused is really important, so I’m going to show you how to train the algorithm to attract more of your ideal followers in just a minute. 

If you can do video though, then do video. Reels, stories, lives if you’re up for it. Video just gives you a ton of flexibility and you also have the power to repurpose your content on other platforms like Facebook and TikTok and YouTube, even Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. 

Instagram Posting Schedule

As for how much and how often you should be posting, the fact is more really is better, but consistency is the most important thing of all, as you don’t want to make a bunch of posts, burn yourself out, and then disappear for six months. A solid schedule to stick to that’s going to deliver some serious growth and engagement is posting a feed post at least once a day, making it a carousel if you really want to up your game. 

Creating short, quick, easy, and unfiltered stories two to three times a day, Going live once or twice a week can provide an additional boost. And then creating anywhere from three to seven reels a week is a really healthy number. 

Best time to post

The best time to post on Instagram is the time that most of your followers are online. I know, that was deep. And the way to see that is by going to your profile, clicking insights, then followers. and scrolling down to the bottom to find most active times. But if you’re just getting started, you don’t have that many followers yet, or you just can’t find that section in your account, then there are some really helpful guidelines that you can follow. 

For most people, most of the time, you really can’t go wrong by posting around 8 or 9 a.m. If you’re gonna post two or three times a day, then post your second one at 11 a.m. and the third one at 3 p.m. Mondays to Fridays are usually best, and Sunday is typically the worst performer. The times suggested are meant to be in your local time zone, or if you’re attracting an international audience, then use the local time zone where most of your followers are. You can also look at other industry leaders and big accounts in your niche to see what days and times they’re posting their content. 

Make Algorithm work for you

If you remember back at the beginning when I said, the algorithm only has two jobs. Number one, to find content for people that they might enjoy. Well, this is where you can help the algorithm connect people with your content by training, warming it up a little bit, essentially showing the algorithm what your account is all about. Now, you already did some of this by optimizing your bio, but you can take this a step further by going out there and following, liking and commenting on other relevant and related accounts in your space. For example, if you’re in the fitness industry, well, you should be following other fitness accounts, engaging with their content, commenting on their posts, saving some, maybe even sharing some to your stories. 

Not only does this help train the algorithm, but it also has the added benefit of putting your account in front of their followers, which gives you even more opportunities to attract your ideal audience using a little something I nameted fan fishing. 

Fan fishing

Fan fishing takes advantage of the fact that there are larger Instagram accounts out there who have already spent time and money and energy building up an audience of your ideal followers. And 10 minutes a day engaging with and commenting on other relevant accounts in your niche is all it takes for a solid fan fishing strategy to pay off. The key here, though, is to provide real and genuine comments, engage in actual conversations, and show yourself off as the amazing value-providing person I know you are. 

Following everyone in the space and then simply copying and pasting comments like, I agree, this is great, is only going to get you so far. People can see through that kind of nonsense from a mile away. So this is one of those things that you either want to do it right or don’t bother doing it at all. And if you don’t want to do it at all, well, that’s cool with me because there are still many more things that you can do to boost your growth, including one of the most important but least talked about things of all, captions. 

Captions

Captions, also known as the little word things that appear beside, below, or over your posts are one of the most underrated tools available to you as someone who’s trying to grow your brand and business. 

1. because of keywords and the fact that you can include relevant and important keywords throughout your captions and content, which further helps to signal the algorithm as well as your ideal audience about what your content is about. Keywords also help keep you on track as you know what you should and need to be talking about rather than spiraling off in a million different directions. 

2. Your captions are a great place to provide added context to your post, and often the captions aren’t just a nice-to-have thing but are completely necessary to help make whatever you just posted make sense. 

3. CTA, also known as a call to action. Something that provides your viewer with the next step to take, or next move to make, next action that they should be doing. For example, follow for more, or send me a DM. As for CTAs, the only thing to avoid is probably the most common one of all, which is link in bio. You are so much better off asking people to leave a comment or DM you for more info than the generic link in bio CTA. 

4. polls in captions, a relatively new feature that allows you to put a poll right there in the captions. It’s powerful stuff and an incredibly important market research and engagement boosting tool. 

5. Hashtags, a topic we should probably break out into its own section now as there’s still so much confusion and misinformation around this topic. 

#Hashtag Strategy

So the big question about hashtags is, do they still work? And the big answer to that big question is yes, kind of. I mean, not like a ton. Some people don’t even really use them at all. They’re doing fine, but they’re still good, sort of. Anyway, the truth is this one’s kind of messy, but it’s also one of the best opportunities to talk about a marketing strategy I call, do as I did, Not as I do. 

What this means is that often people will look at big accounts in their space, notice they’re not using any hashtags at all, and they’re not even writing captions, certainly not good ones, and they’re not following any other proven piece of advice, and yet their accounts are huge. Well, my friend, that’s usually because what they’re doing now is dramatically different from what they did to get where they are.

The fact is there are different strategies for every stage of the game, and while the debate is still out on just how useful hashtags actually are, there does seem to be some agreement that at the very least, they’re a good insurance policy. As in they might help, but they definitely don’t hurt. So here’s how to use them. First, find anywhere from 5 to 15 different hashtags that are relevant to your account.

Then try to make sure you’ve got at least a few from each category of big hashtags, medium and small. A big hashtag would be something like business, which is going to appeal to millions. Medium one might be digital marketing tips, which is going to appeal to a much smaller segment. And then a small one would be something like Instagram marketing tactics, more directly related to your specific niche, brand, business, or offer. 

This point’s important, make sure to put these hashtags in the actual captions part of the post and not as a comment below it, or it’s not going to have any positive impact at all.

Instagram Marketing Strategies

All that said, the real secret to accelerating your growth, not just on Instagram, but for your entire business and brand, is to make sure that you’re using proven and profitable marketing strategies and principles things that are actually going to work to get you more customers and make you more sales. So to help you with that, below you’re gonna be able to click or whatever you gotta do to get in there.