When Facebook purchased Instagram in 2012, they had good reason! The popular photo-sharing platform has continued to grow and is a ripe market for advertisers, but don’t make the mistake of treating it like any other platform. TrackMaven recently released a study of posts from May 1, 2015 to May 1, 2016 from Fortune 500 Brands. The study found this network had the highest average engagement levels for both B2B and B2C. Check out the study takeaways below to learn from the top brands:
Post Outside the Typical Workday
While most companies post during the typical workday, those times have the highest competition and some of the lowest engagement rates. Instead, schedule your posts for Sunday for the highest rates and avoid posting on Thursday and Friday.
Avoid Posting Between 11 am and 4 pm ET
Posts between 11 am and 4 pm ET received 3.49% less engagement than the average post. Instagram is a younger audience and that is reflected in the times that receive the highest engagement rates. Try posting between 10pm and 3am. Posts during these time periods see 6-8% higher engagement than average.
Focus on Likes/Double-taps
Instagram is about pure and simple engagement. The platform is not geared towards comments and community sharing like Facebook or LinkedIn. In fact, less than 1% of interactions are comments. Focus your efforts on maximizing Double-taps which account for 98.9% of post engagements.
Avoid Using Exclamation Marks
The use of post components such as hashtags and punctuation marks had a marginal effect on engagement, but it should not be ignored. The study found that the use of hashtags and question marks produced a slight boost while the use of exclamation points detracted from post engagement.
Don’t Ignore the Filters
You may create your post images outside of the platform, but it can affect your engagement. Most brands in the study chose not to use a filter on their Instagram posts, but when compared with posts using filters the ‘no filter’ option ranked 13th in engagement.
Follow the Leaders
See what the top dogs are doing right and let it inspire your content and practices.
- Popularity: Nike is by far the most popular account with over 50 million followers.
- Growth: Publix is a shopping platform that first launched their account in late 2015 and already has more than 30,000 followers
- Posting Frequency: Foot Locker/Live Nation was the most active account with an average of 3.5 photos and 1 video per day.
- Video Interactions: Disney may not have posted as many videos as Live Nation, but they rank the highest in interactions with 7 million video interactions in the last year.
- Engagement Ratio: Based on the average number of interactions per post per 1,000 followers, Starbucks beats out the rest. Close on their heels are Old Spice, Taco Bell, and The North Face.
If you need assistance maximizing your Instagram marketing campaign, please contact us.
