5 Ways to Engage Customers on Instagram – That Work! - Musselwhite Marketing

Musselwhite Marketing serving Insurance Agents/Agencies & Contractors since 2009

5 Ways to Engage Customers on Instagram – That Work!

Musselwhite Marketing - 5 Ways To Engage Customers On Instagram – That Work!

Is your Instagram feed bringing in leads or has it turned into another marketing effort that just doesn’t deliver a good return on the time and money you put into it?

If it’s the latter, it’s time to get serious about customer engagement on Instagram. Instagram, like all social media sites, is constantly changing its algorithms. The latest change is that Likes – which used to be the gold standard of customer engagement – will no longer be displayed on your feed.

DON’T PANIC. You’ll still be able to see your Likes in your analytics, but the new reality signals a change in the world of Instagram engagement. Here are 5 things you can do to engage your insurance customers that go far beyond a simple Like.

#1: Organize Your Stories into Highlights

Instagram Stories can be a terrific marketing tool, but they only stick around for 24 hours – or do they? 

One of my favorite tips for Instagram Stories is to feature them as highlights on your profile page. Your stories can provide new subscribers with an overview of who you are and what you do. They allow a behind the scenes look at you and your team, putting a human face to your brand.  This one act can quickly distance you (in a positive way) from the other businesses competing for their attention. Here are the steps to follow:

  • Log in to your Instagram account
  • Navigate to your profile page and tap Story Highlights (underneath your name and bio)
  • Tap the plus sign to add a Story to your Highlights
  • Tap to choose the Instagram Story you want to feature 
  • Tap Edit Cover
  • Choose a cover photo for your Highlight
  • Tap Done

Once you have added an Instagram Story to your highlights, it will remain there until you remove it. This simple move gives new life to your Stories and increases engagement by giving new followers something substantial to view when they visit your profile.

#2: Use Geotags for Local Engagement with your Business

For local business owners, the Holy Grail of Instagram marketing is attracting local followers. After all, these are the people who are most likely to patronize your business and turn into loyal customers. One local follower is worth hundreds of followers who only look at your photos and never purchase services from you.

One of the easiest ways to amp up your local engagement is to use geotags when you post on Instagram. You can create a Geotag specifically for your business, but you can also use state, city, and even neighborhood geotags to pinpoint your location.

As an example, if you are an insurance professional previously you’d have to hope people would drive by your agency and take note of the fact that there’s an insurance agent in their neighborhood.  As very few people actually DO THIS, a geotag automatically answers the question on your location without requiring them to get out of the platform and perform a Google search.  

As a bonus, geotags can have their own Stories on Instagram. If you use a geotag for your city, your posts will become part of that day’s Story, making it that much easier for local customers to find you and your agency.

#3: Post Videos to Get More Comments 

In their 2018 Instagram Engagement Report, Mention revealed that videos on Instagram receive 46% of all Likes. Since there are far more photos posted on Instagram than videos, these numbers show that videos are engagement superstars on Instagram.

With the importance of Likes on the decline thanks to the new algorithm changes, it’s also interesting to note that videos get more comments than photographs as a rule. If you haven’t already started posting videos on Instagram, 2020 is the year to start.

The current rules for Instagram video are as follows:

  • Up to 60 seconds for videos posted on your feed
  • Up to 15 seconds for videos posted as part of an Instagram Story
  • Up to 60 minutes for Instagram Live video
  • Up to 60 minutes for IGTV video

Posting more videos can help you grab your audience’s attention and hold it.  The best news is that creating a video is as simple as whipping out your smartphone and recording you walking down the street near your physical building.  Offer a free tip on practical ways to protect your family from the eventuality of a disaster in your home. It doesn’t need to be long, as 60 second videos are what people expect while scrolling through their Instagram account.

#4: Create More Savable Posts

One of the things about Instagram is that it’s easy to miss posts or to gloss over them. But what if there was a way to keep your audience engaged by getting them to revisit a post frequently? 

There is! More brands are recognizing the importance of creating posts that their followers will want to save and return to. That’s unlikely to happen with a simple photograph, but there are ways to create content that’s suitable for Instagram and provide ongoing value to your followers. Here are a couple of ideas:

  • Create carousel-style posts with multiple images organized around a theme. An example for your agency, a “Family/Home” carousel that highlights all of the different coverages that are critical for every family to own.
  • Create mini-blog posts that provide information that your followers can use, such as a checklist on what individual plans would be beneficial at different stages in their lives.

The key is to think about what your target audience will find valuable and provide it to them, Instagram-style.

#5: Add Instagram Stickers to Your Stories  

Instagram Stories are great for engagement, especially if you let your followers know how you want them to engage with you. One of my favorite ways to boost Story engagement is by using Instagram Stickers.

Instagram Stickers appear on Stories and offer your customers an easy way to interact with you. The options available include:

  • Question stickers: Ask your followers a question, such as what additional services they’d like to see from you. The question sticker is a great way to collect valuable information from your followers.
  • Quiz stickers: Offer your followers a multiple choice question to boost engagement.
  • Countdown stickers: Add a countdown to your Story to build excitement for an upcoming event you’re sponsoring or a big announcement. 

Here are the steps to add a sticker to your Instagram Story:

  • Add a picture to your story
  • Click the peeling smiley face icon to bring up your sticker options
  • Tap to add the sticker you like
  • Rearrange it on the page – you can make it bigger or smaller and choose where to place it and add a question or countdown

Engaging customers on Instagram isn’t just a numbers game and the new algorithm changes mean that Likes are only the tip of the iceberg. The five engagement tips here will help you take advantage of the updates and make 2020 your best year ever on Instagram.

Instagram and Musselwhite Marketing

Leveraging social media is so important, and our clients soon become believers in this fact once engagement with their brand starts to increase.  So many people say, “But how is it possible to quantify actions such as shares, comments, and likes?” Rather than shy away from this question, we are more than happy to answer it for your agency!   

Instagram is one platform that many of your possible prospects and future customers are on daily, so why not join the conversation and put a positive image on your service?  

Customer service surely is paramount to your desired level of success, so tracking conversations and responding to concerns is what separates brands that successfully use social media from those that don’t.  At Musselwhite Marketing, our social media experts are poised to launch your Instagram brand awareness and engagement into the foreground of conversations that are already going on.

How Can You Take Your Business To The Next Level?

We start with a quick 15-minute Discovery call to determine if we’re a good fit for each other. Usually this meeting produces a custom report or two for you and your business complete with video overviews.
When you decide we (Musselwhite Marketing) have the solution(s) you are looking for your business we discuss ways to improve or repurpose your marketing campaign or to learn about digital marketing training we will then present a proposal.
As a Double Certified Partner of Ontraport and DigitalMarketer, we are in a rare position to offer the most comprehensive suite of services to you and your business, and during the next half a decade, we aim to double the size of 10,000 companies like yours.

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