Content

Of course the main reason of creating an Instagram account is to share your content. The main form of content for Instagram, as you know, are pictures. You can also post videos, or create/post videos via Insta Stories.

Here are 6 important things to note when posting content on Instagram:

(i) Eye-catching Picture/video

Millions of users post millions of pictures daily. So naturally, your picture has to be interesting in order to get people to follow you.

(ii) Picture Carousel

Instagram allows you to upload up to 10 images in one post. It would be good if you can post more than a single picture at each post, as every swipe to the next picture counts as engagement. The higher the engagement there are at the post, the more likely your post will appear on people's feed. (For example, if you are sharing a picture of an item, you can post pictures of it from different angles.)

Of course your first picture has to capture their attention so that they will look at the following pictures. Or you can write at the caption, 'swipe for more photos'. Which brings me to the next point.

(iii) Caption

Write longer, meaningful captions instead of just a sentence or worse, captionless. You can include questions asking for other's opinion or to share their thoughts. Doing that would encourage them to comment on your picture, which would increase engagement.

Others might also relate to what you share in your caption, and therefore would likely comment.

Above is a post of mine. I posted 5 pictures; you can see the 1/5 and also the 5 dots below the picture which tells you that there are 5 pictures in this post. My caption is also decent in length, sometimes I write a longer caption. I also added a question in my caption to draw engagement to the post.

(iv) Post at least once a day

Posting at least once a day shows to Instagram that you are active. More content would also mean more viewers (with proper hashtags, which I'll share in the next page).

I recommend posting once, or at most twice (at different timings) a day. That way, people would be focused on that one or two post and those post will likely have a higher engagement rate, as opposed to posting 5 or more posts, where engagement would be divided among them.

For me, I prepare multiple pictures beforehand, and post one or two of them in a day, over a few days. That way I don't have to keep preparing pictures on a daily basis.

(v) Timing of post

Another important factor is the timing of post. You would want to post at the timing when your target audience are active on Instagram. To do that, you either have to take note which are the timings that get you the higher engagement (likes and comments), or you can use analytic tools to find the ideal time for posting.

Time difference in different countries is a factor, so do decide on your target audience and find out which is the best time for you to post (most importantly, don't post at the time that they would be sleeping).

From my Instagram analytics, I would not post anything from 1pm to 8pm daily as you can see those are the timings which my followers are mostly offline.

(vi) Insta Story

Share a short video, or even a picture of your post, to get people to visit your profile and follow you. You can have a schedule for your insta story (eg. every Tues and Thurs), or it can even be random. Most importantly, use it!

Now, having a good picture and caption is great, but the next important thing for your post to reach out are your hashtags!