How To Use Instagram To Promote Your Blog

Instagram has taken social media by a storm over the last few years. It is visual, simple and easy to use and that makes this photo sharing app one of the hottest social media networks right now. With over 400 million monthly active users, it is considered as a terrific channel to connect with businesses and brands worldwide. Did you know that Instagram users are 58% more likely to like, comment or share a brand’s post when compared to Facebook users? So you definitely need to know how to use Instagram to promote your blog.

Instagram is a visual space!

Instagram works on the real power of visual storytelling. It is especially used by businesses belonging to food, travel and fashion industry. That doesn’t mean that others cannot use it to market yourself and your brand. It is an amazing platform where you get to share a slice of your personal life with your followers and build true relationships. By seeing a photograph or two from you, you get to show them the behind-the-scenes, thus making it highly engaging.

How to use Instagram to Promote your Blog

1. The Bio:

Instagram is definitely not the friendliest social network for bloggers. I say this because it does not allow clickable links in their captions. The only URL the user can provide is on their Bio. Use it wisely. Rotate that link in the bio to your latest blog post and encourage people to click the URL for your information. However, make sure that the URLs you share lead to a mobile-friendly page, for Instagram is a mobile-based platform.

2. Understand your Niche:

You might be using Instagram to share all about what you ate and where you went. But do it by understanding your niche. Your profile page is where the visitors land on first and that is your first impression. Maintain a uniformity – be it the color palette, or the layout.

Use Instagram images, to promote blog posts, ideas and content. But make sure that everything you post fits with your brand and showcases your personality and style.

3. Give a teaser of your Blog Post

Create a compelling image for your Instagram post with your Blog URL and Logo. It can be a ‘coming-soon-on-the-blog’, or a ‘behind-the-scenes’ post.

4. Create a Quote Graphic

If you are a food/fashion/travel blogger, you are likely to have an image that can promote your blog post. But what if you are a writer or a book blogger? How can you make the best use of Instagram? Create an image using quotes from your post. Make it short, crisp and sweet so as to catch the follower’s interest. You can also write a snippet of your blog post in the caption and finish off with, ‘read more about this on the blog’.

5. The Hashtags

Find your niche through niche hashtags. Whether you love them or hate them, using popular hashtags are a great way to ‘find’ you. You can add up to 30 hashtags on a post, make use of them.

6. Use Instagram Widget:

Use Instagram widget on your sidebar to encourage your blog readers to visit your Instagram page. There are many free widgets available to configure on your blog. You can also embed single images from your Instagram profile to your blog post.

7. Posting:

There is no right number when it comes to how many times you should post on Instagram in a day. However, do not overdo it. You needn’t post EVERY single photo of your family vacation. But if you really want to, use the latest feature of adding multiple photographs in a single post. Space out your posting time and start with 2-3 posts a day – one relating your blog post and the other a teaser/personal post. Refer to the statistics and find out when the engagement is the highest. Develop a plan based on this to figure out how often and when is the good time to post.

8. Scheduling:

Instagram was created with the purpose of sharing real-time moments. It did not allow you to post from the web, but only from their app. However, one can use third party tools to schedule the posts. My favorites include Later and Buffer – both helping me to schedule my photographs for a certain time of the day, which is helpful as I know when my post goes live and can let my followers know about it. Both of these software require you to download the app on your phone as well. Once your post is scheduled from the web, it will push a notification to your phone to post on Instagram, at the scheduled time. Another popular scheduling app is Hootsuite.

9. Instagram Stories: 

Instagram Stories are the one-day span You can upload all the pictures & videos which you shot within the last 24 hours to these. What options does that give you? Share your Behind-the-Scenes. The Pre and Post Event. It is vital for your traffic and growth.

10. Instagram Live:

Use Instagram Live to share tips, tricks, and tutorials. It can be seen as a short time talking video- just enough to capture your follower’s attention.

Here’s a bonus:

Want to create stunning photographs to beautify your Instagram feed? Use these tools.

The Instagram Editing Apps

Snapseed and VSCO are great photo-editing apps. You can use Boomerang to create short and sweetly weird videos. The latest trend in Instagram is splitting an image into six and create a massive portrait. The best app that helps in creating this is Banner Pic. Flipagram helps in creating short video content.

We hope this article has been useful to you. We would love to know if you use Instagram and what you particularly do to help your blog grow. Good luck and Happy Instagramming!