Optimising Tips for Instagram
As of September 2017 the photo-sharing social media platform, Instagram, had over 800 million monthly active users. With this amount of people using the visual platform, it’s clear to see why your dental practice should be utilising it as an effective marketing tool. We’ve put some of the most significant steps that you need to take in order to make sure your Instagram gains as many followers as possible.
Optimise your Instagram profile
Once you’ve set up your Instagram profile – try and use the same (or as similar as possible) handles across all of your social media channels as this will help people to find you much easier – you now need to make sure that your profile is completely optimised.
You should include all the relevant information that you want your patients to know about your practice, including dental practice name, phone number and your website address. All of this information will allow people visiting your Instagram profile to get a snapshot of exactly what you do.
In your profile, you should also include relevant keywords that are specific to the niche that you operate in; for example, ‘dental marketing’, ‘dental practice + [location]’ and a brief introduction as to the kind of work that you do.
Consider setting up an Instagram Business Account
While it’s not essential to do this it can be a very good idea to set up an Instagram Business Account as it allows you to obtain certain analytical information that isn’t included in a normal Instagram account. You can include your email address when using a business account which allows people to directly email you straight from Instagram itself. You can also view detailed analytics such as how many impressions your posts have received, how many website clicks you’ve obtained and the age range and location of your followers just to name a few. This can be incredibly useful information to have as a dental practice because you’ll be able to see the kind of people who are visiting your profile and therefore you can focus on converting those visitors into followers.
Share valuable and quality content
There’s often some speculation that in order to have a successful Instagram account you need to stick to a certain theme when sharing photos but that’s not always the case. As long as the content that you’re sharing is clear and of a high quality, while showcasing the personality of your dental practice, then it’s sure to be a success. Ensure that the images you share on Instagram are always on-brand and relevant to your niche.
Use hashtags
Many dental practices don’t realise the importance of using hashtags on their Instagram posts but we can’t stress enough just how important they are if you wish to grow your followers. By using hashtags on Instagram, you’re allowing so many more people to see your content which will result in a higher engagement rate as well as an increase in followers. It’s obviously important to only use hashtags that are relevant to the dental industry otherwise you’ll attract followers who aren’t actually your target audience. Use hashtags such as ‘#dental’, ‘#dentalpractice’ and ‘#teeth’.
Engage with other accounts
While you may think that in order to be successful on Instagram you need to have a certain number of followers, all those followers won’t really mean anything at all if you don’t utilise them. In order to be successful on Instagram, you need to make sure that your posts are receiving engagement from users in the form of likes and comments. You can increase your engagement rate by interacting with other accounts similar to yours, or by connecting with your patients. By following, liking and commenting on other people’s Instagram accounts you’ll increase the likelihood of people following you back and liking and commenting on your photos in return.
Due to the recent changes in the Instagram algorithm, it can now be notoriously difficult to grow your Instagram account but by making the correct amendments and improving your Instagram account, you can increase your number of followers in no time!