Post, reels and stories

Post

It's just posting a photo, adding some text as a description and that's it. Posts Instagram shows mostly to your followers, they are almost non-viral. Use good quality photos, always well in focus and think it through so they are in the spirit of your style. Use the description to support the style you want to convey to your followers. If you want to explain something, write a lot of text. Valuable information tends to be saved by people and Instagram likes that. If you want to provoke people to comment, make the text short and ask a question at the end. Reply to the comments. Every activity under your post means more views. Instagram doesn't really encourage posting photos at this time of year, so the photo should catch your eye at first glance.

Reels

It's a format that Instagram is currently promoting and the world is going crazy for the videos. This will change again over time, but at the moment this is the most viral format and Instagram is posting it to people who aren't your followers. So if you get people interested in your video, you'll start to get new followers. If the video is just your dog doing something, you can use captions for it. Experts say that people watch Instagram without sound, so they recommend using subtitles and captions. But still, I have found many times that videos that don't have captions are more successful than videos that have captions. My human is "a boomer", so we prefer to produce content that is spontaneous and without unnecessary interference. Again, it would be nice if the videos were related to the style you want to convey to your followers.

Stories

According to my personal findings, this is the format that my followers like the most. It has to do with the fact that we live fast. Stories are dynamic, they have different stickers, different banners, so even with a photo or a video that doesn't look perfect, you plot an interesting story. People also tend to respond to stories most often, so Instagram likes that. You can also embed a link to a website in the stories, so that helps with sales, for example. My tried and tested tip to increase the reach of stories?

- Delete any stories you have posted or wait for them to disappear (after 24 hours of posting)

- In the morning, post a simple poll that people can answer easily and give them the option of a yes/no answer - for example: does rain bother you when walking? Can your dog go to bed?

- People tend to respond spontaneously to polls like this, so you'll get activity with this trick, which Instagram likes.

- Post more stories after 6-8 hours. You'll see an increase in the reach of all your Instagram posts.

- If you could come up with polls like this for a few days in a row, it will be even better.

- The poll questions don't have to be directly related to the dog. Ask about starting the day with coffee, whether you've bought Christmas presents yet, that sort of thing.

- You can also add quizzes or other interactive elements to your stories. The important thing is to keep simplicity in mind. If you ask a question that makes me think in the morning, I won't engage. Likewise, I won't engage if you want answers from my intimate world. Simplicity my friends.

Call to action

You can almost always put a call to action in your posts. Put it at the end of the photo description. In a video, you can put it at the end of the video. Do you want people to comment? Say it. Should they share it? Invite them to do so. But beware. To avoid making your prompt useless, don't put it at the beginning, but at the end, and there must be only one. If you use several questions, people won't know which one to answer. In reels ask people to follow you, in posts ask them to share, and in stories ask them to simply engage with something. You can ask for comments in reels and in posts.

And finally hashtags

My human has been a lover of hashtags since the days of Twitter. Today, marketers say hashtags don't have much meaning. We use them. They're like keywords. They help Instagram in that it publishes your posts to people who share the same interests. If I use the hashtag #lagottoromagnolo I am part of that community. If I use the hashtag #copenhagen it is likely that my post will be seen by people searching for information about Copenhagen. If you want to use hashtags I recommend 4 to 6, more is pointless. And try combining them like this:

1 hashtag - community (#lagottoromagnolo)

1 hashtag - topic (#dogtraining or #dogfood)

1 hashtag - your own that you will use as your brand image (#lagottomonte #lagottovmeste )

1 hashtag - location (#lagottodenmark, #dogdenmark #dogsofcopenhagen)

I think that's enough for today, we'll continue again next time. Let me know what you would like to know about Instagram and if you like my blogs on the subject.

Also read the blog Why is interactivity important and how to increase it