If you’re considering an Instagram account, but haven’t used it before, you’re probably in search of what Instagram posts do the best. In this case, use the examples in this post as templates to improve your profile when you’re first starting.
No one should have to struggle with Instagram. It’s on your phone and meant to be really easy. All you have to do is mess around with some other programs to get your posts looking perfect.
Being familiar with other products like Adobe, Canva, and many others is a great start, but using only those products will not help you. This article will give you some great examples, and a way for you to start with a professional looking profile right from the start.
Informative
Informative Instagram post templates are necessary for any brand looking to sell a service. The key to selling that service is building trust with your target market. Without trust, every post, ad, and sales pitch you give will be less effective.
The image above is a great way to start. It’s not sales-oriented at all. Which is key when trying to build trust.
In my opinion, an Instagram post is not meant for sales, unless you’re going to use your posts as product pages. If you are, then I recommend using another platform to do your selling for you, then direct traffic to your Instagram feed like you would if you’re selling on Amazon or Ebay.
I say this because it’s important to understand how a buyer thinks. They do not want to be sold, but they do want to buy, and people love buying products that they believe are superior to others.
Informative posts make buyers believe in the product, company, and the person delivering that message. Posts, like the one above, teach a concept that would work well for startups, bootstrappers, and many more types of companies.
Motivational
You’ve probably seen a ton of these kinds of posts. They are everywhere because they do very well.
People are always looking to improve their lives and many people feel the need a little pick me up in order to do so. If you’re a brand that is trying to help people with motivational speeches, book sales, video courses, etc. Then these kinds of posts could be a great way to motivate people to take that risk they need to get their business going, finish that book, or whatever they are struggling to accomplish.
Motivation is a huge business these days, and it would be short-sighted of me to totally dismiss it as ineffective. In fact, in many realms, motivation is vital to an athlete, soldier, police, and salespeople to do their jobs to the best of their ability.
Many times jobs with a high amount of failure, like sales positions, need a little pick me up of pure motivation to get things moving on a Monday morning. An Instagram full of these kinds of posts can mean all the difference for a newbie sales rep ready to buy some motivational tapes.
Shock and Awe
Instagram is full of attention-grabbing images, like cute puppies, beautiful models and much more. It’s a visual platform that relies on sharing beauty in all it’s forms.
Don’t be intimidated by the bright lights and ridiculous nature of many of Instagram’s finest, many of them aren’t legit, but many of them are. Do yourself a favor realize what they are doing to gain their following and apply it to your business.
Are their images always perfect? No way. Is the audio quality perfect? Of course not. In many cases, their videos and images are full of flaws. However, their content is really interesting.
Sacrificing some quality for something amazing is sometimes more powerful. Keep that in mind when you look for more Instagram post templates. Look the idea of perfection. It’s not that important.
Brand Specific
The beauty of social media marketing is the ability to choose your Instagram post templates. Those templates make your brand what it is.
In the beginning, it’s best to find a few Instagram posts that you like. Then use them as templates for the first couple of months. Then check to see how they are doing at the end of your first quarter of being on Instagram.
You’ll notice which ones are doing well and which ones are not. It’s possible that none of them do well. Instagram posting is not an exact science. It will confuse you and force you to continually experiment.
A fatal flaw is to look at your competitors and say, but my posts are better than theirs or similar to theirs are out-performing yours.
In that case, you should look for inspiration elsewhere. Don’t even look at your competition for a while and look to the greats of Instagram. What are they doing that you can do?
By the way, avoid looking for inspiration from celebrities that didn’t make their name on social media. People like “The Rock” or Ariana Grande may have huge followings, but most of the followers are not because of their posting strategy.
Product Showcase
Showing off your products on Instagram is always cool, but not if you’re Instagram is a mobile billboard. It should be a work of art. Your products can be a part of that art, but not completely. Remember, people want to buy from brands they love.
The best way to showcase a product is by showing the beauty or benefits of that product.
Let’s say your product is selling waterproof cases for smartphones. What do you think would be a post that would get a casual buyer to buy it? What hashtags do you think you should post a waterproof smartphone case too.
In my opinion, an outdoor hiking, camping, hunting or fishing hashtags could be amazing for your brand. You should post your case in water all the time. Above all else, anyone interested in buying a waterproof smartphone case is going to want to know that it works.
Use your Instagram to post a real person dropping that phone into a lake or bucket of water. Or maybe have an influencer that spends time in the water, like a scuba diver that posts pictures to his or her account, using the smartphone with the case on it. A video of this would be an absolute gold mine for the seller of this phone.
Sales Funnel
Instagram is a great place for businesses, but any good sales funnel provides enough warmup for sales to occur. Many times if a product is struggling to be sold, there is not enough warmup marketing material available for the customer to consume prior to purchase.
Did you know that 47% of buyers view an average of 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep? That means, that you have to provide them with non-sales materials, like blogs, white papers, case studies, etc. They sell, but not really.
You might be thinking, wait I don’t have any sales reps. If that’s the case then you need even more content to sell your products. Keep in mind, content does not refer to product pages.
Look there are always going to be people that buy what you’re selling, but the majority of people that look at your product and pass. Those are the people that you need to convince to buy your products, and the way you do that is by offering them the content they need to trust you.
Final Rule: Quality over Quantity
What really sells on Instagram is content worthy of being liked and commented. It’s content that inspires people to engage, and that doesn’t work unless there is enough of it.
Your goal on Instagram is to become an influencer so you can sell products to your customers. We are all influencers and it would behoove you to follow people that sell products via Instagram. They are masters of building a community with their audience then persuading them to make purchases.
The beauty of being a business owner is that you’re already an influencer. It’s just nobody knows about it. That’s what these Instagram post templates are for.
Just follow these for a while until you get your own style. Then be as consistent as possible to ensure your constantly letting your audience know you’re alive. Its vital for a non-sales rep company to continuously utilize the best tools on the internet to sell their products.
So, what are quality Instagram posts? The posts that your specific audience loves. They are the ones that get their blood pumping and their credit cards out. They are emotional at the very least.
So, how do you get your clients all emotional about a product that isn’t emotional? That’s the trick of any marketer/copywriter. Trust me when it comes to a person and their money, it’s very personal. Use that to your advantage and for more information on developing a solid Instagram posting strategy check out the Digital Cartel blog for more great strategies to make your profile what it could be.
