Instagram is a must platform for any business these days. But with it changing so rapidly, it can be hard to keep up. Our online editor Kseniia Spodyneiko loves sharing her Instagram knowledge with the focus readers. She had already explained all the most common mistakes you might be making on Instagram, what to do before and after publishing Instagram post and many other aspects of thriving online. So, it was a no-brainer that Kseniia should be the first guest of our new monthly video feature ‘Women Talk’, where we’ll be discussing important topics with local women.
Watch our video interview with Kseniia above or read her answers below.
DEE: WHY DO YOU THINK BUSINESSES SHOULD BE ON INSTAGRAM?
KSENIIA: The way we consume information changed a lot recently. There is a whole generation of people who grew up with the technologies in their hands. People like myself, I’m in my 30es, I earn money, I’m not a teenager with pocket money any longer. And I go on Instagram and I browse information there. For example, I love travelling and whenever I go to a new destination – I go on Instagram and I find beautiful hotels where I want to stay, I find restaurants where I want to go, I find activities that I want to do there. It’s a platform that’s so convenient for a research! We don’t need to go outside, we don’t even need to Google – we just go directly on Instagram. And imagine how many people like myself are out there! If you’re not on Instagram as a business, you’re losing on so many customers! Imagine, you said ‘I don’t need a phone! I don’t want people to call me” – it’s ridiculous, we don’t do that as businesses. We know that we need a phone number. The same with Instagram.
DEE: WE’VE CERTAINLY SEEN A LOT OF CHANGES WITH INSTAGRAM OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS. MOST RECENTLY WE’VE SEEN ENGAGEMENT WITH PHOTOS GOING RIGHT DOWN. AND I KNOW THAT YOU FEEL THAT IS A VERY POSITIVE MOVE. WOULD YOU LIKE TO TELL US ABOUT THAT?
KSENIIA: It’s not about the engagement that’s positive, it’s more about what was before that – Instagram hiding ‘likes’. Last year Instagram rolled out this really huge update in 7 or 8 countries including New Zealand and now only the owner of the account can see how many ‘likes’ their photos are getting. Other people don’t know that. Of course, it leads to the fact that the engagement is going down – when people don’t see ‘likes’, they don’t feel the need to ‘like’ photos. Yes, you don’t get that many ‘likes’ any longer but you also don’t feel the pressure to reach the numbers that you used to have. It’s so good for mental health! Originally, Instagram was a platform to get creative, to find new people, to find new clients if you’re a business. Now Instagram is bringing that back. At some stage we became so driven by numbers – ‘likes’, followers – we’re no longer authentic, we’re no longer real. As a business, we only post perfect pictures and ideal products at the time when we know most of our followers are online. Removing ‘likes’ allows you to post at any time that’s convenient for you. For example, you see on the ‘Insights’ that most of your followers are online at 11 pm and you want to go to sleep but you don’t – you need to post your photo at that time to get as many ‘likes’ as you can. You don’t any longer need to worry about that – if you want to post at lunchtime or in the morning instead, just go for it! Who cares how many ‘likes’ you’ll get, no one will see that number. What’s really important is how many people will see your photo – the so-called ‘Reach’ – not the number of ‘likes’. And that’s, I think, the metrics we should really focus on. And how many people saved your photo, because it means that either they plan to buy your product or that you’ve shared some really important, valuable information that they want to get back to later. For example, you share a perfect night-time skincare routine and a woman had no idea how she should take care after her skin, so she saves your advice, she’ll be going back to it again and again and your product will be at the top of her mind whenever she needs a skincare. So, saving your photos, photos’ reach and how many people had shared your photos – these are the numbers that are so much more important than ‘likes’ and that we used to ignore while ‘likes’ were at the forefront. Yes, engagement went down but at least, we’re now focusing on what’s really important.
DEE: YOU’VE MENTIONED AUTHENTICITY EARLIER. AND I’VE HEARD THAT THIS IS ONE OF THE MAIN TRENDS ON INSTAGRAM RIGHT NOW. I GET IT WITH INFLUENCERS – BEING AUTHENTIC, BEING THEMSELVES. BUT COULD YOU EXPLAIN HOW SHOWING REAL PEOPLE BEHIND THE BRAND CAN BE USEFUL FOR BUSINESS?
KSENIIA: Basically any market right now – skincare, fitness, food – is so oversaturated, it becomes really difficult to stand out, to show your clients why they should choose you and not your competitor. Putting yourself out there, being there as a person, not just as a product is what helps you stand out. That’s what people need – to see that there is a real person there. For example, you’re doing products for young mums and you’re a young mum yourself. You have the same struggles as other young mums watching your Instagram videos, they resonate with what you say, you’re going through the same. Obviously, they would prefer you over some bigger, well-known brand that advertises on TV because you’re just like them. That’s the tool Instagram gives you as a business – to show others that ‘I’m just like you! This is the product or service that helped me and I know, will help you’. People trust people. We need to see eyes, we need to see faces.
DEE: YES, IT’S ‘KNOW YOU – LIKE YOU – TRUST YOU’. BY PUTTING YOURSELF OUT THERE, PEOPLE WILL ENGAGE WITH YOU AND THEN, OF COURSE, USE YOUR BUSINESS. WHAT ARE THE TREE KEY TRENDS FOR INSTAGRAM IN 2020, IN YOUR OPINION?
KSENIIA: What I’ve been seeing recently is that Instagram is slowly switching from being just a visual platform, a platform for inspiration to so-called micro-blogging, the platform for communication, the platform for browsing for information. Think of it as of your pocket Wikipedia. So, one of the main trends is longer captions. Longer captions keep people on your content for longer, they force them to stop their automatic scrolling and focus on what you’re offering them. The longer your captions are – the better your engagement will be. I would suggest having 60+ words in most of your captions. And you’ll see that you’re making people to really engage, to start conversations, to ask questions, to react to what you’re putting out there. Make them informative, so that your followers would want to save them and come back to them later. The second trend that will only grow biggers this year is videos, video content. Just give us the information in the easiest to consume way! Either it’s a short, under 1-minute video on Instagram, 15-second Stories or a longer IGTV format. IGTV just implemented a really great update called ‘Series’, which is basically different topics. For example, every Friday you answer to the questions about your brand that you’ve received throughout the week – people click on ‘My Friday Q&A’s’ Series and they see all those videos. And once a month you share how your swimwear is produced – you start new Series for that, Let’s say, ‘How we do that’. And all ‘How we do that’ videos are stored in different Series. It’s like Netlfix, only on Instagram. Videos are really pushing your content out there and helping you to reach new people. If you add hashtags to your videos or you’re lucky to get onto the ‘Discovery’ page, videos are getting four times more screen space there than photos. That helps you to grow. And the last trend is AR filters for Stories. Recently people started using a lot of beautiful filters for their stories, like retroCAM, for example, that’s crazily popular now. Using AR filters and making your Stories recognisable by using the same filters all the time is like the next step of online marketing. You’re improving your overall branding! You can even create your own filter and whenever someone else uses it, there is your name in someone’s Stories, so you’re basically promoting yourself for free.