Published on October 14th, 2020 | by Samantha Hackett

Instagram Content Ideas Rarely Used That May Make An Impact On Your Brand

It’s not enough to just have an account on Instagram. You also need to focus on growing your following, creating Instagram content, driving engagement and promoting your brand and business organically through your posts. There can be a lot to think about, but it will be worth it when you can attract a loyal group of followers and then convert them into customers.

By having a strong presence on Instagram, you can also improve your brand’s credibility. Many people go to social media when they hear about a new brand to see what kind of content they’re sharing. If they like what they see, they might decide to follow you and keep up with your brand. When you’re looking to grow your followers on Instagram, you need to be creative with your content, so today we’re sharing five new content ideas you can use to add variety to your profile.

User Generated Content

UGC is one of the best types of content to incorporate into your Instagram marketing strategy because it comes with a variety of benefits. When you post UGC, you’re re-sharing content that your followers or other real-life users of your product have posted. This means that you have fans of your brand who are organically sharing about your product and telling their followers why they love it.

UGC Campaign

If your followers and fans aren’t already doing this, don’t worry. You can always encourage them to do so by creating a UGC campaign. Whatever your campaign is, you want to give your followers a reason to post about you. You can host contests, create hashtags or build relationships with specific followers. As always, test your strategies and see what works well for your brand and audience.

Branded Hashtag

Another strategy is to create a branded hashtag. Share your posts with this hashtag and encourage your followers to post content with the hashtag, too. Then you can share it on your own feed. This gives you plenty of content to post and an easy way to engage and interact with your followers! This is also more passive than a UGC campaign, since you’re able to collect posts over time, rather than just because you asked for them at once.

Photo Contests

A great UGC strategy is to host a photo contest. Give your followers a reason to post about your brand, as well as some parameters, and then set a time limit. Your prize can vary depending on what your audience wants. For some, the chance to be re-posted on your feed and/or Stories is enough. Others will want to be entered to win something. See what works for your fan base and go from there. Once you have plenty of submissions, pick your winner (or winners) and share their posts to your feed and Stories.

Influencer Collaborations

Another great type of content to create for Instagram is an influencer collaboration. Working with influencers is really popular right now, and for good reason: influencers have a strong following of audience members who trust them and want to see what they have to say. There are a number of different ways you can plan your influencer collaboration, so see what works best for your brand’s goals.

Giveaways

One of the most common influencer collaborations is giveaways. Most people are interested in trying to win something, and they can help you grow your following and increase your engagement. With an influencer giveaway, you’ll partner with an influencer who will promote your brand to her audience. Then, you and the influencer will work together to promote the giveaway of one of your products.

You can use whatever entry requirements you’d like, but it’s most common to need to be following both the influencer and the brand, like the post and leave a comment tagging a few friends. At the end of the giveaway you choose a winner and then evaluate how well the campaign increased your following and engagement.

Takeovers

Another way to take advantage of influencer marketing is by having a takeover. With this, you’ll give the influencer of your choice access to your Stories (or your feed posts, but Stories tend to work better) for a day. They can share their day-in-the-life, and they will typically include your brand, product or service somehow.

For example, a food blogger could take over a pancake mix company’s Instagram Stories and use the company’s product to make breakfast. Influencers will typically promote their takeover beforehand and encourage their followers to come check it out.

How To Contact Influencers

Once you’ve decided that an influencer collaboration is going to work well for you, it’s time to choose your influencer. You want to do some research first so you find someone who will make a good partner for your brand. Choose an influencer who is in your industry and whose followers are your ideal audience.

After you find an influencer or two you’d like to work with, you can reach out to them. The most obvious way is to send them a DM. However, some influencers receive a lot of DMs so they might not see yours. You could also leave a comment on their post suggesting a collaboration. Finally, you can send them an email. If they’re established, they likely have an agent or assistant who helps them find the best collaborations, and email is often the best way to get a hold of them.

Repost On Instagram

When you’re not sure what to post on your feed, there’s another way to find great content to fill your grid. Scroll through Instagram and find photos on other accounts that stick out to you. These could be quotes, beautiful images or really any kind of post that resonates with you. Reach out to the account holder and ask for permission to repost their content. This keeps your feed fresh and exciting and helps your followers find other accounts that they may like.

Reposting Tools

If you choose to add reposting to your strategy, you don’t have to do it all manually. There are tools like Repost for Instagram (an Android app) and InstaRepost that will do the heavy lifting for you. Simply find the photo you want to repost, hit “repost” and let the app do the work. If neither of these apps work for you, there are many other tools that can automatically repost the image and caption to your feed, giving credit to the initial poster.

The other option is to repost manually. This is especially helpful if you use a scheduling app to plan out your feed and your posts. In that case, take a screenshot of the photo you want to repost and add it to your planned feed. Make sure you tag the original photo owner in the photo and at the beginning of the caption. You don’t want anyone to think you just stole the post. (And don’t forget to get permission before you repost!)

Branded Hashtags

Remember the branded hashtags we talked about before with UGC? This is a great way to get repostable content since they are posting knowing you would potentially use their content. If they post a good photo with your hashtag, all you need to do is repost. It’s still a nice courtesy to reach out and ask permission, but anyone who submits a photo for a contest should do so knowing that you might repost them.

Get Creative With Content Creation Apps

You can also get creative with the graphics and content that you’re creating. Use apps such as Canva or Over to create fun content that stands out to the viewer. You’ll be able to ensure that your content looks on-brand and fits with your messaging. These apps are simple to use so even non-graphic designers can make beautiful images.

How It Works

Canva is incredibly user-friendly, and they actually have many templates available for free. They already know the dimensions of most common posts, like Instagram posts and Stories, so you just need to choose the size graphic you want to make. Then select one of their templates or create your own. They even have stock images available within the platform. Canva is an easy-to-use one stop shop for your graphics creation.

Over is a great option, as well. They have intuitive tools that can help you create a professional-looking graphic that your audience will love. Store your branding assets within the app to make it easy to create on-brand graphics on the fly. They also offer templates and tips and tricks to help you stand out from the crowd with your content.

Video Content

Video is king on the internet today, not only on Instagram but on many other platforms, as well. People love watching videos because it helps them feel more connected to the brand or person on the other end. Instagram gives you plenty of opportunities to incorporate video into your strategy.

You can create videos up to a minute long and include them in your feed. Longer videos can be uploaded to IGTV. Create video Stories that will disappear within 24 hours, unless you save them to your highlights. Go live and chat with your audience in real-time with Instagram Live. And most recently, Instagram released Reels as a competitor to TikTok.

Content Ideas

With so many different mini-platforms within Instagram for video, it can be hard to choose what to cover in each type of video. Here are some suggestions.

IGTV: Film tutorials or “getting to know me” videos. They’ll be consistently stored within the app so when you have an influx of new followers you can link to your “about the brand” type video in your Stories without having to repeat yourself. Tutorials also are helpful to show your audience how to use your product or service.
Stories: These are ideal for behind-the-scenes style videos that show your audience what you do each day.
Instagram Live: Q&A reigns supreme with Instagram Live, but training videos can work really well in this format, too. Because you have your audience on the other side, they can become a part of the videos you’re creating here.
Reels: If you’re participating in the latest TikTok trends, bring them to Instagram! Post them on your feed or add them to your Reels and bring some of your Instagram followers onto your TikTok. You’ve now got the chance to engage your followers with entertaining content.

Instagram Content Ideas

Creating interesting Instagram content doesn’t have to be a headache. Instead, with a little thought (and these five ideas), you can plan and create weeks’ worth of unique content your audience will be excited to see. Don’t forget to watch their response. See which types of posts they’re engaging with, and that can help you determine which tactics to continue to use.

Tags: brand, content ideas, impact, instagram

About the Author

Samantha Hackett Samantha is a Marketing Coordinator at Kicksta with an expertise in all things Instagram and social media marketing. Our passion is to help companies grow their presence online and kill it in social media!"