How To Build A Super-engaged Instagram Following

Last Updated on Tue, 07 Mar 2023 | Digital Creative Services

It’s still a bit of a new kid on the block, but as a social network it is thriving. I love Instagram – the smartphone has turned the world into amateur photographers, and most of us are pretty good at it (especially after we’ve applied some of Instagram’s cool filters).

No matter where everyday people are in the world, they are taking stunning photographs of the landscape, the cityscape and the seascape around them, and loading these glorious pics up on Insta for the rest of the world to view and share.

And I think that’s why I like Instagram so much. It’s the spirit of the platform, which, for me anyway, celebrates the connective capabilities of the internet in a much more joyful and even profound way than the likes of, say, Facebook does. Facebook is for your party photos, your selfies, and your videos of your friends throwing up after too many Sambucas. It’s for snooping and stalking and basically showing off to the world what a real fun and witty person you are by building what is quite frankly nothing more than a public online shrine to yourself. (Hmm, Facebook is actually quite vulgar when you think about it like that….)

Instagram is different, though. It’s still about people, but as people we are generally on the other side of the camera, pointing it at something interesting or beautiful, and not posing for it ourselves (though I have to say that there are nonetheless plenty of Insta-selfie enthusiasts out there who do nothing more than upload pictures of their pouting trouts to the platform).

Instagram For Business

Social media marketers have, for the most part, got their heads around what they have to do to rile up some engagement and a decent following on Facebook. And so they should. After all, MySpace and Beebo notwithstanding, Facebook is where the world really started to find its feet with social media. It was the first social network to establish itself on a truly global scale, and it’s still the giant that it’s always been.

But marketers are still trying to get their heads around Instagram. Of course, there is now the option for businesses to create sponsored photos and videos for the platform – basically just adverts like you get everywhere else – but, for the purposes of this blog, I want to talk about extending your organic reach on the network, and how you start to build an engaged and thriving following on Instagram, though still keeping within the spirit of the community.

How To Build A Super-engaged Following On Instagram

There are already plenty of blog posts out there that discuss, for instance, ‘10 Creative Ways To Us Instagram For Business’. And, although the advice given on these pages isn’t without its merit, the tips provided I personally find to be a little too generic and, frankly, uninspiring (sorry) to be of much real use to a marketer who’s looking to stamp her company’s presence on Instagram.

I’m sure you can imagine yourselves the sort of tips that they give:

1. Photograph your products
2. Show Your products in context (i.e. being used how they’re meant to be)
3. Show how your products are made
4. Give your followers a look behind the scenes (unless you work at Google, an office is an office, right? Or perhaps they mean the toilet?)
5. Share photos of cute animals (ok, this one, for shame, might actually work – who can resist a chocolate labradoodle puppy in a bobble hat?)

As I say, this sort of advice isn’t completely redundant – Instagram is of course a great way to photograph your products being used or worn by sexy models, give your followers a frightful show of the ‘human’ side of your business with mug shots of the manager, or otherwise catalogue what you have on offer.

But, let’s face it, if that’s all you’re using your Instagram account for, then it’s going to get pretty boring pretty quickly, isn’t it?

There’s something that you’ve got to realise about Instagram – as social networks go, it’s probably the hippest of the lot. And, as I’m sure hasn’t escaped your attention, hipsters don’t tend to like corporate advertising very much, even when it’s being done by SMEs such as yourself.

And so, to appeal to the Instagram community, you have to get a little creative with your campaigns. And, what’s more, if you can encourage your followers to get creative with your brand or your products, then so much the better, for this means that you will have managed to create a super-engaged following, which is exactly what you want.

Oreo – How The Masters Do It

I’m not going to give you a list of tips and tricks of exactly what to do on Instagram to try and get your followers to engage with you and your products in a creative, fun and exciting way. Instead, I’m going to point you towards a very well-known brand whose social team have, without question, absolutely mastered the craft of Instagram (and Twitter and Pinterest and Facebook and Vine for that matter) marketing.

I’m talking, of course, about Oreo.

What Oreo do so brilliantly on Instagram, is not only produce regular, high quality photographs of delicious cookies that everyone loves to eat, they also exercise a little wit and innovation with exactly how an Oreo cookie may be used, and indeed photographed. And, what is more, they have created the hashtag #PlaywithOreo where followers of the brand can do the very same – and they do.

Take a look at some cool offerings from Oreo: