When attempting to drive traffic to their blog, most organizations tend to do a lot of the promoting through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Notice anything missing?
That’s right — for a long time, Instagram tended to be overlooked as a vehicle for promoting a blog, mostly due to the platform’s inability to include direct links in the caption of a post. While some social media marketers include the raw text of a link in their Instagram posts, this is not considered a best practice as it requires your followers to do more work. (Spoiler alert: most social media users are lazy!)
However, you shouldn’t let the technical limitations of Instagram stop you from tapping into the wide audience on the platform to promote your blog. Here are three easy steps to follow that will help you promote your blog content on Instagram:
Step 1: Use Canva to Create Eye-Catching Content
As you can probably tell by the multiple posts on our blog, the Scooter Media team loves the intuitive interface and fantastic features of Canva! Even if don’t consider yourself a graphic design guru, Canva offers a wide array of templates for both Instagram posts and Stories that will aid you in creating visually appealing content that stands out.
Choose a template you like, then use Canva’s drag-and-drop features to customize the template to fit your brand. You’ll have an eye-catching graphic that’s ready to take the spotlight on your brand’s Instagram in no time!
Step 2: Spend Time with Smart.bio and Linktree
If you’re a social media marketer that uses Instagram, there’s a good chance that you’re familiar with the phrase “Link in bio.” Until recently, brands had to either link to their homepage in the bio of their Instagram profile and hope users would navigate to the correct page, or change the link in their bio every time they made a new post.
Thankfully, that is no longer the case! Using tools like Smart.bio and Linktree, you can now offer your followers the ability to click through to exactly what they were looking for, rather than making them search for it on your website. Even better, both of these platforms track the amount traffic being driven to specific links, providing you with important analytics about the types of content your social media audience is most likely to engage with. And best of all — these incredibly handy tools are free!
Step 3: Make the Most Out of Instagram Stories
There are plenty of ways to utilize the Stories function on Instagram to get followers interested in your upcoming blog post. Now, you may be thinking, “I’m already posting on Instagram, why should I also post on my story?” According to Hootsuite, 58% of people say they have become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories.
Whether it’s posting teasers about an upcoming article or creating a poll to see which types of posts your audience wants your brand to talk about, you’ll be sure to pique interest and drive awareness of your blog.
No matter what kind of organization you are managing a social media presence for, sharing your blog content on Instagram can help increase brand recognition and gain new audiences and fans along the way. So the next time you’re looking to share your blog content in a new way, try a few of these tips and take your blog traffic to new heights!
By Mya Priester, Scooter Media intern
Searching for more tips? Look no further than the Scooter Media blog! Start off by checking out our primer on “Effective Blogging for Small Businesses,” then take things to the next level with our guide to Instagram’s new “Reels” feature.
