Millennials still remember Instagram as a platform where people share their photos. It was mostly food photos, bows, and random lifestyle photos. No long texts, a short caption at most. Then came hashtags. The first bloggers started to grow organically and view IG stories anonymously because of them.
Nowadays, using many hashtags, especially high-frequency hashtags, is rather mauvais, and it will not be possible to gain a significant number of followers thanks to them. However, the tool still works well for some niches. For example, beauty masters are often found by clients through hashtags that specify their occupation and city. In addition, hashtags help to structure content when creating a rubric in a blog.
Instagram will continue to be a leader in users’ habits in 2024. However, it is important not to forget the predominantly clip-based nature of the modern audience’s thinking, so posts with long texts should not be published frequently. Secondly, it is important to structure them well.
Finally, for a long story to get into the recommendations, capturing the reader’s attention from the first words is important, and not letting it go until the last line. This is where the “slippery slide” technique proposed by the American copywriter Joseph Sugerman works well. The point is to captivate the reader from the first sentence and not let go of his attention until the last point – like on a children’s slide: if you sit down, then only slide to the end.
The main thing about this technique is the catchy headline. The shorter it is, the better. And leave the intrigue!
In this example, the following work well for statistics: a short, catchy headline, division into paragraphs, and the use of lists, which makes the text easy to read. Posts with multiple photos always show the best stats. When you publish a carousel, a user may re-see your post with a second photo and is more likely to pay attention to it.
A post with a carousel of photos gets a lot of likes, even if it belongs to the genre of “lifestyle” rather than expert content, which attracts the audience more often.
Stories: the ultimate tool for building loyalty with your audience
Stories have always been the main format for building loyalty and maintaining close live contact with your audience. At first, bloggers posted dozens of stories about their daily routine: how they woke up, what they ate for breakfast, where they went, and so on. In 2024, large numbers of daily stories are no longer necessary.
It is impossible to organically promote an account on them. Creating strong units of content is much more effective: reels, posts, or live broadcasts containing unique information. With unique information, your followers will save Insta stories to their bookmarks.
However, you can’t do without stories because they are responsible for audience engagement and retention. Stories can be compared to seasoning; without them, the profile will be bland. They should convey the blogger’s meanings and values in a language the audience can understand.
There is an Engagement Rate, which allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of stories. The higher it is, the better. A good Engagement Rate for bloggers with millions of followers is 10%. You can calculate the engagement rate using the formula ER = number of views/subscribers*100%.
An example of storytelling
There are no universal themes for storytelling. Every blog has something different. A person reaches out to a person, so subscribers are always attracted by disclosing personal topics and opinions on this or that trending issue, sometimes different from others. People are tired of perfect pictures and calibrated texts, where everything is fine, and everyone is afraid of hurting the feelings of others.
