The Anatomy of a High-Engagement Instagram Post

[ {Introduction}

good morning or good afternoon if you're joining us from the east coast today we're going to be talking about the anatomy of a high engagement instagram post learn what you need to in order to score more likes today's a agenda we're going to be covering the five essentials that all top performing posts include how to create savable instagram content how to test content to see what works for your audience and why and how to fine-tune your social media strategy my name is eduardo silva i'll be your host for today i have 18 years of sales and marketing experience i've been involved in the cannabis industry here for the last five years and i'm really really excited to be your host for today's webinar a little bit about foot traffic foot traffic is a dispensary digital advertising agency with over five years experience advertising solely within our industry we're really excited to be partnering with our key clients as well as ex sharing all of those lessons learned with our community let's get ready for the uh webinar of today just a couple housekeeping items here we love those cell phones especially for today's content which is all about social media engagement however for today's webinar we do ask that you put those cell phones facing down on your desk and or just silence them for a moment we're going to be covering a lot of content in a very short window of time and therefore this will just help you in absorbing as much crucial information that will aid you in your steps ahead also take a moment to familiarize yourself with the zoom interface there is a q and a function at the bottom of the screen we do have panelists live here that can answer your questions in real time so if something pops into your head or you want to further clarify on any of the points as we're going through the webinar don't hesitate to engage with our panelists and then finally be sure to stick around we do have a special offer for those attending today and we'll be sharing those at the end of the webinar as well as a q a section as well to address any questions you may have let's dive right in instagram is still one of the five most

{Why Instagram?}

downloaded apps globally this shouldn't be too surprising because 63 percent of americans say they check their instagram accounts every day since it was launched in 2010 the platform has acquired 1 billion monthly users with 140 million of them in the us alone now the us population is about 330 million so that means that 42 of all americans are scrolling through their feeds clicking through stories and engaging with brands many of these users are millennials but there are plenty of users across all demographics of this you say your target audience is on instagram you should also want to reach there as well historically social media has been hard for dispensaries and cannabis brands we've seen accounts get suspended or shallow bend left and right this may make your you question whether you should even bother with social media in creating a strategy it's a valid concern however it's completely possible to create great content that doesn't violate the instagram terms of service and engage with your target audience in a way that positively reflects on your brand and keeps you top of mind instagram is a fun platform and your dispensary can have fun with it or you can use it informationally to share educational cannabis content with your audience it is entirely up to you but if you want to make it worth your while you need to understand what works on instagram and what doesn't before diving into what your posts need to get more engagement let's talk about what not to do if you're concerned about your account getting shut down make sure to check out

{Don't Get Cancelled}

our past webinar on the do's and don'ts of posting on instagram you can find all of our previous webinars at foot traffic dot me forward slash webinars and we'll post the link here in the chat window for you long story short you cannot sell or imply that you sell cannabis or you will get shadow ban or have your account disabled avoid posting prices or talking about selling cannabis i know it's hard because it's literally what dispensaries do but for instagram you need to focus brand building instead of sales this means focusing on lifestyle or educational content rather than posting your deals a quick tip before we move on even if you follow all of the rules there's still a chance that instagram will decide to disable your account having your account shut down or shadow banned is pretty common for dispensaries dispensaries can invest thousands of dollars building up following and creating content only to have it away make sure to have a backup account and that you're also getting people to sign up for your sms or email lists this will allow you to quickly rebuild your following if you are to get shadow ban plus you own your text and email lists so you can actually market to those people who have opted into them you don't own your instagram account instagram does they can limit your access whenever they want make sure you preserve all of your hard work by saving your posts and maintaining a backup account enough disclaimers let's get to the good stuff if you want to get your post scene on

{The Algorithm}

instagram then you need to get more engagement it's a bit of a catch 22 right you have to get your post scene to get them seen by even more people that's thanks to instagram's algorithm and while it's confusing it's also possible to work within it to reach more people and get your brand in front of them instagram's algorithm takes into account how long people look at your post who is engaging with you and what type of post it is by that i mean if it's a meme or an educational post or some other type of content the algorithm takes into account all of these pieces of information to decide who will see your post and when so if some of your followers tend to engage more with mean type posts and you post one then instagram is going to be more likely to show them that post because the platform aims to show them things they enjoy maximizing your engagement will lead to your posts being shown to even more people every post you create should be viewed through these lens is it going to spark conversation with your target audience and grow your presence

{The Image}

let's talk about the five things that most high engagement posts have in common up first it's imagery instagram is a visual platform it's all about the photos and pictures right it's the first thing that's going to catch someone's attention and get them to stop scrolling if you want to create high engagement posts then you need to use imagery to capture your target audience attention now if you do a search on which types of images do best on instagram you're going to get conflicted information this is probably because it's different for different brands and audiences rather than focusing on what may or may not do best you should experiment with your own brand imagery do you want to showcase what goes on behind the scenes in your dispensary share exciting product photos showcase exciting things in your area one type of photo that tends to do well across the board is user submitted images this is basically content that is made for you by one of your followers when you post user generated content you're shouting out your audience and people like to see that and engage with your posts even more not all of your followers are going to be insult atoms and you aren't going to be able to feature every image that someone tags you in if you're concerned about marrying your grid with user generated content use it in your stories i promise it will make someone's day regardless of where you posted and they want to share this within their own network which will generate additional visibility for you other than user or brand generated content try to stick to your own images and avoid stock photography we're going to cover how to measure what is and isn't working in a little bit so that you can measure which of your images or posts resonate most with your audience great your photo has captured someone's

{The CTA}

attention now what what do you want people to do when they see your post do you want them to leave a comment check out your bio save your posts opt in to your text or email list when creating a caption that follows your image you need to be crystal clear about what you want to happen your cta should align with your imagery and provide a source of connection with your audience that's tip number two if you want to pop up more frequently in your followers feed then you want to encourage them to comment on save or share your post instagram weighs those interactions more heavily in their algorithm than when someone just simply likes your post it's pretty easy to like someone's post that little heart icon and keep scrolling by taking the time to engage with the post in different ways then users are showing that they have found it useful or valuable when they engage with your post in that way then your post will show up more often which leads to more engagement it's a cycle let's talk about hashtags which is tip

{The Hashtags}

number three some people love hashtags some people hate hashtags if you're a hater get over it and start using them anyways why because it's about building a community instagram uses hashtags to categorize posts people click on them and they can see the most popular posts using these hashtags as well as the most recent posts followers can even choose to follow hashtags so posts using these hashtags will show up right in their feeds you will want to create a hashtag strategy and target particular hashtags that are relevant to your target audience this may include local hashtags brand specific hashtags and popular tags if you're not sure where to get started here are a couple ideas first you should have your own dispensary hashtag which could be your name and you should use industry and local hashtags that feature your city's name so that you will show up for those as well think hashtag san francisco dispensary or hashtag mission district dispensary then expand from there there are a ton to choose from san francisco lifestyle san francisco love san francisco dogs san francisco giants just make sure that you're using relevant hashtags so they don't feel too spammy check what other dispensaries are using check what your followers are using find the hashtags that are most in line with your brand and go to town you should also check out the hashtags that are popular with your followers and comment on posts using them this helps build a community and can introduce more people to your brand one easy way to do this is to follow relevant hashtags so posts using them show up in your feed then you can easily comment on them while you're checking your your account engaging with others will lead to more engagement on your own posts i want to point out the obvious for a moment here not all hashtags are created equally some can get you in trouble so avoid hashtags that talk about selling weed for example and another quick tip you can make sure your hashtags are easy to read by capitalizing the first letter of every word this makes them more accessible and identifiable for your users

{The Format}

tip number four consider your format if you want to generate more engagement make sure you aren't just posting single photos switch things up different types of content appeal to different people if you want to reach everyone in different target demographics then make the most of all of the tools available to you in addition to single photo post make sure you're creating carousels with multiple images stories and reels carousels have one of the highest engagement rates yet they aren't used as often they are great for sharing a series of images or educational information you can even add a video to your carousel if you aren't going to the educational route you can create a carousel about mercene for example you can use a little text in each one of your images to explain why it's such a crucial terpene and show off some of the mercedes-rich products because they disappear after 24 hours unless you save them stores are great for sharing content that you don't want as part of your grid you can showcase fun behind the scene antics at your dispensary show off the view from one of your blood tenders hikes or share the amazing spread your team is about to dive into you can also highlight your most recent grid posts in your stories to draw attention to it reels are short videos that have their own featured spot on the app though you can post them to your grid or stories as well you have 15 seconds and additional editing tools to create something eye-catching i know i've seen a lot of meme like reels and those seem to be pretty popular i've even seen some dispensaries do a dancing reel reels are so much fun and are great format and because of how they are featured they provide you with a good way to reach a larger audience creating posts that aren't simple images take time in our cons in a concerted strategy which is why we're going to talk about this next the fifth tip for creating a high engagement post is to create a strategy

{The Strategy}

you will notice that many of the most popular posts are part of a broader strategy they aren't just posted haphazardly rather they have some kind of similarity to the other images or on a user's feed maybe they stick to a certain color story maybe they only post product shots directly with a white background maybe every photo has a person being active in it you get the drift to drive engagement your strategy has to serve both your brand and your followers this means that you can't just post the things that you want to post and be done with it you need to create posts that your followers want to see when you first get started your strategy will likely hit be a hit or a miss if you don't have data to work from you can use our best practice that we have laid out here to get started and then analyze your information and the data that's coming from it to work from there as you're creating your content remember to ask that question that i've mentioned earlier is this going to spark conversation with my target audience and grow my instagram presence we're going to go into more depth into testing and amending your strategy in a moment but first i want to walk through another one of the ways that people interact with posts following the five tips i covered should help you increase your

{Saveable Posts}

instagram following and engagement if you want to take it up a notch then you need to make sure that you're also creating a savable post every instagram post has a set of icons underneath the one that gets you the most juice with instagram's algorithm is not the heart icon or the like icon it's the actual save icon when people comment share or save your post instagram is more likely to share your posts more widely with your followers the ability to save posts is pretty cool basically users can hit the bookmark icon and organize their favorite posts into their own little library that they can refer to back later they get to keep that info for another time and you get the visibility boost so how do you take advantage of this if you have ever used this feature think about what moved you to do so what is really cool about that image some helpful info you wanted to be able to refer back to what was it in most cases the safe feature is used when a post sparks a desire maybe an image was very inspiring and gave you an idea that you wanted to remember maybe you showcased information in a way that you hadn't thought of before or maybe it was just so hilarious you needed to save it so you could look at it again when you needed a little boost those same motivations move your followers as well if you want them to save your content then you need to create a strategy that also results in that kind of powerful content maybe that's the terpene or cannabinoid infographic or tips on for troubleshooting your vape cartridge when brainstorming ideas for your strategy keep in mind what type of content your audience is most likely to save see what they've already saved from you and think about how you can create similar content more regularly

{Testing What Works}

great you have a strategy underway you're creating posts some people are commenting now what well instead of just plugging ahead and generating post after post you need to test what's working if you're not sure what's working or certain types of posts are better for your audience track your stats how many likes are you getting how many comments which posts are performing well for the different stats once you know what your customers want to engage with you can create more posts like that if you don't track it you wouldn't you won't end up just posting blindly this could slow your follower growth or just stall your engagement altogether one way to identify what your followers like is to look at historical engagement you can track instant instagram engagement with a variety of tools which you can actually choose but it should also be determined based on the features you want to track many of these tools serve as a posting platform as well so they will let you upload a schedule and schedule your post and then provide you with analytics on each of them if you have an instagram business account you can actually also look at your analytics directly on the app itself instagram provides data about your audience demographic follower growth when your followers are most active the actions people are taking on your profile and how many people are seeing your posts which type of posts are getting the most engagement and what kinds of engagements your poster is actually getting once you have this data look for the posts with the most engagement and see if you can find what they have in common are they all the same type of posts were they posted at a certain time did they have particular strong ctas

{Fine Tuning Your Strategy}

your analytics can be used to dial in your strategy once you are aware of what is and what isn't working you can begin to replicate your most successful posts at a larger scale you can create a better determined determine strategy that is inclusive of the right time to post your for your audience the types of content they like the most if particular color schemes are more attractive to them and on and on you may find that there are days where you get no engagement your posts just bomb guess what don't post on those days you don't have to continuously churn out new content rather you need to regularly post that's a very big difference posting just your post is going to lead to some low engagement posts which could impact who sees your post rather than falling prey to the algorithm make sure that your strategy is focused on specific days and times then stick to those days and times even if it's just four days out of the week that's better than posting every single day with little engagement your strategy should also include guidelines for when to check and update your analytics this way you can keep fine-tuning your strategy it should also include making time for responding to comments and engaging with other people people's posts so let's say you post on wednesdays wednesday afternoon then maybe you should spend that hour after you post once it goes live engaging with other people's posts that way when they click over to see who you are they will also see your newest post in terms of timing for replying to comments and messages you should set time aside every single day to check on your social media messages so that you are responding to them in a timely fashion once you fine-tune your strategy don't

{Make a Change!}

be afraid to make a change you will need to keep evolving to avoid stagnation nothing is worth worse on social media than someone posting the same thing over and over again in addition the app is going to change over time that's the only guarantee you have change is inevitable and you need to be prepared to pivot and alter your strategy so make sure to keep track in those important analytics so you can spot any dips that indicate that it's time to make a change for example when instagram introduced reels they prioritize real content on their discovery tab users who created content using the real feature were able to take advantage of that change to maximize their reach and score new followers in the process if you want to take advantage of similar changes stay up to date with instagram you can even follow their instagram account or you can also use rss feeds aggregators like feedly to stay top of mind with any instagram news so that you're able to make changes to your strategy very quickly basically don't get too tied up to your strategy remain flexible and be willing to change when you start noticing any drops in your analytics too often we make the emotional connection with the strategies we have created and we fail to see when it's time to make that change this can easily lead to failure rethinking is critical for continuously increasing your following ex creating content that's exciting and providing new information and imagery for your audience don't be afraid to take an x for your strategy chop it up and rearrange it until you have something that works better for your goals let's stop here for any questions from our audience once again we do have the q a function please share any questions you may have relating to the content that we have shared here with with you today pertaining to the instagram strategies right thank you very much for the first question do you have any tips for encouraging more user generated content great question so if you want people to tag your brand you have to ask them to do so so if you one of the tactics that we have seen work really well in the past is when some of our dispensary clients create a contest or a giveaway for loyalty points when people tag them in relevant images now you don't have to use all of them at once but people love to win or receive things and they will become more of a brand ambassador for your dispensary if you treat them well i would say that that's probably one of the top tip that i can come up with here that will lead to more user generated content great question i have time for maybe one other question oh this this one we get quite often um my account has already been shut down and there are additional precautions i can are there any additional precautions that i can take to make sure that it doesn't happen again we did uh cover a lot of the do's and don'ts in a previous webinar so i do encourage you uh to navigate to the link we're gonna post here in the chat window for you to um perhaps re-watch that webinar that we did because we did cover a lot of this so it'd be really helpful to address this question but here's a tip for you if you're concerned about getting shut down a few things first in your bio you should clearly state that you are your content is 21 plus only the other thing that we talked about in this webinar is to never talk about selling things prices or deals and then finally i would say that you should not you should avoid showing any cannabis consumption and make sure that you're regularly providing your followers with the opportunity to opt into your email as well as text message list so that in the event that you get shut down right you can still market to them as well as get your profile back up and running to where it was as fast as possible great questions thank you so much for those questions and remember instagram is not for selling your cannabis products if you are interested in driving more traffic to your website with ads or search engine optimization then i encourage you to schedule a call with me i'm going to put the link here to schedule a call otherwise protect your instagram account and keep posting great content out there thank you so much for joining us today and for sticking around with us you've qualified for a free foot traffic yeti tumbler so let's get your shipping information um go ahead and schedule that call with me and i'll get you set up and get one shipped out for you for taking the time to attend the webinar with us thank you so much once again for your time have a one ]