When using Instagram to market your brand, building a community is key. This won’t come quickly, but it will come more easily if you effectively create a variety of valuable content to share with your audience.
In this article, we’ll talk about each type of content- educational, inspirational, and entertaining in a little more detail. We’ll discuss why each is critical to building your community, and how it can help you sell your products and set your brand apart from competitors.
WHY EDUCATIONAL CONTENT IS CRITICAL TO BUILDING YOUR COMMUNITY ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Before the internet and social media made their debut, professionals learned through their schooling and career or trade. Now, we have access to information about anything you can think of, including up-to-date news on platforms like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you’re interested in social media, you don’t have to go back to college to earn a degree. A quick search on any of the platforms mentioned above will get you well on your way to learning how to run an effective and educational social media campaign.
Thanks to accessible education, people want to learn and they expect to be able to learn on whatever platform they’re using! That is why creating educational content is so important to building a community on Instagram.
It builds rapport with your social media audience
Your audience will see you as an authority figure, come to trust you and be more likely to come back for more information in the future. It gives you the chance to solve your audience’s problems and empower them through what you teach them.
In short, educational content teaches your audience something valuable, builds trust, and leaves them seeking more.
Here are a few ideas for educational content that you could adapt for your brand: product reviews, ebooks, informational quotes, and How-to-videos.
HOW CAN EDUCATIONAL CONTENT HELP YOU SELL YOUR PRODUCTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA?
Instagram users can be hesitant to buy something from a business they don’t know they can trust. By creating educational content, you are giving your audience a reason to trust you. As an Instagram creator, you can become an authority figure in your niche as you consistently post relevant, helpful educational content concerning your products. As you do this, you will begin to build trust with your audience.
EMPOWER YOUR AUDIENCE BY SOLVING THEIR PROBLEMS
Knowledge is empowering! The more we learn, the more capable we become and the more potential we have to help others.
@thechrisdo is an entrepreneur and business marketer whose mission is to teach people how to make a living doing what they love. He helps small business owners learn how to improve their business with content with titles like “find your business purpose,” “test your logo,” and “10 Netflix documentaries for graphic designers.” By posting educational content on his Instagram account, Chris empowers his audience to improve their businesses and brands, become more profitable, and make a better life for themselves. That’s something that’s sure to bring people back for more, over and over again.
When using educational, inspirational, and entertaining content helps influencers and businesses build a better and bigger brand. While some people might choose to only focus on one, smaller brands might choose to focus on all three because it could help diversify their audience. One of the best ways to empower people is by solving a pain point or problem they have. It’s a way you can provide value in a saturated market and keep your audience coming back for more.
How do you solve a problem?
- Start by identifying a pain point
- find a solution to the concern
- Create a piece of content that shows the solution
- Don’t try to “sell” your product, but do include a Call To Action (CTA)
HOW INSPIRATIONAL CONTENT HELPS BUILD A COMMUNITY
@herfirst100k is an Instagram account with over 600k followers and the account is only 3 years old. The owner, Tori Dunlap, uses it as a financial education platform. She has seen enormous success through her educational and inspirational content in a very short span of time.
People like Tori often use different types of content on their accounts in order to build a business. Tori uses inspirational content to reach out to her audience and helps them make choices for their financial well-being. She also incorporates her products as a way to help them reach their own financial goals.
Inspirational content evokes specific emotions like awe, hope, and admiration. The goal of inspirational content is to build those emotions in your viewers.
Creating inspirational content can be broken down into 3 main steps:
- Identify your purpose/vision
- Connect your purpose (and products) to viewers’ goals
- Help your customers tell their success stories
Let’s look at how @herfirst100k does it.
@herfirst100k has her purpose clearly and consistently shared across her account. She sells guides, digital downloads, templates, ebooks, strategy sessions, and more. All of these products are set up to help individuals reach their goals. She even uses the stories featured on Instagram to share inspirational testimonials from clients. Tori uses inspirational content to sell her products directly.
HOW INSPIRATIONAL CONTENT CAN HELP YOU SELL PRODUCTS
Inspirational content can help your viewers reach their goals and help you reach your goals for your business. According to McClelland’s theory of motivation, McClelland’s Three Needs Theory: Power, Achievement, and Affiliation – Education Library, people feel a need for achievement, power, and affiliation. These needs often motivate people to do, buy, watch, and acquire certain things.
Creating inspirational content that helps people reach the need for achievement, power, and affiliation can help grow your community and sell your products. Tori with @herfirst100k does this by inspiring her customers to achieve financial independence. Morgan Harper Nichols is an artist and writer who combines her passions for poetry and art on her Instagram page, @morganharpernichols. She shares daily affirmations, reminders, and poems that are meant to let the viewer stop for a moment and refocus on the things that are most important to them.
Morgan also sells prints and collections of her work. Morgan’s artworks and poems evoke a sense of calm and peace in an otherwise chaotic Instagram feed. She focuses on inspiring each individual to become the best version of themselves by rejecting the world’s definition of success and happiness and encouraging them to slow down, breathe, and follow the goals they set for themselves. Morgan’s 1.9 million Instagram followers are a testament to her success. She has created a community by creating content that inspires, rather than simply sells.
HOW ENTERTAINING CONTENT CAN HELP YOU BUILD A COMMUNITY ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Entertaining content takes multiple forms. These forms include accounts that vary from lifestyle to comedy, cool trick shots to goofy dancing and memes to poetry. Whatever your niche, there are many creative ways to entertain and engage with your audience. We recently conducted a survey about the types of content that individuals follow on Instagram. Entertaining content was the top form, making up 72.2% of people’s preferred content.
The impact that even simple entertaining content can have on an Instagram community might surprise you. A great example of this is the brand, Slim Jim. Slim Jim has 1.4 million followers on Instagram and all they do is make Slim Jim memes. Something as simple as memes can still build a community on Instagram. Entertaining content does not have to be complex in order to be effective. With a couple of key strategies in hand, you can build your Instagram community according to your niche.
CREATING AUTHENTIC CONTENT WHILE SELLING PRODUCTS
Creating authentic and entertaining content while still selling products can be a tricky balance. A common practice is to let the audience get to know the face behind the company. This allows the audience to form a personal and lasting connection with your brand.
The owner of Love Olive Co, Stephanie, does this by sharing more about her personal life. She talks about her kids, vacation, food, etc. She covers so many more topics than just the clothes she sells. It’s important to note most of her page is dedicated to the products she sells but she still uses entertaining content to captivate her audience. She uses the story feature to share more about her life and connect personally with her audience. This personal connection helps to build a larger community, attract more customers, and ultimately sell more products.
SPECIFIC CONTENT TO ENTERTAIN
The type of entertaining content you create will depend on your brand. Whether it’s memes, poetry, or comedy it can be used to entertain your audience. Another type of entertaining content is general engagement with your audience. This is a big way to build a relationship with your audience.
There are several things that can help encourage audience engagement. Polls, Q&A sessions, and Instagram lives are all great ways to do this. Additionally, regular interaction in the comment section will help encourage your audience to make comments and start a conversation. Of course, it’s always a good idea to encourage your audience to like and share your posts.
How to Use All Three Types of Content on Your Instagram Account
After all this, you may be asking yourself, “Which type of content is most important for building a community on Instagram: educational, inspirational, or entertaining?” The answer is all three!
When you offer educational, inspirational, and entertaining content to your audience, you are adding value to their lives. You are no longer just selling them a product. This, in return, will help build trust between you and your audience. The more trust you build with your audience, the more likely they will be to turn to you in the future.
When creating content, you should ask yourself, “is this educational, inspirational, or entertaining for my audience?” Plan to include all three types in your content calendar. Avoid content that feels too “salesy.”
Be Consistent on Socia Media
With that being said, it’s most important to be consistent! Find what works for your brand. Whether or not you gravitate more towards content that’s educational, entertainment, or inspirational, you have to show up if you want to create a community.
Take a look at the graph pictured above. When 38 individuals were surveyed about their favorite accounts they followed on social media they were asked how often they viewed those creators’ content. Out of those 38 people, 60% of them said they viewed the content daily.
What was interesting is that when asked how likely they were to buy a product from these creators, they were more likely to buy from them if they viewed their content daily. As you can see, consistency pays off.
Are you ready to see greater growth for your business? As you implement educational, entertaining, and inspirational content on your Instagram page, you’ll begin to build the community you need to do just that. If you want to learn more from social media managers, listen to our podcast by clicking on this link!
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