3 Gimmicky Instagram Tactics That SHOULD be a Part of Your Social Media Strategy
It’s hard to figure out what to post on Instagram, right?!
There is so much competing advice out there…
… to reel or not to reel?
… to meme or not to meme?
… to post stories or not to post stories?
THAT IS THE REAL QUESTION!!!
When approaching your social media strategy, you might feel like it has to be so professional and polished since you are a business owner. Quite the opposite is true!
Sometimes GIMMICKS are the WAY TO GO!! Now gimmicks don’t mean click bait. Gimmicks are always honest.
But gimmicky and unique content helps inject personality into your brand and your social media presence whether you are a solo entrepreneur, have a team, or if you are a Fortune 500 company.
So how exactly do you approach this?!
Well, there are 3 gimmicky Instagram tactics that you should be injecting into your overall social media strategy for your business.
Number One: Memes
Adding a quick Beyonce GIF or talking about the latest and greatest pop culture event and relating it back to your business is the perfect content to put out as a meme. While you might not think your business can jump in on this entertaining content - think again! Creating memes for your brand doesn’t have to be difficult, and it CAN attract new members to your audience through relatable content!
*our favorite way to create memes is by adding a GIF cut out with a funny saying - and BONUS, we love to use these when we are promoting a product!*
When you sit down to create memes for your business, you can use these ideas as a format and template for easy meme content creation!
IMAGE - you can find a trending image (especially if it is a celebrity) and put text on top of it to relate it back to your audience. By finding a recognizable image and finding something funny to correlate it back with your business is a great way to entertain your community
GIF or VIDEO - we all know that people love a good video moment, so lean into that with your meme content creation too! Quick tip: use the GIPHY integration inside of Canva so that you can source trendy GIFs right in your design without having to search all over the internet
TWEETS - it is hard to ignore the chokehold that Twitter has when it comes to viral meme content. So use it to your advantage whether you have a Twitter account or not. You can grab a Canva template that looks just like a Tweet screenshot and you can create this engagement worthy content for your brand.
And if you are still feeling a bit stuck after all of these tips - we have some templates for you! ;)
Number Two: Trends
Ah trends. Love ‘em or hate ‘em… they are powerful and they are here to stay!!
Now - trends can involve dancing, singing, pointing, acting, and lipsyncing. That doesn’t mean you HAVE to do these things to participate in trends. There are so many other things you can do to leverage this type of content for your Instagram strategy!
Let’s use the Instagram post above as an example!
While, at first glance, this might not seem like it is a trending piece of content, but it actually is!! Let’s break it down and talk about the key elements of why this piece of content is considered a “trendy” post.
Trending Sound. Yes, you can just jump on a trend by using a trending sound. That is all it takes. You can put a trending audio on ANY visual and it can be considered “trendy” content. This is the quickest and easiest way to leverage the potential of trends. You, as a business owner, can do this today!!
Trending Visual. This particular post is a Reel and features a beautiful moving video as the background. As of writing this blog post, this is SUPER huge on Instagram right now. You can find patterns in what is working for others and trending on the platform and incorporating it into your content. Right now, these singular clips are working really well over highly produced visuals with multiple clips… therefore, we are jumping on this “visual” trend.
Trending Format. This Reel follows a very unique format that is currently “trending” on Instagram. Simply put - this video features one clip, for less than 10 seconds, with writing on top. This particular format is working really well on the platform across industries, businesses, and content creators.
While we would love to see you get creative and jump on some trends that involve more or your creativity, we know that is sometimes difficult as a small business owner. So - you can make it easy by creating trendy content for Instagram all inside of Canva (just like the example above).
And of course, to help you out, we have more templates for you!!
Number Three: Viral Content
Going viral is NOT always the goal. But sometimes, a quick injection of followers (done the right way) can give you the boost in engagement you need to hit your marketing and business goals.
KEY THING TO REMEMBER - this has to be done in the right way!!
Before we dive into WHAT viral content you should be making, always remember that we want to bring in audience members that could potentially turn into customers. We don’t want to grow our following to be a massive amount of people that will never engage with your content or convert into a customer. And viral content is going to look different for every business owner or creator. Viral content for you might mean 15k views on a Reel, versus an influencer might consider a viral Reel to have 3.5 million views.
OFF OUR SOAPBOX - into some examples!
This is by far one of my most viral pieces of content - and it took me only a few minutes to make!! This particular Reel went viral because of the topic, and the fact that a LOT of people used my original audio to create their own content!
Viral content can look like so many different things, but they key components of viral content is that it needs to be digestible, shareable, saveable, and stir up emotion or cause for action with your audience.
While you can go about creating viral content in a ton of different ways, there are a few content types and structures that work really well if your goal is to go viral!
Tweet posts - like mentioned previously, tweet graphics and screenshots work really well because they either entertain, educate or inspire your audience… AND IT IS SIMPLE!
Lists or Infographics - this type of content allows people to easily digest a topic, grab a simple solution, or reframe the way they think about something
Step-by-step instructions - this can come in the form of a tips and tricks carousel for your audience to try something new, a Reel featuring a “trending sound” and giving examples of how to use it, or a tutorial of how they can accomplish something
At the end of the day, you want to reach new people to grow your following, and with these formats, you can leverage the algorithm to help you reach your goals. And you already know - we have some templates to help you!!
And that’s it!! Time to adopt some of these “gimmicks” into your Instagram strategy!
Manu Muraro is the founder of Your Social Team, an Instagram training membership and content shop to help social media managers and Instagram savvy women entrepreneurs to beat the algorithm and grow their organic engagement (yes, even in 2021).
This year she also launched Your Template Club, a Canva Template subscription to provide social media managers and Instagram savvy business owners with content templates designed for engagement in their inbox.
Born and raised in Brazil, Manu moved to the U.S. in 2000 right out of college to work for Cartoon Network, where she made an award winning career in creative and strategy. In 2017, Manu started Your Social Team with the mission of helping women entrepreneurs and social media managers grow engagement and sales through Instagram without the overwhelm.