Instagram Etiquette and Most Recent Compelling Statistics

So, your New Year’s resolution was to dedicate more time to your Instagram efforts—how’s that going? For those retailers who have considered spending some ad dollars on Instagram this year, I’d be interested to hear how you’re finding it (comment below or email me, please!). For those that haven’t, a recently shared infographic created by AdRoll, a digital e-commerce growth platform, just may have some stats that could pique your interest.

The graphic, “21 Fascinating Facts About Instagram Every E-Commerce Business Should Know” (you can view the whole thing on Social Media Today), boasts some pretty powerful stats. At a glance, we learn that Instagram has more than 1 billion active monthly users, 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook (that’s a big one), and an average users spends 53 minutes per day on the platform. If I owned a jewelry business—particularly one that at least partially relied on sales from e-commerce—I’d most definitely take the time to learn more about Instagram ads—according to the statistics listed on the infographic: “75 percent of users reportedly visited a website or made a purchase after seeing an Instagram ad.”

However, I think there is information here that should be taken with a grain of salt—not because the stats aren’t correct (though, they’re often changing)—but because I think there are users that may get inspired and take some of these tidbits and run with them a bit too enthusiastically.

For example: “Posts that mention users receive up to 56 percent more engagement than posts that don’t.” A great example of the power of tagging. However, before you go tag-happy, this should come with a huge caveat: In Instagram etiquette, tagging users who aren’t in a photo—or who don’t have their property pictured, have anything to do with the production of said photo, and weren’t in the vicinity of where the photo was taken—is just a big spammy no-no. Ask yourself the questions: Would this person expect to be tagged here? Have we conversed about this particular topic before? Or, at the very least, Is this something they’d be interested in? (That one is giving a generous amount of leeway—perhaps too much.) If the answer is no to any of those questions, drop that tag!

Another one: “Posts with a location tag have 79 percent higher engagement than posts without.” A perfectly reasonable function and one that you should absolutely take advantage of to mark the location of your brick-and-mortar, your current whereabouts at a jewelry exhibition, or even that private island you’re photographing your designs from. Surprisingly, I’m not about to say that this function is abused (aside from the times people say that they’re somewhere they definitely aren’t, which simply garners an eye roll more than anything). On the contrary, this aspect of Instagram is totally underused. A quick scroll through my own feed, and I see too many blank spaces where locations should be, finding myself wondering, Where are they in this photo? You’d be surprised at the new connections you can make when including your location, and it takes no more than 10 seconds to do so.

Lastly, the scoop on hashtags: “You can use up to 30 tags in a post, but 9 is ideal.” I found this the most interesting, because I didn’t even know there was a limit! Keeping it to nine, though, is wise, because it really helps you focus on the most important keywords you want your post to be associated with. Remember that, like many things in life, quality over quantity is the way to go.

What do you think is the most interesting bit of trivia from this infographic? Does it encourage you to want to pursue more information about advertising through social media?

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JCK Contributing Editor

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