Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media networks, and it seems like everyone wants to be on it. With over 400 million active monthly users, it’s a powerful marketing tool that credit unions should take advantage of, if they haven’t already.

For many credit unions, Instagram is a huge opportunity to connect with their members and promote their services. However, it is not always easy to know where to begin when it comes to marketing on this social media platform. To help you get started, here are some Instagram tips that your credit union can employ to power up your marketing efforts.

Take advantage of free tools with a business profile

If you haven’t already, you’re going to want to make sure that your Instagram profile is a business account. Once you create your business profile, you will have access to Instagram “insights,” where you can view analytical data about your posts, engagement, followers, demographics, and more so that you can gauge what kind of content performs well with your audience. An Instagram business account also allows you to share ads with your followers.

What is nice about Instagram’s insights tool is that it’s not just general data. You can set parameters to view data about specific posts you made in a specific timeline for tracking results on a week-by-week basis. Even more specifically, if I post a video from my account that is about “credit unions,” then it will list the number of times people watched the video and how many minutes they viewed on average, as well as some demographic data such as age group or gender.

Get your timing right

One thing you should avoid is over-posting. If you post too often, people might not be able to keep up or it may seem unnatural. Rather you should post quality content to your timeline but post those at peak times.

According to a post by HubSpot, the peak time to post is between 11 AM and 4 PM ET, and the best days to post on Instagram are Wednesday throughout the day, but particularly around 12 PM, and Friday from 11 AM to 12 PM. Better yet, you should test this and find out for yourself what days and times get the most engagement from your audience using the insight tool mentioned above!

Engage with followers through contests and hashtags

With Instagram, you can utilize your current following to promote photo contests, which is also an awesome idea to keep your clients engaged with your profile and get them talking about you.

One example of this is to make a post for users to submit their “cutest pet” photos. Collect these images every week and at the end of each week, give the winner a prize, maybe a gift card, or submit their pet on your website as the “pet of the week” promotion. This is a fun way to bring your community together and get people engaged and talking about your credit union.

You can also start to build a branded hashtag around your promotional idea. Let’s say you did the weekly photo idea, and people were submitting their puppies. Ensure that you tell them to use the branded hashtag of your choice—something like #CUPetOfTheWeek to create more engagement. Every time someone uses your branded hashtag, it exposes you to their followers. It is essentially free marketing.

Show off your services and use sponsored posts

Post soft teasers surrounding your services. I say soft so that you don’t come off as “salesy.” You do not really want to hard-sell your products or services on Instagram because that will turn people off. Rather, something you can do is hint at a future or current promotion by posting a picture of someone enjoying a ride in their new car with a cheeky caption hinting at your awesome deal.

Also, if your credit union needs a way to expand the visibility of your posts and reach a broader audience, you can create sponsored ads right inside of Instagram. If you want to get a lot of engagement, try running multiple posts simultaneously for different audiences. For sponsored ads, use content that is engaging while also appealing to the target demographic desired. Make sure it is accompanied by high-performing posts they’ll enjoy reading too. Stories, photos, videos, and carousels are some of the different types of sponsored posts you can advertise on Instagram.

Use Instagram stories

Instagram stories are an effective way to engage with your audience. The best thing about Instagram stories is that you can easily reach people who don’t follow you. You will also be able to interact directly with them and let them know when there’s something new on the app or website.

Another benefit of Instagram stories is that they are displayed at the top of the feed, and people who follow you can’t miss them. Because stories disappear after a certain period of time, the posts don’t have to be as perfect or aesthetically appealing as your other posts that typically have a common theme.

Stories are a fun way to get creative with your marketing because you can use fun built-in features like boomerangs and filters that catch people’s attention. You can also tag other Instagram accounts, which is perfect if you collaborate or partner with a different account.

Get posting!

Hopefully after reading this post, you can see the power of Instagram but more importantly, generate some ideas on how you can use it to level up your credit union marketing. We discussed many ways to use the platform to your advantage, so get out there and get creating!