According to Hubspot’s recent article, these are the 5 biggest challenges that businesses face when working with Instagram. What do you think?

1. Knowing which hashtags to use – and how many.

Hubspot recommends avoiding enormously popular hashtags, and instead focusing on more specific keywords. “Even though niche hashtags have fewer posts, they typically have a more dedicated community following them”.

Additionally, their report explains that using lots of hashtags doesn’t seem to hurt post performance. So, make sure to use a lot of hashtags, but make sure they’re all relevant.

2. Securing budget for Influencer Marketing.

Influencers are (unfortunately) a big part of social media. But it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Hubspot recommends using Micro Influencers for your marketing rather than enormous names.

“Micro influencers provide smaller, highly-engaged audiences without the hefty price tag of a mainstream celebrity — making this type of marketing more accessible to a variety of brands.”

3. Posting at the right times.

While every audience and brand is different, Hubspot’s data provides some answers to the best times to post:

• Content posted between 6 PM and 9 PM generate the most engagement
• Mornings from 5 AM to 12 PM offer the lowest engagement rate
• From Monday to Friday, the engagement rate stays about the same, but the weekend holds a slight edge.

4. Writing compelling captions.

It’s easy to quickly post a link on Instagram without writing a clever caption. But Hubspot’s data shows that including a caption gives you a significant boost in engagement, from just under 4% to over 6%.

5. Knowing what content your audience wants.

“Video is king — bringing an average of 24 comments and 1,097 likes per post, according to the HubSpot’s report. Other research shows videos are more “sticky” and shareable.

Following closely behind is carousel posts. 

Video needs to be a part of your marketing strategy.