Location, Location, Location: The Benefits of Geotagging on Instagram

Welcome to Part 2 of our series, The Ins and Outs of Instagram. If you haven’t checked out our first part, check it out here when you have a second! We covered some of the basics in part 1, so today, we’re going to deep-dive into a highly underutilized, but highly successful tool, in the Instagram ‘verse: Geotagging.

What is Instagram Geotagging?

Before we get into the how of the geotagging game, let’s talk about what it is. In this context, geotagging occurs when you tag your location in a social post. When you check-in at a location, you’re geotagging and while encouraging your patrons and followers to check-in at your location has some great benefits, what most businesses are missing out on are the benefits of geotagging your own content.

There are 3 types of geotagging in Instagram:

1. Posts
2. Stories
3. Hashtags

Adding your location makes it easier for people to find you, but it also helps your content show up in more searches. According to Simply Measured, posts with a location tagged in it received 79% more engagement than those without any.

Instagram Geo-Tagging Deep Dive

Now that we know what geotagging is, let’s talk about how and where you can do it in Instagram. We’ll take a look at each of the 3 aforementioned options and go over the quick and easy steps you take to get the geotagging done!

Posts

If your business has a physical location on your Facebook page it will show up as a taggable location on Instagram. It’s really simple to do:

1. When creating your post, find the Add Location field under the text box.
2. Click on the Add Location button
3. Scroll through or type in and search for the location you’d like to tag
4. Select the location you’d like to tag

Voila! When a user clicks on the location in your post they will be able to see the top results and recent posts that are in this location. It’s a great way for users to see more than just the posts your account is tagged in. In the Explore tab, users can now search for places by a myriad of details like type of food and location, much like Yelp!.

This geo-tag also shows where your business is located on a map, how far it is from the user’s phone, and, if people are using your location in their story, you can play those stories all from he location page.

Story

Adding geotagging to a story is easy!

Your story, the little content offering at the top of your fans’ Insta screens and is becoming an increasingly popular way for brands to share their content with even more immediacy than the feed can offer. The way that your location shows up in stories is very similar to the way it shows up in posts. In stories, you can play around with color, size, and location on the image/video. Here’s how to geotag in your stories:

1. After you record or upload your story you can click the square face and the first button is Location.
2. From there you can search for your location and add it to the story.
3. Tapping on it will give you three options for color starting with a purple to blue gradient, then white text on a gray background, and finally a rainbow gradient.

Ta-dah! Pretty easy, right?

Hashtags

Hashtags are king on Instagram and so it’s important to utilize them as part of your posting strategy, even when it comes to geotagging. Locational hashtags pack a big punch, this is how many people will find you in their general searches. Using state hashtags are useful, but scaling down and using city and industry-specific hashtags can really help target a more niche audience.

For example: Tagging #AustinHappyHour will help showcase local businesses and their happy hour offerings. Remember: if it’s something any Insta user loves, it’s a good Happy Hour and when you utilize these hashtags as part of your posting strategy you’ll not only reach people looking for a specific service or offerings, you’ll often reach people who aren’t following you yet.

Now that we are in the era of following hashtags, using specific ones is integral to your strategy. People who are job hunting are looking at local and industry-specific hashtags to get to know the companies they are applying to. These can help further your growth in your area and widen the net of impressions you are getting.

The real to-do here is doing your research. Look at the hashtags your competitors are using and look at your post insights to see what hashtags are bringing the most users to your content. Test, experience, explore!

Instagram Geotagging is Stupid Easy, Friends

Geotagging is one of the easiest and underutilized tools in Instagram marketing. Following these 3 tips will help level up your strategy and bring you to a whole new world of interactions on the app! Check out the way that we strategically use geotagging on our Instagram.

If you’re looking for more information to assist your business during this time, head over to our Marketing Resources menu to gain access to our Lead Generation Calculator, Website Analyzer, and to Download our Free 2020 Social Media Guide!