With 1.44 billion monthly active users, according to the DemadSage.com, Instagram is undoubtedly growing in popularity. Having started as a photo and video-sharing social media application in 2010, Instagram has transformed into the most popular business platform. Let’s observe some Instagram statistics.
- 90% of the users follow at least one business page
- 70% of people do not feel disturbed by the Instagram ads
- Among the platforms surveyed (Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, Facebook, and TV) Instagram is reported as the #1 platform for building relationships with brands
Not sure how to use Instagram for business marketing? Keep reading.
As you can perceive, this medium’s modifications and updated features make it easy for businesses to engage and onboard new customers, raise brand awareness, and foster their products.
The friendly nature of Instagram allows it to sell without the customer feeling like you are selling. Instagram’s visual content bias is its privilege when displaying the product or content visually. Voila, users love consuming visual content. As shown in numbers, 91% of them prefer visual content over written content.
Regardless of the business direction, your account cannot get through without visuals. Instagram is convenient to do business on because it allows you to have a business profile, promote your pictures, and turn on ads as a story and a separate post.
The usage of Instagram as a marketing platform for your business
Due to its openness and tool abundance, Instagram holds a significant promise for businesses. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss the essential steps to help you get started with Instagram to boost your business.
Create a straightforward strategy
Instagram differs from Facebook or Twitter, where you can find an audience of flexible demographics. The age range of the platform is a bit narrow. Don’t let it withhold you from launching; instead, focus on exploiting a solid strategy for the target audience on Instagram.
Define the intersecting fragments your business has with the customer base on the platform and plan your actions accordingly. Also, follow social media trends in 2022.
When identifying your target audience, the steps are as follows
- Learn who your current buyers are
- Analyze other social media platforms for persona data
- Research the market and conduct competitive and business analysis
- Compile the data in one place to project the ideal buyers
You are ready to proceed with the strategy when you have the target audience’s profile up your sleeves. Next is establishing the objectives you aim to achieve on Instagram. Scale them down from your long-term business goals and determine the role Instagram can play in aiding your mission completion.
Create a metric tracking plan on the platform performance in case of achieving your goals. Apply the plan to each stage of your customer journey to trail the path the potential customers take from engaging with your brand to converting into customers. Take into account bounce rate and possible reasons so you can work on improvements.
A core element of any social media marketing strategy is planning the content by creating a content governance model and a defined calendar of when and what to post. When you have an idea of your audience base and merge the information with your goals, you can easily pass it on to content planning. Define its type, themes, and posting frequency. In your business profile, you can access the insights of the posts where you can check your followers’ most active times and schedule posts at those times.
Create an optimized business profile
It is awesome that you can set up a business profile, track the metrics by insights, and smoothly promote your ads without annoying your audience.You can create video adds online with Creatopy for free and the great thing about them is that they are compatible with most social media platforms. However, the business profile on Instagram does not provide ample upscaling chances. With this in mind, you should work on optimizing your profile for maximum reach.
First, a well-thought bio is a perfect hook to attract people to your profile, build curiosity, and trigger visits to your website. A great bio holds a message and tells people how they can benefit from coming in terms with your business. A compelling CTA is a must-to-have component of a great bio, and a personalized thematic emoji is a nice-to-have.
The icon is quite essential for an optimized profile. If you have a brand logo, an utterly recommendable attribute, you should place it as a profile picture to create better recognition among users.
Don’t forget to add any business-related links that will direct your audience to take action – reading your blog, purchasing from your shop, or downloading a resource, an e-book, or a free guide. Showcase what you have, creating connections with your other accounts.
Using Instagram opportunities entirely, including repost for Instagram, you should not leave a space blank. Have your address, contact information, phone number, and e-mail ready to click. Instagram is favorable in getting your customers closer to committing an action.
Story highlights with key hashtags are also integral elements of an optimized profile. First, they create coordination in your page and make navigation on the website easy for your followers since you direct them to the exact information they need.
Create top-quality content
Whether you are business selling handmade products or coworking management software, you should pay attention to visuals since Instagram is a visual platform, the bias of your content should also be visually appealing in essence. Your followers should recognize your profile by its unique personalized aesthetic. Your content is your brand face. It transmits your values, showcases your products, and highlights the backstage work for your customers.
Think of why you follow a page on Instagram. It is primarily for beautiful visuals, thematic images, and accordant and monochromatic visually consistent content. You can use Instagram post templates to help you create your designs.
Suppose your business can afford a photographer for professional pictures; it is incredible. But believe me, there is no necessity to hire someone, particularly for images, if you can post right from your device, instantly, live, at the moment. Creating real-time posts and stories will implant trust in your followers as you stay authentic and genuine.
Don’t wonder how to take the best shots, but follow the tips below.
- Stabilize the light effect (not too much exposure and not too much darkness)
- Create the nine-part grid by using the rule of thirds, thus placing the most important subject at the intersection of the grid
- Take advantage of the ‘portrait mode’ to detect natural light and create an out-of-focus blur background
- Find the best angle for your subject, take a few shots, and some bursts to filter the post worthy
- Level the contrast for better balance
- You can use Canva Pro or any other photo editing Apps.
What you post is not limited to visuals. Your visual content is just one piece of the absolute value you should convey on Instagram. Accompany the images with captivating captions, educating or selling content, and season it with juicy hashtags.
Coming to hashtags, a business profile needs to have specific brand hashtags for promotions. Thus every time your audience clicks on the hashtag, they get directed to your posts. You can think of a few brand-specific hashtags and some general hashtags and integrate them into your posts. However, do not go for generic hashtags, which might lose your posts’ visibility in the number of people using the same hashtag.
With customized hashtags and content components, you can establish a brand identity with which your audience can recognize your brand. Consequently, whenever they come across a hashtag similar to yours, an emoji, or a writing style you use, an association reaction emerges in their mind. Therefore, think deeply about the social media image and identity you create for your brand.
Instagram presence is unimaginable without stories. Frequently, most users merely swipe stories rather than scrolling the page, with over 500 million people watching Instagram stories daily.
The great thing about Instagram is the different types of content it allows you to upload. Rather than just plain text and images, you can connect with your followers on a more personal and informal level; you can show how work evolves in real-time live streams, how your products are produced, packed, and shipped, or how you deliver service. Reels are currently viral, with an entirely separate tab featured on the app.
Create engagement with your audience
For engaging your audience with your content, you should also get engaged with them. The first thing to do is to be responsive to comments and messages with Instagram chatbot features, not ignore the story mentions. Your attitude to problem-solving and the way you communicate with your customers determine their further actions. Make sure you are possibly amiable and cheerful in your responses. The best way to integrate your customers into your business is to show maximum authenticity.
Engagement also implies delivering top-notch customer service. Show your customers you have the answers to their questions; even if you do not, make sure you appear willing to solve the issues smoothly and in a timely manner.
Engaging with your audience also means showing up on other social media platforms where you can find a new or existing audience. Linking these accounts to your Instagram account will raise awareness and tie in with your audience. Don’t forget about your blog. It is also an important aspect to put up on your Instagram account.
Manifesting your brand in front of your audience guarantees engagement, especially on a platform like Instagram that includes a call-to-action button, simplifying the transfer to making a purchase decision. It is a sheer fact that no one likes taking multiple steps to get what they want; this makes Instagram’s ease of navigation a favorable platform. Less effort raises engagement.
Its informal nature is Instagram’s winning coin. Besides paid content, informal promotions increase reach and visibility. Running Instagram-specific campaigns will boost sales, while running contests will expand interactions and drive engagement. Instagram contests may include giveaways, coupons, or discounts.
Create tracking approaches
Any successful strategy starts from setting objectives, passes through implementing the required steps, analyzing, and culminates refining. No matter what campaigns you run or which platforms you use, results indicate effectiveness, existing gaps, and necessary actions to maximize the outcome of efforts. Tracking and measuring results are easier on Instagram with its built-in analytics tool that lets you analyze 30 days’ data.
Aside from analytic tools, measurements can be done by testing specific content types for particular audience bases. In marketing terms, A/B testing primarily helps you observe how your audiences respond and engage with different content types. Thus, you will gather the necessary information for rectification.
A/B testing starts with choosing what content you want to test. Is it an image, a video, specific hashtags, or captions? With the answer to this question, post the same content with a variation of the component you want to test.
Keep an eye on the tracking metrics. Which variation wins with your audience? Stick with the successful alternative, and do not forget to retest over time. Being a witty way to make conclusions, A/B testing is not a definite one-time practice. You can only collect a set of best-liked content types for your customers by continually tracking, checking, testing, and retesting.
Instagram Marketing nurtures the faster, better, and simpler business growth
Having started as a photo-sharing visual platform, Instagram has evolved into a powerful platform to get discovered and reached as a brand. Instagram is a safe haven for those brands that want to build informal relationships with customers, reach and onboard perspectives, and gain immense popularity since the platform sees nearly 1.5 billion monthly active visitors.
You have the advantage of winning the visibility of users who enjoy consuming high-quality visual content, informal connections with their favorite brands, and turning your business practices into a conversational experience. On Instagram, you can create visual content that represents your business uniquely and genuinely. You give your audience valuable information, spicing it with brand-specific hashtags and engrossing captions, and get their engagement in return.
The variability of content types such as reels, live streams, questioners, images, texts, or guides, combined with the tools, such as direct shopping on the platform, product display, and linking to other sites and accounts makes Instagram the coolest place to wrap and deliver valuable content to your audience.
Instagram is an enjoyable place to build your brand identity, display variable visual content, run contests, measure the results and design a rectification strategy based on the data Instagram allows you to collect. To make the best use of Instagram Marketing for your business, follow the steps mentioned in this guide and achieve business growth in no time with less effort.