What comes to your mind when you think of social media to promote and advertise your business?
Probably not Instagram.
However, Facebook Ads or networking on Twitter have come to your thoughts.
But it’s time to pay heed to Instagram.
Why?
Check out the following statistics.
- 1 billion people use Instagram
- 39% women, 30% men, for U.S. Instagrammers
- 95% of U.S. Instagrammers use Youtube
- 95 million posts per day
- 400 million Stories a day
These statistics must have blown your mind away.
Why not?
Now, Instagram has turned up, though late, to be one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in the last year or two, with so many brands trying hard to leverage this platform by posting creative, unique, and engaging pictures. if your brand has an intense visual coma associated with it, it makes sense.
From naive bloggers to experienced entrepreneurs, this platform has something to offer to organizations and social media specialists. I recommend you undertake Social Media Training to understand the technicalities of marketing on the grounds of social media.
Amazed at the growing influence of Instagram, I have written this post to share the latest tips and tricks to help you grow your business using this platform.
Table of Contents
1. Use strong calls to action (in your bio, images, and comments).
Tons of organizations have begun to post on Instagram. However, they forget to tell people what they need to do or where they should go!
Busgrammers (Business+Instagram) can take advantage of the bio section in your profile by pasting a call to action there. A limit of 150 characters is there, so make sure you keep your call to actions wacky.
No matter what business you are in, posting photos of your products always awakens a sense of security and credibility among prospects.
Don’t mire yourself in the comments section to explain your services. If you have a website in regard to your product, mention its link and set viewers to action.
What types of images you use decides the bounce rate and engagement. If you are naive, online tools like “WordSwag” can be a good option to cover your basics.
Consider, if your average value of engagement is three, then you can consider your efforts are paying you off, as it is difficult to achieve engagement of one percent for any image.
I am talking here about LEAD NURTURING – the process of warming up your audience by providing them with quality content that offers knowledge apart from your products and services.
2. Create a post that mirrors your brand
Being aesthetic on Instagram is highly important. Time plays an important role here. You must do a lot of mind mapping before beginning with designing images.
Relevant content, colors, and graphics are significantly important. Don’t be random when it comes to posting pictures. It’s like feeding your target audience while acknowledging them to use one’s services and products.
Usually, companies alternate images by posting a product shot followed by a lifestyle shot. Be religiously creative while deciding on your images and convey your brand’s idea in the most compelling way.
3. Use third-party apps
If you expect a number of followers in a single shot, you are probably daydreaming as Instagram consumes a lot of time to develop a strong online presence that you can swear by.
When it comes to time management, third-party apps are worth playing on. Some of the top social media planners are Planoly and Later that allow you to manage the outlook of your Instagram feed with the help of a drag and drop feature. Trust me; you can get a visually appealing layout using these apps.
You cannot use these apps as such because Instagram has some rules concerning the use of third-party apps. If you breach, you can even lose your account.
4. Analytics is important
If you cannot manage it, you cannot improve it. Analytics has become part of growth. Skimming over analytics on a daily basis can unlock lots of information regarding your Instagram marketing campaigns.
Moreover, you will get to know how far you can target your prospects in the awareness, consideration, and decision stages.
Using the audience tab, you can easily know the time slot when your prospects are most active and down. This will help you curate your marketing strategies to make the most out of your marketing efforts by posting images at peak times.
Keep a check on posts that generate huge traffic. This will give an insight into what you need to post, per your audience requirements.
5. Optimize your profile
So what matters is your profile. The more you optimize your profile, the higher your prospects will reach you.
If you really want your prospects to crawl your website, a well-optimized profile is a gateway to it.
Check out the areas you want to optimize.
1. Profile picture: An HD image is highly important. Either you can use a business logo, or you can use your picture. Using a unanimous picture throughout all social media channels will maintain consistency.
2. Your bio: A unique bio reflects the out-the-box approach. Your bio should clearly reflect what you do, how you solve the pain points of your target audience, and what you offer.
3. Your link: Since you cannot add a link to your content, you can add one to your author bio. You can add a link to your landing page, homepage, products page, etc.
6. Engage with your audience
Engagement is highly important to drive the audience. It builds trust, and you get to know what your audience looks forward to.
How can you engage with your audience?
- Reply to comments.
- An answer to queries.
- Refer to your posts in comments.
7. Leverage other platforms
You must be active on other social media channels, for example, Facebook and Twitter.
Why not leverage these platforms by cross-promoting your Instagram posts on them?
What you just need to do is link your Facebook and Twitter accounts to your Instagram accounts and you are ready to go.
According to Buzzsumo, sharing Instagram content on Facebook can up the engagement rate by 23℅.
8. Be consistent
Consistency represents your dedicated approach to marketing campaigns. Be cautious of posting if you regularly come up with unique content and posts.
First, you need to know when your prospects crawl your content. The time zone really matters. Replying to prospects’ comments and messages when they are online can grab you good business.
9. Follow brands relevant to your industry
What are your competitors up to? It is always recommended to follow the following brands, especially those that have an edge above you, but you cannot expect a follow back from them.
Try to figure out what makes them avail a high engagement rate. Focusing on content quality will help you know your weak points.
On Instagram, I assure you that you will find a number of people posting content on a daily basis that relates to your business.
You all need to take an idea from their content and start publishing its refined version. You will soon enjoy massive traction, and your competitors may follow you back.
10. Study and use quality hashtags
Hashtags are trending. Blogs are one of the most common places where we can see hashtags. They are the easiest way to explain what your post is all about.
Having hashtags exposes your image to a large and targeted audience; surprisingly, Instagrammers do not get bored with them.
In fact, they are likely to crawl posts embedded with succinct and crisp hashtags.
A study by Simply Measured reveals that Instagram posts with both hashtags and a location tag enjoy the highest average engagement. To put it simply, hashtags could be a calling card for your customers.
A maximum of 30 hashtags per post is what Instagram allows, though “nine hashtags are enough for engagement,” according to research by TrackMaven.
A number of tools, for example, Display Purpose, Focalmark, and AutoHash, are available at your disposal that can easily generate quality, relevant hashtags for your Instagram posts. Also, Marketing tools like SEMrush and Anyleads help you to generate keywords related to your brand, generate content and promote your business.
This is all about the post.
Have you not started with Instagram yet? Still, you can leverage this platform.
You just need to plan a marketing strategy with your primary focus on Instagram. It is high time to present your brand in the form of a visual story to your prospects. This will give them a deep dive into your standard, quality, and credibility. Trust me, soon, of course through Instagram, you will become a one-stop solution for your audience.