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It’s been a decade since the launch of Instagram as a photo-sharing social app. And who knew that soon its usage would go beyond just sharing life moments in pictures. In recent years, Instagram has found its new heights of popularity with more content creators and businesses making a splash with Instagram marketing.
As a report reveals, 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile every day. And this is not it, the photo-sharing app sees one billion active users every month and an advertising audience of more than 849 million. Furthermore, more than 72% of users have purchased anything they have seen on their Instagram feed.
It makes it clear that Instagram is not limited to just personal use. It has essentially become a rewarding platform for businesses and brands with its ample business empowering features.
So, let’s get started with the tactics you as an entrepreneur or marketer can bring into play to keep the bar of your Instagram marketing high.
Make sure your have an Instagram business account or creator’s profile before you head to make most out of these tactics.
Navigate through Insights
Instagram offers its own set of insights making it easier for you to gauge your content’s performance. Go to the insights icon on your profile and navigate through the content and activity tab. These are the tabs that give you an overall insight of your profile in the form of reach, impressions, and profile visits. You can even know how many websites click you garnered in the specified period.
The audience tab shows the kind of audience is resonating best with your content. You can also find the best time to post on Instagram by taking a look at the most active hours of your followers. Furthermore, you can take a look at the reach and impressions of individual posts and stories to do a more refined analysis. Remember, while impressions show the number of views on your post, reach determines the number of unique users who bumped into your post.
Scale up your brand visibility with paid search advertising.
Through these insights, you get an idea of your audience’s choices and preferences so that you can come up with more targeted posts. However, you can leverage the Instagram insights only if you have a business account on Instagram or a creator’s profile.
Shoppable posts and stories
By introducing the feature of Shoppable Posts, the visuals-sharing app opened new avenues for online shopping. Through shoppable posts, the sellers can engage the users into buying their products/services right in the IG app. It covers all the steps of buyers’ journeys ranging from browsing the products to check out on Instagram. So, shoppable posts are something you must get a hold of if you are a seller. It helps you turn your followers into buyers without any barriers or hassle.
Image source: Instagram
And this is why shopping on Instagram is now a big trend. However, to make most out of your shoppable posts, ensure you use high-quality product pictures and well-framed copy in your posts. It enhances its visibility and eventually, attracts more prospects. You can even use shopping stickers in your IG story to make it a shoppable story.
Create your own vibe
Instagram is a platform that is brimming with creators and brands. And to stand out of the crowd – establish your own vibe. Craft a unique theme for your profile in order to stand out from your competitors. Work on the presentation of your profile, pictures you use, the color theme, and a brand hashtag (discussed in detail below). The theme of your profiles defines your identity in the eyes of your audience. And once users start noticing your posts, they would start associating with your content.
Go live: enlighten your audience
Today’s marketing is all about reaching your audience right through their screens. Instagram Live is one such place where you can engage your audience in real-time. Although you can play with the live option the way you want, it’s better if you use it to educate your followers. Plan live sessions where you come up with a value-adding tutorial video. You could organize a Q & A session where you answer queries related to your products or services.
You could even add a guest – an influencer, co-worker, or a partner to organize a live workshop. Coming to the ideas, there could be many like if you trade in cakes or sweets – you could just share an interesting cake recipe. Or, if you deal in fashion apparel, you can share what kind of apparel goes best with the current season.
Ensure that you go live during peak hours and make it as interactive and interesting as you can. Remember that live sessions work wonders once your followers start noticing it.
Scale up your brand visibility with paid search advertising.
Build up curiosity
No matter which platform you are using for promotion, to pique interest in the minds of your audience should be your all-time goal. Coming to Instagram, you can juggle between ample number of ideas to keep up the curiosity factor intact in your marketing strategy. Create posts with a dash of creativity that urges the user to perform the action you want through that post. For instance, you could come up with a creative teaser around your new product or service instead of making a simple announcement. In the image below you can see how Nike released a post announcing the launch of a new line of shoes using a totally creative visual.
Scale up your brand visibility with paid search advertising.
Branded hashtags
Hashtags are important because it plants you (your posts) in the search pages of the hashtags you use. And you must be including a bunch of them already. However, you can take it a level up by crafting a unique hashtag that stands out exclusively as your brand’s representation – called ‘Branded Hashtag’. A branded hashtag adds up to your brand promotion activities under Instagram marketing.
To let your audience know about your brand hashtag, you must put it up in your bio, stories, and captions of your post. You can even promote your brand hashtag by running contests or offering giveaways where you can urge the audience to use your hashtag in their posts to win the prize. This will help you to popularize your brand hashtag.
Take a note – Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags on one post and 10 on a story. However, it is important to include the relevant hashtags only and not go over the top with its usage. It is suggested to use a maximum of 11 hashtags in one post and 1-3 as a minimum. Some popular daily hashtags you can include in your post or story: #mondaymotivation, #traveltuesday, #wednesdaywisdom, #Thursdaythrowback, #Fridayfeelings, #Saturdayvibes, #Sundayfunday… You can discover more such hashtags which suit you best.
Reach Instagram marketing goals with Ads
With a humongous number of active users, Instagram Ads is quite a precise way to connect with your audience. However, before moving to Instagram Ad Campaigns it is suggested that you define your goal in advance. For instance, if you want to have more impressions on your certain blog post, you should opt for swipe-up story Ads. Or if you want to promote multiple products in one, you should resort to carousel ads. In addition to that, you must take meticulous care of your ads’ content.
Some additional tips to improve your ads’ content:
- Use high-quality pictures only.
- Frame your Ad copy in a manner that instantly captures the user’s attention.
- In the Ad caption, explain in brief what the ad/picture is about. Keep just the key details in the caption – in an attractive tone.
- Add call-to-action.
- Target brand-specific audience.
Tell your brand story with Instagram stories
According to Instagram, over 500 million accounts use Instagram Stories every day. Stories entice the users simply because they are more instant, natural, and bring people closer. And just as you usually tell your brand story through blog posts or long videos – for a change try it out with IG stories. You can tell your brand or product story in the form of a thread on your Instagram story. Furthermore, you can enhance the look and feel of your stories by using the in-built effects, stickers, or gifs. And as users tend to check out stories more, it will add up significantly to your brand awareness.
You could even add some behind the scene moments with your audience in an unfiltered manner on your story. For instance, you can run a video where you share some fun moments at your workplace. Or, you could share the production process videos – highlighting the efforts which go into making of a product or service. The idea is just to win the trust of the viewers through transparency in your approach.
Scale up your brand visibility with paid search advertising.
Leverage Geotags
The ‘geo’ tags or the location sticker on Instagram and the location in your posts – is another option that brings you closer to your audience. Well, How? It is because the location in your story or Instagram post makes it appear in the explore section. This way, you can even reach the people who aren’t following you but are located in your location. This works for people who have a local store or creators serving the local audience.
Consistency is the key
Creating awesome content is not just enough. If you want to reap better results for your business through Instagram marketing, you need to have a plan – and follow it to the T. It is through consistent posts that you can catch more attention. Chalk out a plan for your social media strategy such that it ensures your Instagram posts are put up in the right frequency – not too much and neither scarce. Remember, you do not stay consistent in your postings, you may even lose the traction you’ve gained already.
To conclude…
Instagram, as a social media platform, has an essence of its own. It has quite a fun and quirky nature and that’s what makes it widely loved social platform. This is why you deploying an Instagram marketing plan in your business marketing strategies is pertinent.
I hope the aforementioned tips would help you enhance your brand presence on Instagram. Indeed, it takes time and consistent effort in bringing about the desired results – but you must never give up!. So, let me know which of these work best for your business. And in case you need an expert to manage it all for you, our social media mavericks are always there to guide you with the right social media marketing strategies.