Today, Instagram is a powerful platform for sharing photos and many businesses have adopted Instagram as one of their leading revenue-generating tools.
Instagram has over 2 million advertisers and 25 million business profiles and also a large number of influencers.
With the right plan, you can humanize your content, showcase products, attract and inspire your audience.
Here is a roundup of 9 powerful Instagram Marketing Tips for your business that will help you leverage the platform to its full potential.
1. Switch to a business profile
Make sure to have an Instagram Business Account before chalking out your Instagram marketing plan.
Steps to switch to a business profile;
Go to Settings
Click on “Switch to Business Profile”
A business profile offers you several benefits. For instance, your followers can click on your contact button and get in touch with you right from your Instagram page without the need to visit your website. Additionally, it allows you to create and publish Instagram ads without using Facebook’s advertising tools.
Having a business profile will also give you access to Instagram Analytics tools (known as Insights) that provides statistics about the reach of your posts and impressions.
You can use your business profile to track metrics and understand your audience.
2. Choose an actionable hashtag and build a community
Building a community around an actionable hashtag is a great way to engage your audiences. Also, this strategy can be leveraged across platforms like Twitter and Pinterest.
Nike’s winter campaign Choose Your Winter is a great example. Their movement with their #runfree campaign was a bit hit.
(Source: WordStream)
You can think on similar lines and work out a plan accordingly.
3. Post product teasers to lure your customers
Instagram is one of the best places to advertise your products. So, play your cards right.
Try not to annoy or scare your users with your advertisements. This will result in a drop in your followers.
Product teasers are a gentle way to introduce your products and increase the excitement without being too pushy. This strategy works well for any business.
When thinking of product teasers, think of Starbucks. They tease their audience by announcing their seasonal drinks with great imagery without forcing people to buy them. It works great for them!
(Source: Neil Patel Blogs)
4. Create Sponsored ads
Instagram allows you to control how much you spend on your ads by setting an ad budget.
Use the carousel feature to showcase either one sponsored ad or multiple ads.
Previously, only your followers could see your photos and updates. But a lot changed after sponsored ads.
Now, Instagram lets you promote your photos to anyone who fits your target audience. This helps increase your reach further.
While using sponsored ads, make sure to use engaging content that is also appealing to the target demographic you want to advertise to. There are different forms of sponsored ads that you can post;
Photos
Videos
Stories
Stories Canvas
Carousel/Dynamic Ads
(Source: Neil Patel Blogs)
Keep an eye on your top posts and turn those high-performing posts to sponsored ads. You can use these ads to post out to potential customers.
For even more engagement, run multiple posts to different audiences simultaneously.
5. Leverage Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories are one of the best ways to generate leads. Instagram Stories are slightly different from regular Instagram posts as they come in a “slideshow” format.
(Source: Airbnb)
This feature is similar to Snapchat Stories. However, Instagram Stories appear in a small area above it instead of the news feed.
Although Stories live only for 24 hours, they can be saved to any of your devices and used again at a later point.
Create beautiful images and videos for your Stories using tools such as InVideo and Canva.
Few benefits of leveraging Instagram Stories are;
Stories are displayed at the top of follower timelines which can be seen easily by users
All your photos and videos will play in the same sequence that you added
Capture behind-the-scenes insider posts and use them in Stories as their quality need not be as high quality as regular posts
Stories allow you to post content that is not aesthetically aligned with your brand or Instagram page
You can experiment with Stories features like photos, rewind photos, live videos, short videos, and Boomerangs.
You can tag other accounts and works great especially if you are collaborating with an influencer or another brand
You can add an unlimited number of posts to your Stories at any given time
6. Partner with influencers
The fastest and easiest way to reach potential customers on Instagram is through influencers who already have a large following.
People tend to buy products and services based on what they see in the feeds from the influencers they follow. They trust the influencers.
Try to partner with the right influencer for your business and get your brand in front of those users. To do so, you need to identify a few influencers that already have an audience relevant to your product or service.
A strong relationship with each of your influencers can help build lasting brand awareness with a new audience.
If you plan properly, you could even get to work with a top influencer and garner millions of likes. For instance, Coca-Cola’s post with Selena Gomez helped them gain millions of likes.
(Source: Neil Patel Blogs)
Though your existing customers may not be influencers, you can use their posts to collect user-submitted photos to influence others to buy your products.
7. Never over-post
If your followers see your brand on their news feed all the time, they are more likely to unfollow you. Therefore, it is imperative that you post at regular intervals but at the right time.
The best time to post is when your followers are online especially during peak days.
According to CoSchedule, businesses can post 1-2 times per day on Instagram. Also, the best time to post is between 8.00 a.m and 9.00 a.m and even 2 a.m!
Use Instagram Insights to know when your followers are active. The best times and days to post may be different depending on your audience.
You can use tools like CoSchedule, Hootsuite or Sprout Social to schedule your posts to go live during those days and times.
8. Track the right metrics
For better Instagram performance, you have to know how well your pages and performing or underperforming.
Make sure to keep a tab on your follower growth rate. This will help you understand how your content is affecting things.
Use tools like Influencer Dashboard to track your follower growth rate.
Next, track your engagement rates that include likes and comments. This will help you get a clear picture of how your page is performing.
Your engagement rate will be higher if you have a small following.
In addition, make sure to track your URL click-through rate(CTR). If you don’t have a link to your website in your Instagram bio then make sure to add one at the earliest!
While a higher CTR means your Instagram marketing techniques are effective, a low CTR means you will have to work on your approach.
You can use tools like Sprout Social to measure how many clicks your link is getting compared to your engagements and impressions.
9. Promote your Instagram
This is a self-explanatory tip and does not much explanation.
Make sure to promote your Instagram page everywhere. Be it your homepage or product pages, make sure to add an Instagram icon and enable visitors to connect to your page.
Additionally, run your Instagram campaigns across your social networks and send out reminders to your partners, employees and brand ambassadors to use your business hashtags to a running marketing campaign.
Encourage them(your employees) to add your company Instagram link in their email signatures. Add an icon to your LinkedIn profile and repost your Instagram photos to your Twitter accounts.
Simply put, get in front of people and start building your follower base.
Takeaway
With over 800 million monthly users, Instagram is your go-to place for brand promotion. Additionally, a business profile offers you with tons of tools and insights that you can take advantage of. Find what best resonates with your audience and plan your Instagram strategy.