There are many types of social media marketing businesses can use to promote their products and services. For example, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram! However, we are going to be talking more about Instagram marketing today. Over a billion people around the world use Instagram every month. So by posting your business products, every user is a potential customer for you! With approximately 200 million users who visit at least a business profile daily, it is for sure that you will be able to do business by using Instagram. I will be sharing some tips on how you can grow your Instagram account to attract more customers.
Many might think, is Instagram Marketing digital marketing? To put it in a short term, yes. Since social media marketing is a component of digital marketing, Instagram marketing is part of it too. With so many instagram users, it is by far the most popular marketing platform in the current social media’s landscape. It is important that digital marketers can cater their marketing content to connect with Millennials as well.
There are statistics which state that an estimate of 90% of Instagram users follows at least one business account. Be it clothes, shoes, skincare, or even food. As Instagram’s platform grows and continuously updates their application features. These features can include Instagram stories and live, which came about in August 2016 and November 2016, respectively. Some reasons as to why businesses use Instagram stories is to generate more leads and reach out to more viewers.
You might think that it is easy to grow your account with so many users around the world. But in reality, it takes extra time and effort especially if your business is not famous yet. There are many ways to boost your accounts and I am going to let you in on a few secrets and tricks.
Creating and customizing your account
It is important to customize your profile and make it look good and presentable. In the bio, make sure to tell your followers or viewers who you are as a business and what you provide. Make sure that you are as honest as you can be to avoid any misunderstanding.
You should start off by making your username easily recognizable, like your business name. You can also change your account into a business account to give it a more official look. It can be done through the settings. Go to your profile and tap the 3 lines in the upper right corner, and tap on “Settings”. Tap onto “Account”, followed by “Switch to Professional Account”. After, you will choose to continue and select a category for your business and tap “Done”. Tap “Ok” to confirm, and proceed to tap “Business” and “Next”. After this, you can choose whether you want to add in your business contact details or not and you are done!
To explain further, having a business account will be able to provide you with more insights that can give you an idea on who engages with your account. Instagram has been coming up with features to help business accounts succeed in sharing their information. With good marketing strategies, businesses will be able to promote their products and services better and boost their brand.
Source for a creator to help develop new content
A content creator will be responsible for providing information on the product and services that your business provides on Instagram. Content creation is not as easy as it looks, you have to hire someone who specialises in this and has original content that your account can use.
Not only that, a content creator knows your audience, meaning they will gather information about users and create content that will help engage them to like, comment or share your post. When they have reached the target audience, they will also need to make sure that the users are actively engaged by quickly responding to their comments or enquiries.
Content creators are always on the lookout for new trends as they help become the voice of the brand on this platform. By keeping up with trends, it helps your business to stay relevant and increase brand recognition.
Post content regularly
After creating your account and assigning a content creator to manage it. It is important to have a regular posting schedule. You could start off by posting a few before starting to engage and connect with users so people who visit your profile will know that you post content on a regular basis.
When making up a schedule, it is best to plan content a few days before posting to ensure that there would be no inconsistencies in the time you post. By doing this, it also ensures that you have content to post on holidays or when there are no ideas available. Make sure to put into consideration the different time zones when you are posting content.
Having creative and engaging captions helps
Captions are important when it comes to posting content on the account. Having a good caption will help your business account to engage with audiences better. Instead of just stating something in your caption, you can ask questions, raise debates or create contests for followers to join in.
There are some things that you can see in captions that attract customers:
- Clever captions
Clever captions can be seen as funny and jokes to humanize their business on instagram. A clever caption can be seen as original and relatable to the younger generation, attracting potential customers. - Relevant emojis
Adding emojis can spice things up when you can not further elaborate on your point or when you have nothing to say. It also adds a little personal touch to the posts. - Hashtags
With relevant hashtags, you will be able to gain wider exposure for your account. Using hashtags will also help you relate to your followers on a personal level.
Promote your business with influencers
Collaborating with or sponsoring influencers who have a high number of following helps to boost your business reputation. When a user sees that someone they admire promotes a product positively, it interests them into researching and looking up the brand in hopes of it being suitable for them as well. With collaborations, both the influencer and the business can gain new followers. Making it a win-win situation for both parties.
A paid partnership between SAFRA and Joakim Gomez – 98.7FM Radio Producer/Presenter
Whereas sponsoring influencers is giving them a few products to test out and post an honest review on their Instagram page. This would be considered as internet marketing. Sponsorships are considered a form of marketing, which tries to persuade customers to buy products from a business.
Use Instagram’s interactive features
Instagram had interactive features like their stories and live video. With Instagram stories, businesses can share content on the move. It may not be planned but it gives your account and business a little more personality. With this feature, it interests more users to come and take a look through your page and products.
You can also use the live video feature to show followers more about your business. This could include behind the scenes of packaging, developing or a question and answer session. This experience allows the business to share with their followers raw and unscripted moments, humanizing the business. If you need more info, check out this recent blog post on “Top 15 Instagram Hacks For Business Owners”.
Overall, it is important to focus more on the quality of content rather than the number of followers. It is natural for accounts to grow overtime especially when you put time and effort into creating content. I hope that this proves that businesses can use Instagram marketing as a method of social media marketing as the application is growing more and more each day.
