Why Use Instagram For Business Marketing?
The four main goals of any online business are to build your brand, get more traffic, grow your list of email subscribers and generate sales. Using Instagram for business marketing can help you achieve these goals, provided that you match each marketing piece you create to one of these goals and give clear calls to action.
Hundreds of millions of people all over the world use Instagram every day. This social media powerhouse gives you the potential to reach a huge number of individuals in different areas across the globe if you follow the basic “rules of the road” when it comes to using Instagram. Use these following 15 tips to help your Instagram marketing strategy.
15 Tips For Using Instagram For Business Marketing
1. Instagram Is A Social Network
There are around 800 million monthly users on Instagram. That’s twice the number of Twitter users. When you’re using Instagram for business marketing, think social, not ads. Create content your target audience will engage with, not pass over because it looks too spammy.
It’s important to interact with others. Start by liking pictures in your niche to get people interested in following you. The more you like pictures of users outside your personal network, the more likely you are to get more likes on Instagram.
FREE Checklist: Instagram Marketing Guide
2. Instagram Is Highly Visual
Instagram is all about images and video. Your images need to catch the eye of your audience, be high quality and help represent your brand well. The same is true of video. All your content should show why you’re worth doing business with. Instagram provides filters and editing tools you can use to make your videos and photos stand out. Just as a professional photographer can use filters with a hand-held camera, you can use these filters to change the way your photos and videos look. In normal mode, no filter is applied. There are also plenty of third-party applications which boost the ability of your smart phone camera.
3. Instagram Users Love To Shop
Millions of Instagram users each month visit a website, get directions, call, email, or direct message a business based on what they’ve seen on an Instagram ad. They look up brands and products, follow brands because they like them, and buy through links.
4. Instagram Shoppers Are Eager To Learn More
Consumers are 58 times more likely to engage with branded content on Instagram compared to Facebook, and 120 times more likely to take some action than users on Twitter. They are active shoppers who are doing their research, so the more information you can offer them in terms of images, carousels and stories, the better. You can also create pre-recorded and live videos that they can watch live, or view and share after your broadcast.
5. Instagram Users Love “Buzz”
The Internet is full of people looking for content right now. Everyone wants instant information and instant gratification, and Instagram Stories provide that. Instagram stories last only 24 hours. Live video creates a sense of excitement and urgency. This urgency can help drive sales. You can use stories to gain more followers, brand recognition and sales.
6. You Can Use Hashtags
The beauty of hashtags is their ability to reach a wide range of people that don’t follow you specifically. By simply using some hashtags, you can increase your content’s reach drastically. Many people actively search out certain hashtags, and your images will be there waiting for them. One Instagram study showed that adding at least one hashtag to all of your posts will create 12.6 % more engagement on average.
7. Use The Available Buttons
Instagram now offers a range of buttons, such as ‘Buy Now’. Every post you create should have a clear call to action that matches your business goal in creating it.
8. Always Link Back To Your Site
Instagram is a great way to drive traffic to your site. More than 50% of the users on the social media site follow at least one business, and 60% say they have learned about a product or service through Instagram.
9. Create Eye-Catching Landing Pages For Your Links
Don’t just send people to your home page to wander around your website. Create opt-in pages to get them on your email marketing lists. Then get them engaged with your brand by using an effective sales funnel to boost your income and profits.
10. Present A Consistent Brand Image
Create photos that suit the style of your business, to create brand recognition. Stay consistent to your page theme. This is not like Facebook, where your personal page may cover several different topics. Only include photos, hashtags, captions and videos relevant to your page topic.
11. Create A Great Profile
Be sure your Instagram profile tells your target audience enough about who you are and what you do. Instagram’s search engine works pretty much like that of Google, Bing and other internet search engines. It is text-based, and you have a better chance of someone finding you if your user name has a keyword or two that is relevant to your business.
12. Convert From Personal To Business
If you have been on Instagram personally for a while, and/or you are your own brand (like Oprah or Emeril), convert to a business account in order to gain access to all of the tools and analytics available.
13. Make Your Images Stand Out
They should be high quality (as mentioned earlier), and you should not post so often that your best images run the risk of being pushed down the feed by less attractive images. Go for quality, not quantity. Create a conversation with your images. Pictures and videos that tell a story will get more followers, likes and comments.
14. Use Your Analytics
Analyzing your marketing efforts on Instagram is really easy. You have access to what Instagram calls Insights if you build a business profile as opposed to a personal profile. This is all the relevant data about your page. It lets you know how your marketing efforts are paying off. This can help you publish stories or live video when you know your target audience is online and available to engage with you.
15. Promote Special Sales and Live Events
This will create the impression there’s a lot going on in your business worth paying attention to. Geotagging allows you to tag where you are when a photo or video was shot. Used in conjunction with an Instagram Story, a geotag offers a lot of possibilities for a local business.
Free Checklist: How To Use Instagram For Business Marketing
As you can see from the above points, there are a lot of reasons why you need to have a business presence on this photo and video sharing site. With over 800 million users there’s a huge opportunity to drive sales and boost profits. To learn more about getting started on Instagram and how to use Instagram for business marketing, download my free checklist, Instagram Marketing Strategies
