As a social media marketer, you should keep an eye on Instagram as it is one of the best visual platforms for connecting with your audience. It started as a fun app for teens, but now more than 1 million of marketers are on Instagram using it to promote their products and services across various platforms.
The best time to be on Instagram was last year or month or even yesterday. But if you don’t have a business profile even now, then today is also not too late to make an account on IG now.
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Here are some statistics about Instagram that will blow your mind and show why it is excellent for marketing:
· Instagram has over 1 billion active monthly users.
· Everyday, you can market your products to 500 million active users.
· The number of people following a brand increases from 6%-8% every month.
· Out of 10 hashtags, seven are of brands.
· 8 million businesses accounts are present on Instagram currently
· 60% of users admit that they first heard about a brand on Instagram.
· 13.30% of users bought a product that they found on Instagram (including me).
These are some whooping facts and provides much-needed encouragement to a brand to create an Instagram account.
Here are some marketing tips for a new marketer.
Step 1: Figure out your content marketing strategy
The best thing that will help you be successful on Instagram is your content. That is why your level has to be figuring out the content marketing strategy of your account. You need to figure out what kind of content you will post on IG to make your brand more visible and engage more audience on Instagram.
Figure out the content (photos and videos) you would like to have in your feed and then work accordingly. Here are some options:
Product-centric: It is a common marketing strategy in which you post photos or videos that are centric to your product. It is a great way to tell people that you are selling these products, and they should take a look at that. Check the link.
Cultural- centric: If you are selling a generic product or your office culture is quite happening and cool, then you send post content related to your job culture. That will help establish a brand identity for your product.
Mix: You can mix and match both the above strategy; if you can maintain a balance between the two, it can work wonders for your IG account.
User-generated content: If you have a lot of followers and loyal ones, they will create a lot of content, including your brand. You can even use that for posting on your Instagram account. Don’t use this strategy if you are only starting on IG.
Step 2: Schedule your content
After finalizing your content strategy, you need to figure out the frequency of posting them. You want to post quality and relatable content throughout the month, so planning for the whole month can benefit you and let you focus on other stuff too.
Instagram will show the content that a user interacts with, or similar with or a post with maximum likes and engagement rate. That is why you should post maximum and consistently to make sure your job gets more engagement rate.
You can schedule your post for the day using a tool like Buffer so that you are free to prepare the posts for the next day or whenever you want to post again.
How many times you want to post depends upon you, it can be daily three times, thrice in a week. But make sure you are posting quality content and throughout the month. Don’t post for half a month and then disappear as people will lose interest.
Step 3: Making the content more engaging
In the end, Instagram is a visual platform, and you need to make a post that engages your audience more and more. Here are some quick tips:
Emphasize quality: You don’t need to own a DSLR or expensive lighting techniques to create a beautiful picture. All you need is the necessary knowledge to capture amazing photos using a simple modern smartphone with a good camera.
Editing: Use the Canva tool to edit your images and give them a more professional look. Don’t enhance your images too much; the best edits are the ones that no one can notice. You can also use some fantastic Instagram filters to make sure your content appeals more to your targeted audience. 60% of all brands on Instagram use the same screen on all their photos, and you should do the same.
Captions: are great to connect more with your users. To make sure you are promoting your content properly using Instagram, your captions be more action directed. It should tell the audience what to do, and what link or app to see.
Hashtags: are great as it helps people search for your content. It lets you tap the audience that doesn’t know about your brand yet. Instagram enables you to use 30 hashtags per content, but the best tip is to use 5-7 hashtags per post. Also, the hashtags should be relevant to the content. Even a study shows that if you use even one hashtag, your engagement rate increases by 12.6%.
Step 4: Instagram Stories
Do you know that 58% of brands make Instagram stories, and it has helped with their engagement rates? So, why are you lagging behind? Instagram stories are the newest feature by Instagram that is a great way to engage more audiences and promote your content. Stories put your brand on top of the user’s feed, even if there are other stories, the users will see them as they are on top.
You can use the stories to offer discounts on products or update the users about new product launches or so on.
Some people can use instadp for sharing stories of their personal and business stories.
Step 5: Live videos
Instagram Live is also a great option if you have the right amount of followers. When you post live videos on your stories, it engages more of your audience. As it shows in the front center of the audience’s feed, more viewers will likely see it.
You can use the live video to show users behind the scenes of an event or have a Q&A session with your audience.
Step 6: Optimizing for money
Instagram not only helps with brand identification or connecting with the audience. You can use IG to earn money too and read here how to make money without investment. How? With these tips:
Call-to-action: If you want to convert your Instagram followers to leads and consumer who pays, you need to add a CTA in your post. Tell the audience in the caption clearly, which link to follow to shop for your products and so on. Also, add a link to the website like Voiceofcat.com or the app where the consumers can buy the products from.
Discount and offers: Instagram is a great place to popularize your product. But it is still hard to convince people to buy the products. To make sure, people do buy your products; offer them an attractive discount, and offers.
Step 7: Contests
The contest is another great way to engage more audience, and it also affects your business positively. It not only involves the audience but also makes them excited about your content.
Comment to enter: The most common and popular type of content on Instagram is this. In this, the user just has to like an image that the host has posted and tag some friends. It is a great way to increase your audience.
Step 8: Advertisements
If all the other strategies are not working out as high as you hoped for. Using advertisements on IG is a great marketing tip.
It can be a little expensive, but they are the best way to attract and reach your target consumers. Some tips for making ads for Instagram:
Use appealing imagery: Instagram ads are just like other posts, which means that people will see them. Also, it means that you have to make them creatively and use the best captions or images.
Target your customer: Don’t make fit-all ads, try to hit your target audience to maximize the benefit of the ad.
Add CTAs wisely: You can add CTAs in advertisements, so choose them carefully that helps convert followers into leads.
These were some marketing tips that can help your users to see your products. What works for you can be different than what works for others, it will take time to figure out what works, but you will.
