When choosing to market your products on social platforms, you are presented with a variety of choices. Despite the growing number of online channels, there are a few platforms that have developed themselves as the epitome of online marketing and have quite a significant reach. Instagram happens to be one of them. With active monthly users up to 800 million, this platform can help you achieve your marketing objectives, if utilized properly. This can be significantly useful if you are selling products that have a visual appeal for your customers. The past few years have seen a remarkable growth in the way Instagram reaches out to people. It has adopted similar strategies as Facebook and therefore, has become an integral tool for users and businesses alike.
There are many different ways you can use Instagram for your marketing purposes. This feature explores the easiest ways that will let you start off with Instagram marketing.
Instagram And Marketing – The Hidden Link
Instagram is an integral part of many marketing campaigns. The reason behind its inclusion in almost major campaigns is because it has a large audience that provides a lot of engagement from customers.
Multiple researches indicate that higher engagement steers the business towards leads and sales.
- 80% of Instagram users at least follow one brand while around 65% of users learn about a new brand through Instagram.
- 30% of the total brand followers make their purchases through this platform.
- 70% of Instagram posts with highest engagements come with high-resolution product images.
The above stats clearly show that Instagram users do not limit themselves to private accounts; they find it informative to follow brands too. Another important point mentioned above is that Instagram users often come across new brands on this platform, which they were not familiar with earlier. That’s a thumbs up sign.
Another encouraging factor is Instagram’s continued policy to embrace the changing needs of the e-commerce industry. This is the exact reason why you should consider Instagram as an integral part of your marketing venture. The shoppable posts enable vendors to get desired results by streamlining the whole shopping process. Businesses with 10,000 followers can utilize the feature of steering traffic to their website directly through “Swipe Up” option which can be added directly to Instagram stories.
The platform is extremely flexible constantly updating in accordance to the needs of retailers and e-commerce. Therefore, when it comes to digital marketing, it won’t be wrong to say that it is one of most valuable marketing tools available to businessmen for free.
Following are the ways in which you can use Instagram to increase your brand following without having to spend any budget.
Your Posts Should Be Reflective Of Your Brand Image
If you are using Instagram, then you need to fine tune your aesthetics. Since the platform focuses more on visuals, it is very important that you take out time to carefully chalk out your post strategy. The best course is to incorporate high quality images with a suitable content. However, you can post consistently, if you don’t have a plan. Try designing your posts for the whole week on weekend so that you can update every day without having to think about what you will be posting. You can choose a combination of product and lifestyle shots. When designing a plan, it is good to experiment with your creativity. Once you have jotted down a weekly plan, it is very important for you to align it in accordance with your brand image and then stick to it. Whatever your creative vibes tell you to do, streamlining it with your brand image and then maintaining the consistency is of utmost importance.
Be Balanced In Your Approach
While marketing your products on Instagram, you need to make sure that your tone doesn’t appear overly promotional. You can overcome this problem by breaking down your posts into the following categories and then deciding which one should you post on and how often.
- Product Posts – Any post that features your company products and is meant to promote your company
- Engagement Posts – Posts that encourage users to take part in, sharing their views. These posts are meant to increase engagement with conversations
- Informational Posts – Includes posts from your industry that you can share with your audience or other businesses.
Considering the nature of your business, it is up to you how much you choose to post from each category mentioned above.
Learn The Art Of Tagging
If you are considering Instagram marketing, then you must familiarize yourself to the art of tagging. Tagging your products helps you in getting a clear call to action, making it easier for the potential buyer to make the purchase. Now you can choose your geographic location by using Instagram’s select country option while tagging products in the post.
With the help of a few clicks you can easily transform your business profile into a thriving sales channel. You can conveniently do this by following the steps mentioned below:
- Connect your business page on Facebook to Instagram and add your products in the shop section.
- Once you are done with step 1, you will be notified by Instagram to tag your products. This can take several days.
- When posting pictures of your products, tag them appropriately by selecting “tag a product.” The list will contain all the products available in the shop section in your Facebook page.
Hashtags Matter
Marketing your products on Instagram cannot be complete without hashtags. They are extremely powerful, as they help your posts appear in search results, helping you acquire new customers.
The best way to keep yourself updated about the intriguing world of hashtags is to do your research in your free time so that you can don’t have to worry about it when you post something. The simple way to keep yourself updated is to broadly classify your posts. For instance, if your company is posting products about combat sports images, then you can begin by acquiring hashtags relevant to those categories. And while making each post you can choose other hashtags that would be applicable to your post.
As a rule of thumb, you should keep on looking for trending hashtags as the list changes very quickly. An important thing to bear in mind is to avoid overusing hashtags. You should only insert the most relevant hashtags keeping in view your consumer’s online experience.
Hashtags can also be utilized to track your customers. However, some time and a bit of patience can pay off greatly.
Pitch In Some Apps
If you looking to conveniently manage your Instagram account, you can consider using third-party apps. Apps like Later and Planoly can help you personalize your Instagram’s look using customized features. This can considerably enhance the visual appearance of your feed, attracting more customers.
The platform has particular guidelines regarding the use of third party apps. It’s best to know about Instagram’s rules and use only the apps that comply with the regulations.
Analyze Analytics
Instagram analytics can provide you quick insight as to how your posts are performing. You can use the data to plan posts that would create higher engagement. The audience time tells you the instances when your users are active on Instagram. This information can be used to schedule your posts at peak times so that they reach out to all your followers.
Always be on the lookout for images that have the most likes. This gives you an insight about your customers psyche as to what he likes or dislikes. And then post keeping in view your customers preferences.
Engagement Is The Real Trick
The simplest way to increase followers is to follow, like and comment on the accounts of your target audience. This can organically increase your reach and number of followers.
Actively commenting on the posts of your potential client is a way to invite them to visit your account. If you are looking for engagement, then you should follow the rule of reciprocity. If you like or comment on their posts, chances are they will start following you.
You can also acquire likes and followers by paying for them. However, this isn’t the best course of action. It may temporarily seem like a quick way to getting your account off the ground, it is actually a means of doing more damage than good. Although Instagram relies on algorithms, the social platform isn’t open about the criteria it follows for deleting accounts. Hence it’s quite obvious that accounts with a large number of followers and less engagement are susceptible as foul profiles. It’s Instagram’s mantra to provide exceptional user experience, therefore accounts that acquire followers through paid campaigns or fake accounts are often suppressed.
