Instagram is the second most popular social media platform, with a massive user base of Over 800 million monthly active users.
It has grown into the ultimate platform for sharing pictures as more than 60 million photos are posted each day, and 1.6 billion daily “likes” are given.
Since, Its launch in 2010, Instagram has taken the world by storm. It seems like everyone — and their dog — is on the popular social platform. Instagram has evolved from a photo-sharing app to an essential marketing platform that brands use to target their prospective customers.
You may have noticed the increase in brands who’ve developed a presence on the platform. But is Instagram worth their time, and should your business also be on the platform? The answer is yes, and here’s why:
• Instagram sees over one billion active monthly users and 500 million daily Instagram Stories.
• There are 130 million Instagram users in the U.S.
• Instagram is the second most accessed network behind Facebook. Users browse for an average of 53 minutes per day.
• There are at least 25 million business profiles on Instagram.
- 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business, and 83% of users say •Instagram has helped them discover new products and services.
Instagram can help you grow your brand awareness and introduce new products. 80% of Instagram users have made a purchase based on something they discovered on the platform. Instagram enables you to promote your brand and product in a friendly and authentic way without hard selling to your customers.
Let’s take a look at what makes it so useful as a marketing platform and how you can use it to your advantage.
There are a huge number of influencers on the Instagram site with a massive amount of followers. And with the right plan, you can become an influential brand, too.
You need to post the right kind of content to stay relevant to current followers while also bringing in new ones. But it can be difficult to know which kind of posts work best for growing your audience.
Here are ten powerful Instagram marketing tips that you can use to milk the popular platform for all that it’s worth.
1. Switch To A Business Profile ASAP:
First, you need to switch to a business profile. Before you start thinking about your Instagram marketing plan, be sure that you have an Instagram Business Account.
It’s easy to switch your current profile to a business account. Just head to your settings and click on “Switch to Business Profile” to get started.
There are some clear advantages to having a business profile. A business profile enables you to create and publish Instagram ads without needing to use Facebook’s advertising tools.
You can also access Instagram analytics tools, called Insights, that provide stats about the impressions and reach of your posts.
2. Use Free Instagram Tools:
Business profiles on Instagram aren’t all that different from Facebook business profiles.
Assess your current approach, analyze your audience, and create engaging posts with the help of these tools. Also, make sure to use them properly to achieve optimal results.
Through Insights, you can view statistics like impressions, engagement data, and more. Insights aren’t just generalized, either. You can get specific insights on posts for the week that show you how many impressions you earned for that period and what your top posts were.
You can even get a breakdown of the demographics of your followers, including information on their age, gender, location, and most active hours.
These free tools are valuable because you can use them to understand exactly how users are interacting with your content. The more that you know about how users are interacting with your posts, the better you can adjust your content to boost engagement.
3. Post Product Teasers That Will (Gently) Urge People To Buy:
Instagram is an amazing place to advertise your products. You can sell more products just by posting product teasers on Instagram. And if you play your cards right, you won’t bother users or scare them off with advertisements, either.
If you’re too pushy, followers will fall like flies. But product teaser posts are an easy way to talk about your product and boost excitement without looking like you’re trying too hard.
When you tease people about products they are interested in, and you don’t push them into buying anything, they’ll be more likely to pull the trigger and buy something.
If not, they’ll at least engage with your post by liking it, commenting on it, or sharing it with a friend.
So don’t be afraid to show off the goods by posting product photos. Just do it gently.
4. Create Sponsored Ads:
Instagram ads are a key tool for any social media marketer.
Instagram ads have become commonplace on the platform and the best part you can control exactly how much you want to spend on them by setting an ad budget.
This gives brands the potential to target their audience in a whole new way. Before sponsored posts, only users following your account could see your updates and photos.
Now, brands can promote their photos to anyone that fits their target audience to increase their reach further than ever before.
For sponsored ads, use content that is engaging while also appealing to the target demographic you want to put the ad in front of.
Keep in mind that there are many different forms of sponsored ads that you can post, such as:
• Photo
• Video
• Carousel/Dynamic Ads
• Stories
• Stories Canvas
5. Use Instagram Stories:
The advantages of Instagram Stories for brands are truly endless. For starters, Stories are shown at the top of follower timelines where users already look daily.
If you want to generate leads, Instagram Stories are here to help. Instagram stories vary from regular Instagram posts because they come in a “slideshow” format.
They’re only live for 24 hours, but Stories can be saved to any of your devices and reused at a later point.
Brands can use stories to capture behind-the-scenes insider posts that may not be as “high-quality” as regular posts. And you don’t have to bother as much about posting content that aligns with the “aesthetic” of your brand or your Instagram page when it comes to Stories.
Instagram also makes it simple to experiment with various types of content in the Stories feature, like photos, short video, rewind video, live video, or Boomerangs. You can use tools like Canva and InVideo to create incredible images and videos for your stories.
You can also tag other accounts in Stories, which is wonderful if you’re cooperating with another brand or influencer.
6. Partner With Influencers For A Wider Reach:
If you want to reach potential customers on Instagram, the quickest way to do that is through influencers who have already built an audience with a large following. More and more people are buying services or products based on what they see in their feed from the influential people they follow. They trust them.
If you partner with the right industry influencer, you can get your brand out in front of those users and if you build a relationship with each influencer, you’ll build lasting brand awareness with a new audience.
7. Collect User-Submitted Photos:
Through user-submitted photos, there is a way to create great content for your Instagram page without doing any of the hard work.
Whether it’s hundreds of people or thousands, you already have an engaged audience. you can leverage your audience to generate useful content for you. And your followers will likely enjoy user-generated content even more than they enjoy yours because it’s authentic and unpredictable.
You might be wondering exactly how you can get your users to create engaging content without being pushy. It’s fairly simple. Your audience probably wants to grow their following, just like you do.
Just let them know that you’ll tag them in your post if you choose their photo to regram, then they’ll have a purpose to post user-generated content consistently.
If someone shares a user-generated image with a large following, those followers will probably be interested in checking your page out, too.
It also helps to come up with some kind of branded hashtag that enables Instagram users to be more interactive with your company.
8. Come Up With An Interactive Branded Hashtag:
Interactive hashtags are a great way to create instant engagement. Customers can use the tag to post user-generated content. This allows users to search through all posts relating to your brand.
It also enables you easily search through images that you might want to consider re-posting on your page.
Creating a hashtag that your company (and other users) can search for is essentially free advertising. Every time someone posts a photo using the tag, they’re exposing your company to their followers.
9. Post At The Right Times (And Don’t Over-Post):
If you want to turn off your existing followers, then Over-posting on Instagram is a surefire way to do so.
If all they see is your brand on their news feed, they’re possibly going to unfollow you as fast as possible.
But you want to post consistently so that you stay in their news feed regularly. One of the best ways to do this is to only post during peak days and hours when your followers are online.
The research shows that you should post between one and two times per day, but no more or less.
10. Make sure you track the right metrics:
If you don’t know how well your page and posts are performing then You can’t optimize and boost your Instagram performance.
When you have measurable results, you’ll know exactly what works and what doesn’t.
Start by tracking your follower growth rate.
When you keep an eye on what the growth rate of your followers looks like, you can see how the kind of content your posting (or your posting frequency) is affecting things.
Next, measure engagement rates. This includes likes and comments.
You want to find out the average engagement percentage of your total followers as well as the average engagement rate of each post to get a clear picture of how your page is performing.
If you’ve got a smaller following, your engagement rate should be higher.
Then, you need to track your URL click-through rate.
If you don’t already have a link to your website in your Instagram bio, add one ASAP.
And finally, measure how many people are clicking through to your URL.
The average CTR on Instagram is 0.94%, according to Conversion XL.
The more effective your Instagram marketing techniques on your audience, the higher your CTR will be. If it’s low, work on improving your approach.
