Social media has changed the marketing world for good. It changed the way that our society as a whole interacts with one another. This includes how we interact with businesses, and therefore businesses need to adapt their strategies!
Whether you are starting a new business or expanding your current business’ online presence, you cannot neglect social media marketing. Over 88% of companies use social media for marketing purposes. Social media marketing no longer provides a competitive advantage; it has now become the standard. Are you going to be part of the 12 % left behind?
Instagram can be a cornerstone of your social media marketing strategy. Below, I am going to discuss why it is a great marketing platform, as well as provide some Instagram marketing tips to get started.
Why your Business Needs to Be on Instagram
Instagram’s Audience is Massive
There are not many apps in the world that can claim they have over one billion monthly active users.. Instagram is one of them! Over half of these users check the app at least once a day. Can you really afford to not be on an app with such massive reach?
Instagram Has the Best Engagement of Any Social Media Platform
Seriously, this isn’t even close. Rival IQ does an annual study, randomly sampling over 1800 companies and influencers in different industries. For the 2019 rendition, they found that the median engagement rate on Instagram is 1.60%. This may sound small, but in fact this is:
- 17.8x higher than Facebook (0.09%)
- 33.3x higher than Twitter (0.048%)
Crazy, right? Instagram is by far the platform that’s most likely to give you interaction with your potential customers.
Instagram Users Love Interacting With Companies
This goes hand-in-hand with the point about Instagram’s high engagement. This engagement isn’t for nothing; it has been shown to convert to leads and sales down the road. Over 60% of Instagram usersdiscovered new products and services on the platform, and 72% have bought something they’ve seen before on the platform. However, ecommerce
5 Beginner Instagram Marketing Tips
Now that you’re sold on including Instagram as part of your marketing strategy, here are some great Instagram marketing tips to look at and implement!
1. Master The Use of Hashtags
You need to target your desired audience effectively in order to see the best results. Luckily, there’s an easy way to do this – use hashtags! Hashtags are used by the algorithms to help find relevant content for users on their Explore page. For example, if you liked several posts with the hashtag #italianfood, then odd you are likely to see other posts on your Explore page of Italian food.
Instagram allows you to add up to 30 hashtags per caption. I recommend you aim for 20-25 relevant hashtags per post. You should use a mixture of large, medium, and small hashtags to optimize your exposure. The size of the hashtags is based on the number of posts; you can find some rough guidelines below:
- Small – less than 100 thousand posts
- Medium – 100 thousand to 1 million posts
- Large – more than 1 million posts
2. Be Consistent
Posting content on a consistent basis can be rewarding. You should aim for one post a day as a good benchmark . You should also be consistent in which hashtags you use. Don’t use the same ones for every post (this will be marked as spam) but at least keep a list of 40-50 relevant hashtags you can rotate through!
Finally, consistency also comes in terms of branding. It is important for your content to have a distinct and reliable look. This can be done by using similar photo filters on your content, or embedding a logo in your graphics.
3. Promote Genuine Interaction With Followers
You need to be authentic if you expect authentic engagement from followers. I recommend you use a Call to Action in your posts. This is quite simply asking for engagement but in a genuine way. It may sound silly, but saying something like“Comment Below!” can be quite effective!
You can also show authenticity through Instagram Stories which many people find to be more personable. Did you know there are 500 million people who use the Instagram Stories feature? That’s more than the total users of Snapchat, where the “story” feature first originated! You can interact with users on your story through polls, question forms, and more.
4. Integrate Instagram With Your Overall Marketing Strategy
It is important to figure out what you want out of Instagram, and how you can incorporate it into the “big picture” of your marketing plan. Do you want to create leads by growing your email list? Maybe you want to just showcase your products/services and direct traffic to your business website. Regardless of what your goals are, it’s important to consider them when coming up with a content plan.
You can have a Call to Action on your Instagram Bio, but sadly you may only have one hyperlink on your page. Pages with 10 thousand followers or more can also include links on their Instagram story, with the Call to Action “swipe up for more.” This will allow you to link directly to a landing page for your business or for a specific product.
5. Track Results and Adjust!
You need to monitor the results of any marketing campaign, Instagram included. Luckily, Instagram has a pretty powerful analytics suite built into the app for business accounts. You can see the gender distribution and geographic distribution from the app as well as the times at which your followers are most active.
“What gets measured, gets managed.”- old proverb
Beyond the app, I recommend checking out IG Blade which is a free-to-use website. This site will track your growth over time as well as give insight into engagement rates. It emails reports to you on a monthly and weekly basis. Remember the old saying, “What gets measured, gets managed.” It also doesn’t require access to your Instagram account, since it only uses publically available data!
Summing it All Up
You’d be crazy not to include Instagram as part of your marketing strategy, given that it is one of the largest social media platforms in the world and has the highest engagement rates by far.
It is fairly simple to get started and spread the organic reach of your business. Tactics such as hashtag use, consistent posting, and calls to action are all great ways to start. Don’t forget to track your progress via a free service such as IG Blade! !
With all these Instagram marketing tips in hand, you can get started today. Don’t forget when creating an account to specify it is a business account. You can read more on that here.
Now, what are you waiting for?