Introduction:
Instagram is one of the most popular images and video sharing platforms in the world. According to the research of E-marketer, Instagram is the second most used social network across the world. 75.3% of users use Instagram marketing to enhance their business.
Are you looking for the best guide to grow your business on Instagram? You can use these 12 strategies for your brand enhancement.
1. Switch Over Instagram Business Profile
Before you get started with Instagram marketing, you need an Instagram business account. If you already have a personal account, you can switch over to your business account.
Here is what to do:
- Go to your Instagram profile and tap the hamburger icon at the top right corner.
- Tap settings->account->switch to professional account.
- Select your account type and follow the prompts.
After switching to a business profile, your next step is to connect your Facebook account. Confirm your Facebook page you want to connect to, and you can access your business profile.
2. Clearly Define Your Goal
When you decide to use Instagram as a marketing platform, you should have a clear idea to improve your marketing campaign. You can’t use Instagram features effectively unless you know what you are trying to achieve.
For example, are you looking to:
- Build an online presence for your business?
- Establish your brand to a wider audience?
- Increase brand awareness?
- Sell products directly from the app?
- Drive traffic to your website?
Instagram marketing can differ based on your goal. So, make sure to define where you want your Instagram marketing to take you!
3. Optimize Your Instagram Profile
For any social media, you need to optimize your profile to get a great impression. Instagram provides 150 characters to make your bio, which can help to convey your brand personality and tell people why they should follow your Instagram account.
You can include the following information that makes it easier to find your profile:
- Username: You can use 30 characters to create your username.
- Profile Image: You can upload your brand logo as your profile image.
- Your Website: You can provide a clickable URL to your audience in your bio section.
- Call To Action: Build a way your followers can interact with you directly from your profile page.
- Contact Info: You can tell people where to find you.
4. Upload Shoppable Posts
Shoppable posts are one of the effective strategies to sell your products directly to your customers. By using this strategy, you will increase the chance of turning your followers into customers. Even businesses can easily connect your audiences with your products and services.
Here are some simple steps to set up Instagram shopping posts:
- Ensure that your business requirements such as
- You have a business profile on Instagram.
- Find where Instagram shopping is available.
- Connect your Instagram profile to a Facebook page.
- Create your product catalog on Facebook
- Get approved for Instagram shopping
- Go to your Instagram settings->business->sign up for Instagram shopping.
- Turn on shopping in the Instagram app.
- Start to set up your first shoppable Instagram post.
5. Create Visually Engaging Content
Instagram is a popular visual platform, so your posts should look great!
Even more important, your visual content needs to be attractive. Here are a few ideas to make visual posts:
- Behind the scenes posts: Upload videos that show your manufacturing process, your storefront, and your employees.
- Quests and Texts images: use texts and quotes for your posts to create visually engaging content.
- Reels: It is a short multi clip video that makes fun and entertainment.
- IGTV: It is a maximum length of video posts, which helps to give in depth information.
6. Use Effective Hashtags
Hashtags are a unique way to increase your visibility and engagement. On Instagram, you can use up to 30 hashtags per post. Creating interactive hashtags is an effective way to increase engagement, market your products and services to a huge audience.
To get more benefits, you need to choose a hashtag that:
- Are related
- Are specific to your brand
- Are encouraging the audience to visit your posts
The basic format of a hashtag:
- Always use # before the keyword.
- Do not use any punctuation or spaces in hashtags.
- Never put characters before the #
- Use letters and numbers, but never numbers alone.
7. Take Advantage Of Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are a key part of your successful Instagram marketing strategy. Instagram stories appear in a slideshow format, and it automatically disappears after 24 hours. Most brands, influences, and ordinary people are using Instagram to engage their audience.
According to the statistics, 70% of users discover new products and services via Instagram stories. So, you can use stories to promote your brand, products, and services. By using this strategy, you can receive Instagram views for your stories. Hence, you will get a chance to create a strong brand & customer campaign with these tactics.
8. Use Story Highlights To Boost Your Views
We all know that Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours. So, Instagram introduced a new feature named “highlights.” It is a new part of your Instagram profile that can help to show your stories permanently. You can create a highlight album to save your stories with different categories. It is a great way to display your most successful stories to your audience.
The important attributes of story highlights are:
- Highlights covers – It is a type of picture that appears in the form of circles at the top of your Instagram profile.
- Highlights name – You can highlight your stories with naming folders.
9. Go Instagram Live Stream
Instagram live is an amazing feature that allows users to broadcast live to your audience on the platform. Instagram stories appear at the top of the home feed. When someone is conducting a live stream, it will display with the live icon.
Even Instagram live streams take your content to the first position within a short time. If you are looking for the best way to increase your content visibility, you can use Instagram story live. It can quickly reach your brand to a wider audience.
10. Post Content At The Peak Time
If you want to reach your content to a huge audience, you need to find out when your followers are online. Instagram provides an inbuilt analytics feature that can help to find out what is the best time to post content on Instagram.
Did you know that the best time differs from industry to industry?
According to Instagram, they analyzed when audiences are active. Here are some reports:
- Technology – Monday and Tuesday 2 PM.
- Education – Thursday 4 to 5 PM.
- Media and entertainment – Tuesday and Thursday 12 to 3 PM.
- Travel and tourism – Friday 9 AM to 1 PM.
- Food and drink – Friday 12 PM.
11. Partner With Perfect Influencers
Working with an influencer is one of the best tactics to build your credibility. A survey shows that merely half of the Instagram users make their purchase based on the influencer’s recommendations.
Hosting an Instagram takeover is one of the easy ways to get started with Influencer marketing. It means you can invite an influencer to take over your account for a set period like a day, weekend, or for a holiday/special event.
It extends your brand and profile reach, also giving them exposure to a new audience. But before getting started to collaborate with influencers, you should find the right campaign that is relevant to your brand.
12. Enhance Your Marketing With Instagram Ads
Instagram ads are a great way to show your content in front of a new audience. More than 84% of people use Instagram ads to shop for their products. Instagram ads appear in a bold and linear format at the center of the Instagram feed, which can create a visual inspiration.
Instagram provides various ads, here are some useful ads format:
- Stories Ads: It is a full screen ad that appears in between users’ stories.
- Photo Ads: It is a square and landscape format. You can tell your content through a clean, simple, and creative canvas.
- Video Ads: You can share 120 second long videos in square or landscape format.
- Carousel Ads: You can add multiple images and videos in a single ad.
Conclusion:
Instagram is the fastest growing social media platform in the world. With over 800 million active users, Instagram marketing will get more success each day. From a single dashboard, you can upload multiple stories and posts, edit images, promote ads, and measure your performance. You can try this platform for your business growth!
Author Bio
Caterina Taylor is an experienced social media marketer and writer who works at PlanYourGram.com. She loves to work on content creation for social media blogs and has the potential to deliver engaging content on various platforms and networks.
