Can you fathom how enormous a billion actually is? It’s much larger than most of us realise. Consider that 32 years correspond to one billion seconds. One billion steps is the same as travelling to the moon and back 15.278 times!
The number of Instagram users is staggering: over a billion.
Instagram’s massive user base means that the platform is rich with advertising potential. But it takes a comprehensive plan to locate your particular audience among those a billion people. Here are some basic tips for using Instagram for promotional purposes and raising company awareness:
Instagram for Business: A Quick Start Guide
Now, the fundamentals. That would be your Instagram account. A personal account is not appropriate for running a business. You can add links to Instagram Stories and put contact information next to the “Follow” and “Message” buttons when you switch to a business profile.
You don’t want individuals who find your page to doubt the legitimacy of your business due to a lack of information. If you want consumers to trust you, you need to give them as much information as possible. This includes a professional profile picture, a link to your website, a personable bio, and, eventually, a few selected Stories.
Produce Something Interesting
The content you share on Instagram is the most important (and challenging) aspect of using the platform for commercial purposes. Connecting with users and inspiring them to follow you or buy from you is accomplished through content. Each of your updates and Stories ought to engage your audience and convey the point you want to get across.
Better content may be created with increased audience understanding. You should begin by telling a tale, not in the form of a screenplay but rather through a compelling photograph and accompanying caption that introduces you, your beliefs, and the reasons why people should follow you.
Give your audience a cause to engage with your material. You can and should show pictures of the inside of properties if you’re a real estate agent, but that shouldn’t be all you show. The people watching want to see that you enjoy what you’re doing. So that they can visualise what it would be like to live there, they want to witness actual individuals doing so. Construction or renovation of a dwelling. Data on local communities. No matter how tastefully decorated your living room is, your followers will appreciate and remark on your content if they provide opportunities for deeper interaction.
Instagram posts can also be used in traditional advertising. Displaying your Instagram posts on displays in your establishment can help you engage with visitors and share your narrative, despite the fact that Instagram is primarily used digitally.
Use Instagram’s Analytical Tools
Having an Instagram account for your business also means you can use the Instagram Insights tool. Instagram Insights may not be as feature-rich as other social media analytics tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social, but it still gives you a plethora of data about your audience and the performance of your posts.
Let’s pretend you’ve just begun a campaign to increase your profile’s fan base. A small number of people liked your first two postings, many people liked your third post, and few people liked your fourth post. So what gives? Instagram Insights might help you figure out why people liked your third post while they didn’t care much for the others.
Increase Your Chances of Being Found
Instagram SEO is just like Google SEO in that it needs to be taken into account. No matter how amazing your material is, it won’t attract a large following if nobody can find it. It’s unlikely that anybody will see your profile without your active participation in the community through the use of hashtags, interesting captions, and replies to comments.
There is no hard and fast rule about the number of hashtags you should use, but most experts agree that using fewer than eight or more than twelve will limit your visibility and make you appear to be trying too hard. Don’t be hasty and use hashtags that already have millions of postings; instead, try to choose less popular hashtags that won’t overpower your material.
Keeping up with comments and answering users’ questions might help increase your visibility. Don’t just leave your postings sit there and expect people to come flocking to them like bees to honey; instead, respond to their comments, questions, and criticisms. If you do this, people browsing Instagram will see that you actively engage with your audience and welcome feedback.
Use Instagram’s Ads to Your Advantage
Using Instagram for commercial purposes practically requires investing in Instagram advertisements. In addition to your own profile, advertising allow you to connect with users who are interested in a similar topic but are unfamiliar with your brand.
Determine who you want to read your work and why they should care (based on demographics like age, occupation, location, and hobbies). Ads can be tailored to specific people to increase click-through rates. You can make sponsored ads demonstrating products, offering discounts, spreading brand awareness, and more.
The best practises outlined above will help you expand your online presence and gain new followers, but remember that you’ll need to find your own approach to create material that resonates with your target audience if you want to learn how to use Instagram for marketing.