More than 1 billion people are using Instagram every month, and it is the second most popular social media network after Facebook. Instagram offers a great opportunity for marketers to promote their brands with interested and targeted audiences.
Additionally, Instagram API allows users to share photos and videos to an Instagram business account using a third-party platform, which makes brands take advantage of all the Instagram offers.
Many businesses don’t know how to use Instagram to improve their business. Here are some effective ways to use Instagram for your business and engage with your followers and get social media marketing results.
1. Find Your Ideal Customers
Before starting marketing on Instagram, you should analyze your audience. For that, you need to see the accounts that are following business accounts similar to your accounts. If those people are following them, then they are definitely interested in your business.
How can you learn about your audience?. You can try some Instagram insights to find over audience interest. This include:
- Impression: Total number of times your content is viewed
- Reach: how many unique accounts that view your content
- Video views: how often your videos have been viewed
- Website clicks: How many links click your business account has received
- Saves: How many people saved your post
Through this insight, you can see the age and gender of your followers, and also, you can see where your audience comes from. If you are trying to get new followers to your account, you should know how to attract them.
2. Create Content That Attracts Your Audience
Now you know how to find your audience, but you don’t know what kind of content will make your followers engage with your brand. Create visually compelling content which can easily attract your followers.
Do the research and look at your competitor account and see what type of content they are sharing and which kind of their photos gets more engagement. You need to steal those same content, but you can get some effective ideas to create your own content.
Are you wondering what type of content to post on Instagram to grow your business? Here are a few tips:
- Product sneak peeks
- Products arrangement
- Blog post images
- Inspirational videos
- Behind the scene videos
You can try these ideas and see which content gets more engagement, and then you can arrange your posting strategy based on your audience’s interest.
3. Post High-quality Photos
Sharing great quality content will help you to get user attention. To take quality photos, you don’t need a big camera. You can use your mobile phones to make attractive images. Always unique and quality content can help you to stand out from the crowd.
You can use these DIY photography tips to improve your photo quality:
- Use natural light: when you are shooting, try to take photos in the late afternoon.
- Don’t use the front camera: Taking photos using the back camera on your mobile phones will give high-resolution photos.
- Edit your photos: You can add some filters to your post or download the photo editing app to make your photos more attractive.
Creating high-quality photos will boost your Instagram marketing strategy.
4. Use IGTV
Instagram IGTV is a feature that allows users to upload long-form videos on the platform. IGTV offers great opportunities for marketers to create fun and engaging long video content about brands.
Here are some useful tips that boost IGTV video views of your brand. IGTV differentiates itself from the typical Instagram videos in a few different ways.
- IGTV can be 60 seconds to one hour long and offers plenty of opportunities to creators.
- The “following tap” on IGTV allows your user to access your new content
- IGTV acts as a platform to showcase your brands.
- You can post one-minute preview IGTV videos in your feed to increase your visibility
- IGTV allows users to comment on videos that are visible to other users.
You can use your business in these long-term videos to increase your brand popularity.
READ ALSO: Welcome to the Future of Online and Instagram Marketing with Shortstack
5. Try Instagram Stories
Stories are one of the most important parts of your Instagram Marketing strategy. Stories have a slide show format, and that only appears 24 hours. Additionally, you can add your stories to your profile as Instagram highlights, and it will be live even after your stories disappear.
Benefits of using Instagram stories for your business:
- Stories are appearing at the top of the screen just under your Instagram logo
- You can share behind the scene videos in your stories to get more engagement
- Use influencer marketing in your stories
- Add filters, stickers, and emojis to create attractive content about your brand
- Use your business hashtags and location tags to make your product discoverable.
- Add CTA and links to your stories to get more traffic to your website.
Stories are only created on mobile phones, but you can share them with your stories and direct message(DM).
6. Expand Your Reach With Hashtags
You can use hashtags to increase your brand reach with a wider audience. Create hashtags with your brand name, e.g. (#yourbrandname) you can share across Instagram, Linkedin, and your Twitter account. It makes it very easy for people to find your content.
You can use 3 to 5 hashtags in a post or add a minimum of 30 hashtags per post. Use your own and most popular hashtags because it is a great way to increase your brand discoverability.
Additionally, you can add hashtags in your profile, stories, and comment section to improve your engagement. Adding a hashtag for your brand will definitely help you to enhance your business on Instagram.
7. Create Instagram Reels
Reels are one of the new trending Instagram features that allow users to create and upload 15-second videos. Reels offers a great way for businesses to market their product on Instagram. You can use Instagram reels to grow your business on Instagram.
Use reels to create behind the scene videos to show how your products are manufactured. Every follower loves to see behind the scenes, so try reels to showcase your products and share how your brand is delivered.
Create funny and entertaining reels to attract your follower’s attention because funny videos make users connect with you and your brand. Share educational videos about your brand with the customers. Reels are very new, so try reels to boost your business on Instagram.
8. Collaborate And Mention Others
Instagram is a popular social media platform to share your success stories and collaborate with influencers. If you are trying to build your Instagram community and make more sales on the platform, you can use influencer marketing to reach your business goals.
Before collaborating with them, you need to identify the rights influencer for your brand. The good influencers have:
- Have massive followers
- Be visible and vocal in your industry
- Responsible and consistent
You can use “shout-outs” and unpaid shout-outs to help you partner with other brands, and it will increase your exposure. You can also use paid shout-outs. It helps you collaborate with large influencers to promote your brand and services. Tagging another account will increase your business growth on Instagram.
9. Advertise On Instagram
Many brands are using Instagram advertisements to optimize their business. More than 2.2.% of Instagram users interact with an advertisement. It is the top social media network when compared with Facebook.
Additionally, more than 4.5 million mobile ads are generated by Instagram by the year 2020. If you want to increase your business on Instagram, you should add advantages to ads.
Instagram ads can help you to increase your brand awareness, conversion rate and reach your target audience. There are many types of ads on Instagram:
- Stories ads
- Carousel ads
- Video ads
- Post ads
These are some ads you can use to enhance your business, but you should learn the platform before posting ads.
10. Analyze Your Success
One of the best effective Instagram marketing strategies is to track your metrics on Instagram. Instagram analytical tools allow you to access your insights to check your post-performance.
Always have a good practice to measure your follower’s engagement, count, and clicks. These all will help you to improve your marketing strategy. By using Instagram insights, you can track your single post’s performance, best hashtags, and also, you can see which posts get more engagement.
Tracking your metric helps you create future content based on your interest, and it will help you grow your business on Instagram.
Conclusion:
Instagram is the fastest growing social media platform at present. Instagram is a perfect place for businesses to market their products to a massive audience. Follow these 10 tactics to get the best result for your business on Instagram in 2021.
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.
