How to use Instagram to market your business

Instagram has experienced an unprecedented growth. The platform reached 400 million users within less than five years since its creation.

What’s more, Instagram is the perfect engagement tool for business, pulling the users in with visual content and giving you freedom in terms of your captions and comments, as there is no limit to the number of characters you can use.

So, would you like to increase awareness of your brand, grow strong following and increase your sales? If that’s the case, this platform is your magic spell.

Let’s take a closer look at how Instagram can boost your marketing efforts:

1. Choose a theme

The most successful Instagram accounts tend to follow a consistent theme. Consider what type of posts are the best representation of your brand. Once you figure it out, stick with the theme and tell your brand story. Remember, like with any other social media network, Instagram is not for a sales pitch, but for showing your product or service in action and inspiring your followers.

2. Harness the power of videos

When it comes to sharing your updates, move beyond the image posts and enhance your customers’ experience further by sharing some engaging videos.Recent studies show that videos shared on Instagram generate three times more traffic when compared to image posts.

Think about your unique selling points and your brand story and create short videos that reflect that.

Step up your creativity and use video to capture your brand’s important moments, promote your new products, and upcoming events.

3. Promote your off-line partnerships

If you are already partnering with another business, whose vision is aligned with your brand’s values, make sure your Instagram activity reflects that. Tag your partners and promote their services through your posts so both your business and your partners can get more exposure, you gain more followers, more leads for your site and more conversions. A clear win-win.

4. Maximise your reach through hashtags

Do you want more people to discover your Instagram content? Use hashtags. Hashtags are particularly valuable on Instagram, as they allow you to reach a wider audience and connect with users with specific interests.

Remember to monitor trending hashtags and include them in your branded posts, obviously provided they are relevant to your business. By doing so, you will join in a bigger part of this visual community and boost the brand awareness for your business.

Finally, test different hashtags and experiment to find out which ones best resonate with your audience.

5. Humanise your brand by showing faces of your team

Don’t forget to show your team at work to provide your followers with a behind-the-scenes view of your business. Use engaging images to show appreciation for your team, by recognizing their birthdays, skills and milestones.

Remember to share fun times with your followers and tell them what you are up to. Show your human side and balance business content with some lighthearted updates, and you will be rewarded with stronger connections with your followers.

6. Become a proactive networker

The networking rules of other social media channels, apply here, so give a little to gain a little. Connect with other users through the power of photos, like and leave comments.

Finally, don’t forget to integrate your networking efforts by following your Instagram contacts via other social media platforms.

7. Reach beyond the following

Having a strong following on Instagram is one of the main aims of any businesses, but don’t be shortsighted. To take the full advantage of the platform and pull your followers further in the conversion cycle, capture their data.

Think about an engaging post with a clear call to action, whether it is an email subscription, a prize draw or a free download of your ebook.

With your followers data in hand, you can now boost the power of your Instagram marketing.

Note: Creating a separate landing page, that is consistent with your branding and look on Instagram will help you to maximize conversions. Such page should be dedicated exclusively to capturing data from your Instagram followers, through downloadable content like ebooks, promo codes or newsletter subscriptions.

8. Monitor engagement and track what’s working

Like with your activity on any other social platform, regular monitoring of engagement levels will be crucial to your Instagram success. Look for patterns in user engagement to clarify what type of posts your audience likes most and direct your efforts in that direction.

Track Instagram click-through rates through free tools like Bitly or custom URL (a unique link that helps Instagram users to find your website).

To gain further clarity on how your brand is doing Instagram, consider using paid analytics tools. BlitzMetrics and Curalate will give you access to detailed insights.

Over to you

We hope that these tips will prove helpful for creating an Instagram presence for your business. Give them a go, put them into practice and let us know how did they work for you. We would love to hear your feedback.

For more practical tips on how to use Instagram for marketing your business, check Instagram’s business blog, that is jam-packed with useful information and latest updates to the platform https://business.instagram.com

And if you need help with management of the Instagram account for your business, don’t hesitate to get in touch.