The world is on social media. And when we say this, we are not bluffing you. Businesses have shifted their focus towards digital marketing to leverage the high user activity on these social media sites. Amongst the many social media platforms, the one that’s leading the race, especially amongst the youth is Instagram. So, if you are thinking of starting up a new business or are already running one, here are some super-effective tips for online brand promotion that you can use in your company’s Instagram Marketing Strategy.
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What is Instagram Marketing?
Instagram Marketing is the way in which businesses brand and project themselves in front of the people using Instagram. It involves user interaction, promotional posts, informative content and product information to project the values and vision of the brand. It may or may not involve paid marketing or what we call Instagram Ads. Through Instagram Marketing, companies aim to use the power of social media to instil the brand name in the minds of people.
Why Instagram Marketing?
Instagram Marketing comes under the wide umbrella of Social Media Marketing. Instagram or any other social media platform provides an enormous advantage. And to be specific, Instagram is the hub of youth these days as its focus is on visual content. And we know that visual content is the most appealing form of content. That’s why Instagram has become a hot arena for companies to try unique strategies and content to lure the audience. With the right Instagram Marketing Strategy, you can make the most out of your Instagram page.
Benefits of Instagram Marketing
Here are some benefits that any social media marketing usually provides.
1. Huge audience
The number of users who are online is increasing with each passing year. And people not only have their accounts but are also frequently active. So, at any given time, there is a big section of users that is online and ready to engage in any online activity. With an online presence, your company can reach out to this large audience base in a very short time.
2. Lead Generation
This is the most important thing that Instagram offers. Carefully curated posts can attract interested customers into taking some action. For example, you are a travel company and you post details about one of your trip programs to a popular destination. There might be people who would get interested and DM you to get more information about the package. This gives us relevant leads and you might reach out to them again later if you have some interesting offers.
3. Free or low cost
You can still build a strong online presence by creating a free account on Instagram. Even if you choose to pay for ads, the cost is very less as compared to the cost of traditional marketing platforms. This is the benefit of any social media platform.
4. User Engagement
Smartly constructed content can stimulate user interaction. And when users interact, it is easier for them to retain the brand’s name in their minds. And that’s what most companies want – to be remembered. Frequent user interaction builds a sense of trust.
5. Get direct feedback
You can easily monitor how users react to your products/services online. You can also engage with them and ask for feedback. Their comments can tell you a lot about how they perceive your products/services.
6. Get Analytics
The biggest advantage of social media marketing is that you can track user behavior when they interact with your content. You can see how many people you’ve reached, how many people clicked the links, etc. This helps to know what kind of content attracts more user engagement. Analytics also provide crucial information about the audience demographics and that too with less efforts and time. Instagram has Insights feature that shows all these important details.
Also Read: Difference between Digital Marketing and Traditional Marketing
How to build your Instagram Marketing Strategy?
It is easy to lose track on how to effectively use Instagram for marketing your business because of the number of ways in which promotions are possible. That’s why it is very important to strategise your marketing and plan out the schedule and the type of content that you want to post on your Insta page. Here are some steps that tell you how to build an effective Instagram Marketing Strategy for your business.
1. Define your Instagram marketing goals
You should be clear with what you want to achieve through your Instagram. Is it sales that you want to achieve, just like those e-commerce pages? Some small businesses use Instagram completely as their e-commerce website. They use the profile grid as their product catalog. Is it brand awareness that you want to create? Do you want people to remember your brand name? In such a case, you need to be consistent with your posts and convey your company vision while engaging with the users regularly.
2. Know your target audience
Before devising out the marketing strategies, it is essential to know your audience. Know the demographics like age, gender, economic status and geographical location of the people you want to reach out to. This will help you use Instagram ad tools to target those users. It will also help you curate content specifically for a particular faction of people.
3. Know your competitors
Research about the competing brands and their Instagram pages and understand what they are doing on their pages. Try to analyse which marketing tactics work for them and which ones don’t.
4. Plan your posts
Try to create a schedule for say a month or the entire year. Mark out important days like festivals or product launches to plan out the content that you want to post. This helps you not to miss any date that might create a lot of user engagement. You can also use third-party Instagram schedulers like Combin Scheduler or Semrush.
5. Customise the look of the page
Plan your posts and design them in such a way that it showcases a theme perfectly aligned with your brand vision. For example, an interior design company might want to have clean, minimalist yet aesthetically themed Instagram page.
6. Build strategy to increase followers
Think of ways on how to reach newer audience i.e. the non-followers and how to attract them into following your page. You can try using Instagram ads to reach a targeted audience or you can use relevant hashtags so that your page is discoverable by people interested in the same field.
7. User-engaging content
For promotions you can do some interesting stuff. You can run contests, post informative content from your niche, post teasers, conduct Insta live sessions, put regular stories, etc.
Different Types of Content for Instagram Marketing
While planning out of your Instagram Marketing Strategy, it is easy to get confused about what type of post you should do on different occasions. As of now, there are so many types of content that you can use for your Instagram Marketing. We have listes them out below for your better understanding about what type should be used and when.
1. Image Posts
These are normal image posts. These can be images of your products/services or posters providing information about your offers. These can also include some motivational lines that align with your brand vision or depict a social issue that your brand supports. It can also be a festive special post that also highlights your services/vision. Instagram posts are of the dimension 1:1 which means that you need to crop anything that’s not a square pic while uploading.
2. Carousel Posts
These are innovative posts with a sequence of photos interconnected seamlessly with a beautiful design. This means that when you swipe the image, the next image comes up as if it is a part of the previous image and doesn’t seem to be separate. This piques the user’s interest as they get attracted visually. This if useful when you have to convey a lot of details related to a single topic.
3. Reels
The attention span of people is decreasing with time. This means that you need to catch their attention in the first 10-15 seconds itself. That is how Reels got in trend. With a short duration and creativity at its peak, Reels gained huge popularity amongst the users. This means that Reels are a great way to attract user attention if made creatively. The reach of Reels is also comparatively better than posts. This is because of the unique algorithm of Instagram which suggests relevant Reels to people interested in that field which might also include a number of non-followers.
4. Stories
Once people have followed your page, it is important to keep them engaged and interact with you. Stories help you do that. These are the content that stay in your page for 24 hours. These are used to update the people about the daily interesting happenings in the brand. Or to keep them updated about some regular incidents in the field that your brand belongs to. For example, if your company provides online educational courses, you can post stories or normal posts if there’s any new education policy or a new educational social initiative to make people aware.
5. Story Highlights
This content is basically a story that stays in your profile for more than 24hrs. That is, until you delete it. It is displayed below your bio in your profile. This section is used to display important facts or events for your brand. For example, you may always want to display the different categories of products that your brand offers. Say, you have a fashion brand. You can add categories in the story highlights, like skirts, sarees, western wear, etc. And you can keep on adding the products in these categories.
6. Videos
Videos are the most appealing form of content. If edited and presented properly, videos can attract a lot of attention. You can create teasers for a product launch, cover a promotional event, create video ads, showcase product features or present customer testimonials, etc. While doing so, make sure to keep the video quality high and editing to be classy. You can also ask the video makers to add graphics if the need be, to add more creativity. Including videos in your Instagram marketing strategy makes it more probable that you will reach out a greater audience.
7. Insta Live
Hosting a live session on Instagram allows you to have a one-on-one interaction with your customer base. This lets you get direct feedback from them and also allows you to build a level of trust in them for your brand. Because, direct conversation gives a sense of reliability to your customers. They feel that your brand cares for its customers.
Tips for Instagram Marketing : Strategies to build your brand
Now that you know what is your purpose of Instagram Marketing and what all content you can post, it is time to know some tactics to increase your post reach and user engagement even more. Here are a few tips that can make you shine through, better than your competitors by using the right Instagram marketing strategy.
TIP 1: Switch to a Business Account
Converting to or opening a business account on Instagram allows you access to some very useful features that are specifically designed for businesses. You can add links to your stories, run ads, boost posts, gain access to analytics, have the ability to sell directly through Instagram, etc. This will help you gain a lot of impressions/clicks which in turn might increase your page visibility or even the number of followers.
TIP 2 : Use the power of hashtags
Hashtags basically compile posts from different accounts into one feed. But you should have a public account to make the actual use of hashtags. They allow you to be discoverable amongst an audience whose interests match the field of your company. It helps you to reach out to non-followers. So, know what your post is about and research about the trending keywords/hashtags. You can find hashtags through a simple Google search. There are many websites that show current trending hashtags. Use relevant ones and you are good to go.
TIP 3 : Conduct Contests/Give-aways/Ask Me Anythings
Conducting contests or give-aways pique the interest of your customers. It is a human nature that people get excited whenever there’s a possibility of them receiving something, maybe a gift or a prize. This will help you get a lot of user engagement.
TIP 4 : Post at the right time
Based on your location and your target audience, try to find out the most probable time when your audience might be the most active. You can find so using some online websites or tools. Once you know the time and the day when it is most suitable to post, try to create a content that aligns with the interests of your target audience. Planning a whole week or even a month makes things efficient. In fact, planning/scheduling is one of the most important parts of your Instagram marketing strategy.
TIP 5: Take a look at Instagram Analytics/Insights
A public Instagram account offers basic insights about how your posts are performing. You can know the impressions, views, shares, engagement, followers/non-followers count, demographics, etc. This can help you immensely in analyzing what type of content is liked by the customers. You can devise your future content strategies based on these figures. You can also use some trusted third-party apps to get better insights of your Instagram page performance.
TIP 6: Use Instagram Ads
This is one of the best features that Instagram offers for business accounts. With nominal charges, you can post your content and Instagram will take the responsibility of making it visible to a relevant and targeted audience. Running ads increases the probability of getting profile visits/follows to a great extent. You can choose the interests of the users or the geographical location of your target audience and that is something that gives you great power when you run these ads.
Also Read: How to Create Social Media Content Calendar?
Now, that you know these tips and tricks, go and start working on your Instagram pages to get the best out of them. Instagram Marketing is the new coolest thing for businesses and you can surely make the most out of it using the strategies that we have presented to you in this blog post.
For better expert advice on how you can do effective Social Media Marketing, you can reach out to us. We are Sampark Infoways, an all round IT solutions company, handling the social media marketing, branding and website/app development for businesses for more than 10 years now! And we are always excited to take up new projects!
