Instagram is one of the most well-known and popular social networks for both consumers and businesses. There are already nearly 10 million businesses using Instagram to promote their brand. On top of that, almost 100 million pictures are uploaded on a daily basis.
This means you, as a business, can use the platform to help promote your business. Unfortunately, most businesses have no idea how to promote their business on Instagram. This article will cover the top 10 tips to help you with your Instagram marketing.
Use an Instagram Business Account
The first and most important tip is to use an Instagram Business Account. This will make the other tips work much better because it gives you access to more metrics and data.
Fortunately, switching to a Business Account is easy and free. Simply click on the banner that asks if you want to switch to a business account.
Here are some of the benefits of using a business account:
- You can publish Instagram ads without having to go through Facebook.
- You will now have access to Insights, which provides you with analytics data.
- Your Instagram page will have a contact button on it.
Utilize Influencers
Instagram is unique because it has influencers on the platform. Influencers are accounts popular within in a specific niche. For instance, a dog influencer will make many posts about dogs and have a large following that like to see dog pictures and memes on their Instagram feed.
You can then pay this influencer to promote your product.
Now, not all influencers are created equal. You want to check the metrics from the influencer to ensure that they have actual followers and not fake followers.
Also, your focus should not be on making direct sales with your influencer. Instead, use it to grow your brand awareness and grow your Instagram following. Sales will come from it, but it usually is not direct.
Track Your Metrics
An essential part of marketing is metrics. Just think, you cannot strategize if you do not know what your numbers look like. However, you cannot track any metric. You must track the proper metrics to measure your effort. Here are the best metrics to track.
Follower Growth Rate
Tracking the number of followers you have is somewhat important, but tracking the growth rate is very important. Growth rate tells you if your marketing effort is working or not. This is boosted by companies that allow you to buy Instagram followers.
Engagement Rate
This might be one of the most important metrics to track on Instagram. Engagement rate is simply the number of people that interact with your post (like, comment, share) vs. the number of impressions (people that saw your post).
A higher engagement rate is better as this means that more people are interested in your post. If you have a low engagement rate, then this means that you need to post better content.
Use Hashtags Properly
Everyone that does social media marketing knows exactly how important using hashtags are. Instagram is not that much different than Twitter when it comes to hashtags. In other words, you need to use them, but you need to use them properly.
The first thing to remember with hashtags is that they are used to categorize your posts. This makes it easier for users searching a topic to find your post. It also helps the Instagram algorithm rank your post.
Anyway, there are two broad kinds of Instagram hashtags every Instagram account should use.
Brand Hashtags
These hashtags are simple. They are just your brand. Utilize these hashtags so that when people search your brand on Instagram, they will find your post.
You do not want your competition stealing your brand hashtag and consumers ending up on their page and not yours.
Descriptive Hashtags
These type of hashtags are certainly less popular than brand hashtags, but they are still necessary. They are especially useful when first launching your brand.
Basically, these hashtags describe the content that you post. It helps people find your posts, which means that they will get some exposure to your brand.
Schedule Your Content
Instagram does not offer a built-in content scheduler, but there are many third party application that will automatically make posts to Instagram.
You can use these to make content in advance and then schedule a date for the content to get posted. This is the strategy that almost every major Instagram business and influencer uses.
In fact, many businesses will schedule all their posts about three months away. You do not need to do it that far in advance, but just spending a few hours on the weekend making all your posts for the next week will make you more consistent.
However, do not forget about current events that may occur that are relevant to your brand. You cannot plan for current events, but just stay aware of any developments within your niche that could affect your brand.
Post Consistently
Instagram is one of those platforms that require consistent posting to stay relevant. You cannot post once a week and expect to grow an Instagram profile.
Instead, you should be posting once per day. You should not post much more than once per day. The minimum you should post is four to five times per week.
Posting consistently and frequently works because it pushes your content to the top of the news feed. This means more users will have exposure to your content and your brand.
Post the Right Content
Posting content that is relevant to your brand and niche is important. Content that is irrelevant to your followers will get less engagement.
However, choosing the right type of pictures is also important. Photos that include a face, or person, tend to get more engagement than those without a person. Also, posts that use cool colors tend to get more engagement. This is likely because Instagram uses a warm color scheme for their website.
Final Thoughts
All in all, the above tips should help you improve your standing on Instagram. The most important points to remember are to track metrics and use a business profile.