Instagram has gained lots of popularity in the last few years, but as with other social networks, there are different methods and tricks you can utilize to ensure that your business is getting full value from its Instagram account. The purpose of this article is to give you some guidance, help, and advice to increase your followers, which in turn should increase your organic inquiry.
Six Tips For Marketing Your Business On Instagram
1. Think Like A User Not A Marketer
The biggest mistake that business accounts make on any social media is to constantly bombard their followers with advertisements and promotions. People follow different accounts often times because they are interested or passionate about a company or one of its products.
Don’t take this dedication for granted, if you constantly bombard your followers with sales-oriented content day after day, you will see engagement fall and your community begin to shrink. Your aim should be to engage and interact with your fans, so that they are actually looking forward to your posts. If you post interesting and informative pieces of content people will be enthused and want to share your content with their friends, which will then expand your fan base. So many businesses get this wrong, that when you do it right, you stand out from the crowd even more, and truth be told it isn’t actually that difficult to do.
2. Make Good Use Of Hashtags
Examine your competitors and other leaders in your industry and analyze which hashtags they use. Hashtags are an excellent way to help people find you because they will search for the hashtags of things that interest them. By using the correct and appropriate hashtags, you will help new users discover your company and grow your following.
3. Grow Your Brand – Build A Group Of Passionate Followers
There are so many methods of advertising available to business, but social media provides a unique opportunity to engage with your users. Post interesting and exciting content, follow your followers back and communicate with people who are commenting on your posts. Think of a great book, or a movie you have read or watched. In most cases, people find out about these from their friend’s recommendations. People become passionate about a brand – just look at people who use Apple products. Once you have grown an army of fans, they will sell your brand for you. Your job is to focus on building the foundations and generating that initial passion.
4. Connect With Instagram Influencers
There are certain people on Instagram who have a huge number of followers. If your company sells products that align with these power users, then it could be worthwhile reaching out to them, and seeing if they want to test out some free products. Obviously, it is crucial that you undertake extensive research on these people. They need to have the same values as your company, before you begin to send them free product. But if you are confident that they are a good match for your company, a post from them to their followers can grow your brand almost overnight. It is no different to paying a celebrity to endorse your product but done correctly you will be surprised at how quickly these Instagram power users can grow your brand for you.
5. Remember That Instagram Is A Visual Product
Your followers want to be inspired and see interesting pictures. Don’t use low quality or badly focused images, as these will reflect poorly on your brand. Be creative in how you expose your brand and even consider the occasional use of black and white photography as this will make your pictures stand out in people’s streams.
6. Monitor Which Posts Get Engagement – And Which Don’t
Any good marketer will tell you that you need to evaluate and test your marketing constantly. Otherwise, you have no way of understanding what works and what doesn’t. Try to figure out why a particular post got a lot of attention, or for that matter why it didn’t. Once you understand this, then you can refine and improve on the success stories, and ensure you don’t make the same mistakes for the posts that flopped.
Instagram is an exciting and useful marketing tool when used correctly. By following some of the tips above and investing in some social media tools, your business can derive a lot of value without spending much money. Good luck with your marketing efforts and we hope that these tips provide you with some good ideas and encourage you to make better use of your Instagram account.
Instagram is one of the most effective strategies for growth hacking your business. Read our guide on scaling your business here.