In a recent study conducted to view the state of small businesses, social media was recorded as the most significant platform to build brand awareness. Did you know that 73% of the marketers responded that they wish to increase their spending on social media marketing?
Learning Digital Marketing is the utmost requirement for all marketers out there!
This blog lists down 8 Instagram Marketing Tips that are worth considering in 2021.
As widely known, the top 3 sites where one can find their target audiences are Youtube, Facebook and Instagram. Many brands have observed the shift from Facebook and Youtube to Instagram for daily doses of content consumption. Instagram has over 1.16 billion monthly active users.
Source: https://www.finplus.co.in/9-eye-opening-reasons-to-use-instagram-for-your-business/
With the right strategies, anyone can increase their reach and gain a large number of followers and engagement.
Hence, Instagram is undoubtedly one of the most important social media marketing channels that any marketer should be using, be it a small business, a company, a blog or even a page.
Let’s now look at the 8 effective Instagram Marketing Tips that will help you become an expert marketer.
8 Instagram Marketing Tips & Strategies
1. Switch to a business account
The foremost thing that you should do is switch to a business account. The business account offers various essential perks to marketers that help with understanding your audience better and frame your strategies accordingly.
Few of the perks:
- Allows you to create and publish Instagram ads without having to use facebook advertising tools.
- Access to Instagram Analytics tool.
- Instagram shopping feature
- Followers can click the contact button and get in touch with you via your Instagram account.
- Call to action profile available on your profile.
Hence, a business account comes with all the above free features. Analyse your metrics and strategies accordingly. Here’s a quick guide on Instagram Business Accounts.
2. Work on your profile
Spend time and work on your profile. A well-written profile can make a great first impression and convey your brand personality. Include everything that you offer and give people a reason to follow you.
A few profile fields that you should fill out properly are given below:
- Your business name
- Your username
- Include your website, if any
- Choose a most relevant category
- Give your contact information
- Add a call to action option so that people can contact you directly from your page
- Lastly, use an appropriate profile picture. Your profile picture displays your logo
3. Set goals
Goals are set in line with your business objectives. Identifying your goals will help you understand each specific step and action that you need to take in detail.
The SMART criteria is an effective way to set goals. The acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound.
Instagram marketing helps to set goals focused on the following criteria:
- Brand building
- Increasing reach
- Engaging more audience
- Generating more leads
- Increasing the volume of sales
Identify your goal and generate the most suitable marketing strategy.
4. Create appealing content and post at the right time
Creating visually appealing content is the most important way to keep your audience engaged. Old and unattractive content will lead you to lose customers and people may unfollow you. Plan your content marketing strategy using tools like Hootsuite and Hubspot.
Instagram offers a large variety of content options. Try out all different mediums and use each one to keep audiences interested. Make sure to keep your content crisp, short and easy to read.
Uploading stories on Instagram is a great way to generate leads. It also enables you to explore different features like GIFs, boomerangs, stickers and more.
Did you know that uploading product teaser posts generate more sales? Product teaser posts are a simple way to advertise your product more and create excitement among the people, leading to higher sales. However, while uploading posts you need to keep in mind that your audiences are not online all the time. Be aware of the time when your audience is most active.
Source: https://coschedule.com/blog/best-times-to-post-on-social-media
Use catchy captions to generate more engagement on your posts. The best caption length for all your posts is around 125-150 words. Using hashtags wisely is a key to increasing visibility on Instagram. You can use up to 30 hashtags per post. 10 hashtags per post are recommended. Choose the ones that are relevant to your post and specific to your niche.
Lastly, follow a consistent theme and colours that resonate with your brand on your account. It allows you to build your brand’s look on Instagram.
5. Use story highlights
Creating story highlights is a way to preserve your top stories. Story highlights appear below your bio. You can choose a theme relevant to your business and create a custom cover for each of your story highlights.
Using story highlights gives more information about your business to potential customers. One way to segregate your story highlights is based on the range of products that you offer. Customers can view all the new products launched, the discounts that you offered, your best sellers and more.
6. Reach out to influencers
Reaching out to influencers in your industry is a great way to increase your reach and introduce your brand to a completely new audience.
Influencers promote your brand on their social media platform and widen your reach. You can also try an Instagram take-over where the influencers take over your Instagram account for a specific period of time or an event.
Building relationships with influencers can result in long-term benefits for your business.
7. Use Instagram Ads
Instagram Ads is an essential and cost-efficient way to promote your products online. Taking up a short training in Instagram Ads can prove to be extremely beneficial for your business. You can set an exact budget of the amount you want to spend on advertising.
Sponsored ads help you to reach a wider audience in a specific time frame. You can also use multiple posts for different target audiences to increase reach and diversify your engagement.
Instagram offers ads in different forms. You can choose to post photos, videos, dynamic ads, or stories. Try out each one of them and choose the most suitable one.
8. Measure your performance
Track your results using the free Instagram Insights tool. Instagram Insights allows you to take a look at your demographic audience based on their age, gender, location and most active hours.
It also enables you to see which posts received the highest and the lowest engagement. The tool gives you a clear picture of how your audience is interacting with your content.
Source: https://www.oberlo.com/blog/instagram-insights-guide
Google Analytics, HubSpot and Hootsuite are a few other free tools that help you to clearly understand where your business stands. Measuring your performance timely is essential to know your existing and potential reach.
You can even take a short term certification in google analytics to understand the tool better.
Keep in Mind
Instagram is the most dominant social media platform worldwide currently. Taking the utmost advantage of it will enable you to achieve successful results.
Since Instagram is an image-focused platform, with billions of monthly users, curating appealing and engaging content along with efficient strategies will help you gain more followers and engagement and ultimately convert them into customers.
Every strategy is time-consuming and requires attention to detail and consistency. Stick to the above-mentioned tips and strategise your instagram marketing strategy.
We hope you enjoyed reading this blog! Will you be using the above-mentioned tips? Let us know in the comments section below.
About Author: Karan Shah is a Founder and CEO at IIDE. An ‘Edupreneur’ and the founder of IIDE – Indian Institute of Digital Education. He is a passionate public speaker and teacher for over 10 years. He has trained over 1,00,000+ students and 25+ corporates in Digital Marketing via online and offline channels. He is a Harvard alumnus specialising in E-commerce. He is a TEDx speaker and is a visiting faculty at India’s top management institutes like the IIMs.