What to begin with?
Make a new Instagram business account. Make it popular and ask your friends and family to help increase its reach. They can put your page’s name and photos, and videos in their stories so other people can see your Instagram account. After that, you can follow the given savvy tips to grow.
Write a brilliant bio
It would take just two-tenths of a second for any Insta user to form an opinion on your personal brand online. It means your Instagram bio is incredibly important to make a great and everlasting first impression with your Instagram bio and profile content.
Your bio deserves much love as it is likely to be one of the first things Instagram users can see when they click on your profile. Such amazing info about you and your page will also play a key role in the actions a person would decide to take once they’ve landed on your brand profile, too. An amusing account could entice them to follow you, look through some more of your photo and video content, or even click the link back to your site.
A profile picture everyone recognizes
When choosing an Instagram profile picture, people need to recognize it when they visit your Instagram profile instantly. It means choosing one of them for most businesses:
- Logomark (the logo without any words)
- Logo
- Mascot
There’s definitely no wrong or right here. Do not feel you must limit yourself to one of the given profile picture options, but think about what will help viewers and other Instagram users visit your page to recognize your brand as the easiest and quickest.
Choose the color palette smartly
Some of the most famous and successful Instagram accounts use a select and specific color palette for their video and photos, helping them create a very distinct style. One amazing example of this is Not on the High Street, who use very light and soft colors and backgrounds on their images. Please surf that.
Stay consistent with your fonts
Text overlays on videos and photos have become increasingly vital and important on Instagram over the past year. Several Insta users and brand promoters use text to add subtitles to their videos (for viewers who prefer keeping the sound off).
If text plays a crucial role in your brand’s Instagram content, it’s important to re-think the font you’re using and how it would relate to the fonts used on other marketing materials or your website.
Make good use of captions
Captions are always a chance to please your Instagram viewers and enhance your content further. Brands use them in several ways. Certain creators choose to treat captions as a perfect place for micro-blogging and sharing stories.
Others use them to add a snappy and short headline to a post. Most others use captions to encourage replies and ask questions. The possibilities really are endless. What’s important is to ensure the caption is aligned with and goes well with your brand.
Keep posting consistently
Publishing frequency and consistency can help your audience learn about you and when to expect new content. Keeping a consistent schedule on your Insta account ensures you maximize engagement without hitting any stretches or pulls without updates. Any good Instagram strategy should clearly be outlining a target post frequency. It helps keep you on track.
Respond to the comments on your Insta posts
Responding to followers and their comments is a great way to build a lasting and strong community on Instagram. People who take the time to share their ideas with your account are important. So, you must tell them that your brand is listening.
Responding and listening to your audience can be a great way to create new brand advocates or encourage positive word of mouth. An Internet Advertising Bureau highlights that around ninety percent of consumers would recommend an Instagram brand to others after sharing views and interacting with them on social media apps.
Quotes speak to the audience
Quotes are incredibly amazing and also popular on Instagram and can drive a lot of viewers and engagement. Also, quotes can be a great way to reinforce the values and vision of your brand and what your Instagram account stands for. In a daily newsletter, The Skimm uses quotes on Instagram to share their stories. These are later featured in their newsletter. You can also try putting forth some relatable quotes.
Run contests and giveaways
Contests and giving gifts are a great way to build evangelism and increase engagement among your audience on all social media sites like Instagram. When done efficiently and properly, contests can have many benefits for your brands:
- Creating brand evangelists and building a stronger community.
- Increased awareness
- Incentivize engagement/ followers
News-related and timely content
Is there something going on around which is interesting and trending? Maybe it’s a holiday? National Burger Day? You can join the festive or special day discussion by creating something relevant to your brand and its story to maximize excitement.
When it comes to watching and jumping on trending stories, it is essential to think about how this new story relates to your Instagram brand and whether it would fit you to join the conversation, especially with its strategy.
Experiment with the content generated by others
As marketers, one should not only be focused on creating new and amazing Instagram content. We should also be thinking about creating opportunities and crafting inspiring experiences that would boost our community to create fantastic Instagram content for themselves.
Story takeover with other brands
A takeover on Instagram is a collaboration where you and another Instagram brand user appear on each other’s page or channel and share content to highlights and Stories. Takeovers can be understood as a cool guest joining your podcast or work, much like a guest post on your blog.
At Buffer, many people have experimented with a few takeovers with influencers and brands like Brian Fanzo, TrackMaven, where they took over the Buffer Instagram Stories as well as the Social Media Manager, Brian.
Experiment with zooming videos
Instagram users can now pinch videos and photos to zoom in and take a closer and better look. When you pinch to enlarge or zoom, the video photo expands in a lightbox. Then, it moves out of the original Instagram frame to take over the rest of your phone screen. These can largely help boost engagement on social media apps.
Be clear in defining your goals
All social platforms are great tools. But you cannot use those amazing tools effectively unless you know what you are trying to build.
Different marketers can understand Instagram marketing differently. Are you looking to:
- Increase brand awareness?
- Create an online presence for your business?
- Establish your brand as an industry leader?
- Sell products directly from the app?
- Get new leads?
You might even want to combine three or several different outcomes. However, unless you know your Instagram strategy and where it should take you, you’re not likely to get success here.
Create visually compelling photos
Instagram is undoubtedly a visual medium, so your posts and videos have got to look great. You do not need professional equipment for photography, but your videos and photos need to be well-lit, well-composed, and with minimum focus.
If you’re using several images other than photos, like animations or infographics, make sure they’re clear, crisp, eye-catching, and compelling.
More importantly, your visual content must be insisting. Your posts must engage all your Instagram followers. So, even if the photos are great and fantastic, they cannot take you to success if they don’t tell a story and excite people.
Your brand should have a ”look” on Instagram
Once you decide the type of content (videos and photos) to publish, you need to decide how it will look. Please check Creating an Instagram Aesthetic section and know how color influences brand recognition and buying decisions.
Your Instagram look should be amazing and consistent across all your posts. It will help followers easily recognize and open your content in their Instagram feeds. One great example of this feature is the Instagram account @thegorgeousgold. The photos have a consistent look, color scheme, and feel.
Wisely use hashtags
Hashtags are a great key way to boost or increase your discoverability and visibility. You can use up to thirty hashtags in an Instagram video or photo. But, in reality, you probably don’t wish to add so many.
It is recommended to use between five and nine Instagram hashtags per post. Hashtag stuffing is something you can use. It is a spammy tactic that turns all the followers off. Worse, if you use repetitive or irrelevant hashtags, Instagram users can choose not to see your photo or video content for that tag.
Make it very engaging
If you want sufficient engagement on all social media apps like Instagram, you have to make it engaging, too. It is wise to post quality content as it’s great, but if you never interact or ignore comments with any other Instagram profiles.
These people follow and appreciate your content or go through it to find shortcomings; you’ll have a lonely existence on Instagram. At a minimum, you should respond to comments users post on your daily feed. But also look for many popular accounts in your niche, try to follow them, and comment and like on their posts. Make your account on Instagram visible in a non-promotional way.
Use stories in a good way
Insta stories are amazing. The app added this feature so people could tell other Instagrammers about the kind of page theirs is. But, adding weird and senseless stories would decrease the reputation of your page on social media.
Half of the businesses on Instagram make good use of Stories. And they’re getting fast and fantastic results: Businesses post a third of the most-viewed Stories. Stories are a useful and essential part of a good Instagram marketing strategy.
After 24 hours, Instagram Stories will disappear. Followers expect them to be more raw and real than your curated content Instagram feed. They provide an opportunity to build strong relationships and connect followers.
Gift card button and sticker
You can now sell and present digital gift cards directly from your Instagram profile or story. It is a fantastic and innovative way to create a relationship with fans and followers and support you through difficult times.
You can add a gift card button on your Instagram page the same way you add any call-to-action button:
- Tap on Edit Profile
- Under the Public Business Information, tap on Action Buttons
- Under the option of Select a Button, choose your Gift Cards.
Add a gift card sticker to your Insta story. After that, select the photo for your story. Finally, add the gift card and sticker. If you don’t see these in your sticker tray, please search “gift cards,” and it will be visible if you have a business profile in your country.
Product launch anticipation with a sticker countdown
Another interactive sticker for Instagram stories allows you to create and continue excitement in advancing a special event or a product launch. The countdown sticker alerts your important and biggest fans to mark their calendars and get ready when you’ve got something new and brilliant to offer.
Brujita Skincare has used the countdown sticker to announce its bi-monthly and other product releases. Since they are famous and always sell out, it is important to make sure all their top fans are in the loop for the products’ first access. It also ensures a flood of Skincare orders ready to go as soon as a brand new product goes live on their website.
Go live often
Your followers and lovers on Instagram must know that you exist. Going live is a good way to ensure your viewers have your presence. Instagram Live offers loads of good potential ways to connect with followers and fans in a real-time way. Please read How to use Instagram Live effectively. It is suggested there how Live can be a good way to interact. Here are some strategies:
- Offer a live behind-the-scenes look at any occasion or event.
- Collaborate with an expert industry or influencer using the “Add a Guest” option to be live and interact with the audience together.
Share a tutorial or host a workshop.
Host a Question and Answer session.
Talk to a client or customer.
Interview a team member.
Setting up a shop on Instagram
Remember how it is said you should get an Instagram business profile? Here’s one more authentic reason why: You need an Insta business profile to set up a shop on Instagram, one of the most amazing social media apps.
This feature is not available for personal accounts. But, it allows you to create your own mini or large online store on Instagram.
You will also get a “View Shop” button on your Insta profile page, so followers and fans can tap through to your online shop without even viewing any specific post.
Even better, there is now a Shop tab on the Instagram Explore page, where followers and users can search for newer and innovative products or see products from older and tried brands they already interacted with.
Experimenting with reels on Instagram
There is another new tab on the Instagram explore page: Reels. These are multi-cut videos that are the answers of Instagram to TikTok. But they are not just for dance challenges.
Brands also use reels to stand out from their crowd. Second Shot Coffee is a page that uses Instagram Reels in both paid and organic posts. The ad got nearly forty thousand impressions, and the organic post had nearly two thousand views.
Post at the right time
The Instagram algorithm is something to be familiar with. If you post at inappropriate times, you will not get the desired likes and engagement.
Around 258,956 posts from eleven different industries are analyzed by Instagram experts. They found that there is the best time to put forth Instagram pictures and posts, even though Instagram feeds are not chronological any longer. From 9 in the morning to around one in the noon, you should post about tourism and travel. Beverage and food can be posted at twelve pm.
Influencer internship
Working with an Instagram influencer can help to enhance and build your credibility while exposing your great Insta brand to a new audience. CivicScience found that nearly one-half of daily Insta users have made a purchase on these pages because of a good recommendation from an influencer.
One easy way to begin with influencer marketing on social media apps like Instagram is to host a takeover on Insta. It means that you invite a great influencer to take over your usual Instagram account for a period of time, like a special event or a weekend.
Tasting Table regularly invites home cooks and chefs to host takeovers of their Insta account, sharing recipe posts in the stories and news feed.
Using Instagram ads
The surest way to get your Insta content in front of a wider and new audience is to run an ad on Instagram.
Once you have defined your target audience, you can use that Insta information to target your general ads based on:
- Demographics: Like age, gender, and language.
- Location: State, city, province, country, and so on.
- Behaviors: Both on and off Instagram.
- Interests: Such as other accounts people follow, ads they click, and apps they use.
Analytics can refine your Insta strategies
No matter how good you already have been at Instagram marketing, you can always be better. One of the best ways to improve your business results is to learn from what you’ve already done. And the best way to do that is to study all of the important information available in Instagram Insights.
- Text-based images and quotes: Play with all the text to create visually interesting content with no videos or photos required.
- Behind-the-scenes photos and videos: Give followers a look at your storefront, your office, or your manufacturing process.
- Instructional posts: Teaching followers and fans how to achieve a goal is about as compelling as it gets.
- UGC and Regrams: User-generated content or UGC is by nature compelling and authentic.
- Videos: The maximum length of any video post on Instagram is sixty seconds, but you can go much more longer with IGTV.
- Reels: See the reels tip for more details on the multi-cut video format.
Know your Insta audience better
Preliminary research (even if little) can help you figure out who you can best be there on your Insta and reach when you are thinking about how to market on a social networking app like Instagram. For example, one post on Instagram demographics would show that:
- The United States (US) is the largest Instagram market.
- The most active Instagrammers are between eighteen and twenty-nine.
- More urban residents use Instagram more than their suburban peers.
But that does not mean you should only use Instagram to try to reach urban Americans in their twenties. Instead, you must define your target market so you can create content that speaks directly to that audience.
Conclusion
With an advertising audience of more than one point one-six billion people, Instagram offers dramatic reach for several brands. And the potential reach of the whole Instagram marketing has grown substantially this year—increasing by seventy-six million people in just the last one-fourth part.
Fully ninety of Instagram users follow at least one business. And it’s not just consumer products that benefit. More than thirty-six of B2B decision-makers use Instagram when researching services or new products. Through this article, you can enhance your Insta business and take it to the highest level.
