Instagram is the big ‘it’ in the social media platform, and growing your business in it is the right move that every entrepreneur should make. But most often, things are easier said than done.
With millions of content creators and thousands of businesses, both big and small, there is no doubt that the platform has exceeded its saturation. To make a mark and stand up against the tide, you need to focus on things at a deeper level than just creating the handle and posting things. You must optimize your account to maximize its reach for your business venture to grow and bear fruit in the virtual world!
Why Instagram in 2021?
It is hard to believe that the platform has completed a decade in the virtual world. Though it picked up steam about half a decade back, 2020 was the year where the social world experienced a boon in terms of users and engagement rates. And the best thing? It will keep on rising!
Most of you may doubt its power and may fear it fizzing out like other media giants, but thanks to thousands of algorithms and constant upgrades, Instagram is here to stay for a long time.
Statistics give a mathematical insight into the words, but what is better than your daily life. Sit back and recall how much time you spend on the platform scrolling through posts, watching the reels, and browsing through product catalogs redirected from Instagram. Do you know any of your friends who don’t use Instagram?
The most likely answer to the former is half an hour (I am downplaying it to the maximum!), and the latter is no. This is a minimum requirement to meet the statistics that boast of 140 million US users!
Well, the magic of Instagram is not restricted to the US continent, but far across the globe and amounts to over 1 billion users per month even while competing with the other virtual giants like Facebook and YouTube!
The way the platform has moved up its game!
Over the years, Instagram has added many additions to the platform and made it more inclusive of what it earlier was. Starting as a photo-sharing media, Instagram added IGTV (a variant to YouTube), stories, and, most recently, Reels (alternative to tik-tok), making the platform one point that meets all demands.
And this is good news to all the entrepreneurs who are aiming to spread their business on it. Yes! You guessed it right!
INSTAGRAM PROVIDES YOU MULTIPLE WAYS TO PROMOTE YOUR BRAND ON A SINGLE PLATFORM WHICH HAS A FOOTFALL CROSSING BILLIONS!
An in-depth analysis of strategies you should make
Though Instagram may come across as your ideal platform, there is no doubt that the market will give tough competition to the people. Thus, it is necessary to make suitable optimizations so that your posts reach larger potential users and increase your business reach.
A closer analysis on how to set up your profile and navigate through the traffic in the virtual world will help you tackle the competition better and make you open to changes.
Set Up A Business Account
A business account will help you get better features that will help you advertise your business.
Specially made to meet the marketing and promotions demands, the business accounts let you enjoy a lot of benefits like analysis of your posts and your engagements, setting up shop on Instagram, or choosing paid advertisements for your business through the app itself.
It lets you share more details in the bio section, giving an instant realization to the viewers what they should expect and the trust associated with the transparency.
Set Your Goals
Defining your goals implies that you set the what and whatnots you want to gain from the platform. The platform can be used in multiple ways, either to create a brand image or to promote it, or as the only medium business. Being sure of what you want from the platform helps you form a better strategy and utilize maximum features.
For example, creating a brand image may stop at posting aesthetically arranged photographs with detailed captions. But, when it comes to promoting it, you must make more effort to sell your brand by collaborating with others, sponsoring it to influencers, and other marketing strategies.
Build The Face Of Your Brand
You are what you put out there for others to see. This is especially important if you have a small-scale business or have just ventured into it. Since people have little to no insight about the company and its products, you must bare yourself to the maximum to appeal to the target audience.
The profile you create becomes your brand’s ultimate face, and people associate it with the company. Hence, be careful of how you build it and the values you want to be associated with.
Learn Who Are Your Competitors
Learning from the competitors is the biggest lesson, only second to learning from your failures.
The competitors who have a well-established business on the platform will give you an understanding of the ways things worked out for them and things that did not. Their evolution over the years, visible by the posts, will give the trajectory of growth that they experienced. Thus, giving you the chance to adopt the things that worked for them and avoid the mistakes that they made.
Though it goes without saying that failures are a part of your success story, avoiding the common mistakes will help you be at par with your competitors in a lesser span of time.
Analyze Your Target Buyers
Instagram has over a billion users per month. Though most users belong to the age group of millennials and gen Z, people of all age groups are slowly warming up to the platform.
It will prove highly efficient for your business if you define your target audience. This will prompt you to chart out contents specially crafted for them, thus attracting them to your handle.
For example, if you are marketing your range of cosmetics or apparels,
Posts! (Content Driven + Visually Aesthetic)
Instagram is a content-driven platform. The more you post, the more visible you are.
However, the posts must be in alignment with your goal. Post aesthetically rich and content-driven photographs that capture the essence of the product or the services you offer.
Using certain color themes, filling up random posts with words or questions, or arranging your feed gives an ambiance and makes the viewers more attracted to the profile.
Take a look at @loreal or @bts.bighhitofficial, and notice how differently they fill their post to keep them attractive in their own way!
Caption The Thought
This space allows you to give the visitors a first-hand insight into you, your brand, and your principles.
Be vocal about your belief, aim, promotions, and share your success stories. A look into the trends has witnessed longer and longer captions. Make sure you use the words to highlight your brand.
Your brand should take priority. Fill up the loose ends with the ideals you want your brand to associate with. Hence, create the ideal post.
Hashtag
Hashtags are the tiny drones that lead the people with common interests back to you.
Ideally speaking, make use of the maximum hashtags that you can use (right now, it is 30!). Each hashtag should be ticking on one or other dimensions related to your content. This ensures that you are covering all possible angles of promoting the post.
Create your own unique hashtag along the way so that people are guided to you only through it. Using popular and generic hashtags may not drive enough users, as you would not feature as the top post but get featured as one among millions if you are still at the growing stage.
Therefore, experiment with hashtags from time to time to make sure that they drive users to you and stick to the one that drives you, maximum users.
Create Shareable Content
Content that can be saved and shared instantly helps to increase the reach more manifold than content that cannot be.
Hence, while making them, bear in mind your ultimate goal is to spread the posts to maximum people.
Stories
Engaging with the users is the next big step that you should take to promote your business. And Instagram stories provide you a platform among many others to share things.
The stories sit at the top of the home section, giving you a chance to get featured in the section of random people who can be your potential consumers. Since stories are short format and can include videos or pictures, you are free to experiment with things that you are best at!
It is a great way to interact with your followers by engaging in fun questionnaires or to drop an announcement of your product launch.
Reels
Reels are the next big thing on the app for engagement. With a separate dedicated section and quality content, users spend more time on it than the post.
A replica of the tik-tok reels is a platform where you can have fun and reach a wider audience as you can get featured in them even if they don’t follow you. And there are no rules that decide the success other than quality content. Thus, you have a fair chance as others on this relatively newer platform. You can get viral at any point in time and get swept up in the wave.
IGTV
The IGTV version requires a longer video, which may not be feasible for most of the business. However, if you are in a business that requires creating longer video content for advertising or as content on other platforms like YouTube, sharing it on IGTV may be a good idea.
Moreover, you can guide the people to your IGTV streaming by putting up teasers on your stories or pinning them in your highlights.
Go Live
Going live is another way to increase your engagement. Engaging with the audience in real-time helps you understand them and vice-versa better.
Make the live sessions interactive and enjoyable for the viewers by collaborating or inviting prominent people to them.
Spread the love, a.k.a. SHARE
Share your content with people worldwide. There are multiple social media platforms. Marketing your Instagram handle on public platforms will help you amass the support of people and your friends.
Don’t be shy of sharing your content with your friends, families, and their friends. Increasing your reach implies that you would need the force to be with you!
On Instagram, follow handles and brands that you look up to. Share your content/product with them and form an amiable relation with fellow competitors. Don’t be hesitant to take the first step to begin a conversation. Use direct messaging to contact people wherever you can; otherwise, opt to reply in the comments section.
Partner up with brands and influencers
Brands and influencers who have already crafted their niche and established themselves will help you spread your brand to a wider audience than what you can approach now.
The established influencers have their fanbase who believe in them and look up to them. Partnering with them will help to put your brand across to their followers. Generally, companies sponsor products to the influencers who subtly advertise them. You can also experiment in various ways, like holding a live session with them, collaborating with them at an event, or announce giveaways with them.
Engage with the users
Engagement is the actual index of your growth. More the engagement you are gaining, the more your business is growing on the platform.
All the points mentioned above, from posts to the collaboration, are means to engage with your followers and users in one way or the other. Remember, it is the engagement that actually translated to your revenue. Hence, never leave your potential consumer feel neglected!
Have fun
Instagram is a place to have fun. It is an amalgamation of vibrancy and free-spirited nature. Hence, don’t restrain yourself to certain notions. Neither strain yourself for the perfect finish each time. The viewers also would enjoy the behind-the-scenes and the goof-ups! Hence, try a range of areas to connect with the consumer and form a fanbase. Interact with them with random questions or surveys, or do a countdown to the post. Make it fun and — to make people take an interest.
Be consistent
Frequently update the posts so that your followers have things to look up to. Once things become stagnant, you no longer remain in the attention of the users. Hence, keep track of your posts and use them to keep people updated about the recent launches, upgrades, or even behind the scenes of what you are coming up with!
However, being consistent does not mean you must compromise over the quality!
Giveaways and discounts! (yes! We all love it!)
Who doesn’t? Hold giveaway sessions and ask people to join in them. This is a great way to generate engagement.
Setting up criteria like follow or tag a friend to enter the contest will increase the followers and pique the interest of people. Create a coupon or voucher and post them on stories for people to buy. It is amazing how much you can make use of different features and filters for the same.
Instagram ads
Directly advertising on the platform based on the location or the users’ activity can help you increase your outreach. Switching your account to business one will help you avail this option.
Pay a nominal fee to advertise your product by the algorithms of Instagram across its platforms like stories, feed, and the explore section.
Bonus tip
Buy success! It may sound cynical, but that is the paradox of the world we are living in. The result measures success.
An instant way to climb up the ladder after following the above tips is to buy the followers, likes, or views from the service providers like https://buylikesservices.com/. Admit it or not, making a breakthrough in the tough waters is highly unlikely even after following the right steps at each point.
Until and unless you want to be lost in the fierce competition around you, step up the game by buying followers from a trusted site that will not only help you increase the visibility with the numbers but also is a call away to address your grievances.
You never know when the virtual world will warm up to your presence. Apart from waiting with patience, the only alternative is to create the future yourself. Buying followers and likes will help to increase your visibility across the platform, ensuring a wider reach at the initial stage itself. In turn, this helps you get the organic followers either by the engagement that the bought followers create or by the numbers you buy. The little investment will save up the years of waiting and give you time to engage in other fruitful endeavors.
Conclusion
Establishing yourself in a saturated market may come across as a fierce challenge. But following the checklist and with the smart move, you can make your dream growth on the platform, which is loved by all.
