Introduction
Some 1 billion people use Instagram every month mainly to share photos and videos. However, the social media platform offers immense opportunities for businesses to grow their brands and sales. But how can you make the most of Instagram? Brands that are well established will hire a reputable digital marketing agency to do the legwork for them. However, you too can take advantage of this platform and grow your online audience. In this article, we share tried and tested tips for getting instant views and growing your online presence. Read on to learn more.
1. Be Clear About Your Goals for Using Instagram for Business
The first thing you want to do is to set out clear goals that you want to achieve from Instagram. You don’t want to put your time and money without knowing what it is that you want to achieve. Some of the goals could be:
- Increasing brand awareness
- Selling your products and services
- Showcasing the values and culture of your company
- Building a community.
It helps to have these goals documented and then monitor them continuously. You can view these goals as a formalized gut check. Goal-setting encourages you to be more deliberate with the content you post on Instagram as you can always refer to them and make sure everything is aligned to your goals.
2. Optimize your profile
One rule of using Instagram for business is to consider your profile as your homepage. Instagram gives you 150 characters, a few action buttons, and a link to pitch for customers. Therefore, use your profile properly to form the best impression of yourself.
The first thing is switching to an Instagram business profile. The reason is that business accounts have additional features that allow for the expansion of your profile, tracking content performance, ad selling on Instagram.
After that, create a killer bio. A well-crafted bio should include the following at a minimum:
- Briefly describe what your company is involved in
- Show customers your business category, for example, restaurant, shopping & retail, or business service, among other things.
- Contact information including your email address, website, and phone number
- A tone showing off the personality of your brand
- A link
Your bio is the only opportunity to include a clickable link, which makes it a valuable asset. You can choose to have a static link that leads users to your homepage or change it frequently to reflect the content that’s in it at the moment. Another option is to use a link-in bio tool like Shop Grid. These tools enable you to insert your link more strategically by turning one link into a whole catalog of resources.
Another thing with Instagram business accounts is that they allow you to access Action Buttons. These are extra clickable buttons to use for specific CTAs (calls to action) like Contact, Book Now, and View Shop, among other things. Action Buttons not only make interacting with your fans easier, but it is also a vital way of getting more links to your Instagram profile.
Lastly, do not forget to factor in your grid. It ensures that your recent posts will appear in the form of a grid when users visit your profile. When you use a grid, do not share posts that are visually similar back-to-back. This enables your grid to appear more attractive.
3. Post consistently
There are many benefits of posting regularly and one of them is that you will appear in the timelines of your audience. Instagram works overtime to ensure that it only shows users the posts that they will most likely enjoy consuming. That means it checks for relevant and recent content.
Using machine learning, the Instagram algorithm studies the activity of each person and tailors their timeline accordingly. It’s impossible to like what you cannot see, and that is why you need to post regularly to ensure that your content appears in the feeds of other users. This greatly increases the chance of those people engaging with you. Your content will appear in your followers’ feed more frequently if they interact with it.
One way to be in charge of your content is through scheduling posts. Schedule it in batches to avoid your account going dark on your busy days. Another advantage of scheduling is that it makes experimenting with posting times easier. No single time for posting on Instagram has yet to be discovered. However, some times are more ideal than others. Hitting the sweet spot ensures that your post will be seen by the highest number of audiences. A good scheduling tool allows you to set up desirable time slots. This way, the only thing you do is add content to the queue and the posts will be placed into the next slot available automatically.
4. Engage with your community
The fact you are using Instagram for business does not mean you should now use your account as a complete sales pitch. Instagram, first and foremost, is a social media channel. For this reason, make sure you are using it to socialize.
If a user goes to the trouble of sharing their thoughts and opinions with you, make sure you get back and show you are listening. Reacting to the comments of your users is a surefire way to build a robust Instagram community.
When you have put out a post, use captions to ask your followers questions and encourage them to comment. Although it feels a little cheesy, it is pretty much like a one-on-one conversation. It makes you appear as though you are talking to someone and not at them.
Conclusion
Initially started as a photo-sharing platform, Instagram has grown to become a vital business marketing tool for all kinds of industries. Instead of just sharing your videos and pictures, you can use Instagram to grow your brand and increase sales. You can choose to do it yourself or hire a specialist digital marketing agency like followers.io. Not only will it guarantee instant views for your brand but also make you appear professional.