Many brands are now realising that Instagram marketing can really help to generate brand awareness and work as an effective part of your marketing strategy. Owned by one of the most powerful and influential social networks – Facebook, there are also options to advertise your business via promotional posts on the image sharing site. If your business offers aesthetically pleasing products, Instagram could be a great tool to use as part of your digital marketing strategy.
So where should you begin with generating a following and targeting your customers on Instagram? Read on to find out our digital marketing experts’ top tips for business page beginners…
Research hashtags
Much like Twitter, you can expand your page reach on Instagram by using relevant hashtags. Use the ‘explore’ page to find other accounts similar to yours and see what hashtags they use. If your competitors are active, monitoring what they do can also be useful.
Create a ‘theme’
This may not always be possible, depending on your business and the products you have to show, but accounts with ‘themes’ tend to be popular and visually pleasing. A ‘theme’ is essentially keeping the content on your account consistent in terms of colour and styling. If your company has colours that are synonymous with your brand, use them to your advantage!
Connect your Facebook account with your Instagram for advertising
Most people are familiar with Facebook advertising, but did you know you can also run Facebook ads on Instagram? There’s no need to have an Instagram account either, as adverts can run with a call to action encouraging users to ‘learn more.’ If you’re not convinced Instagram is a great way to reach your customers, experimenting with an advert could save you valuable time.
Make sure your Instagram account is a business page to unlock analytics
Your Instagram account will be a personal account under your business name until you reach 100 followers. When you reach this milestone, it’s possible to request your page is converted to a business account. This enables you to easily add contact details for your business to your page and access a wealth of analytics showing who your audience are and how many people have seen your content.
Engage with other relevant brands, influencers and followers
You’ll see a better return on your engagement on Instagram if you’re consistent and also engage with other people’s content regularly. Liking pictures and leaving comments can be time consuming but will also help you build a following and get your page noticed. If you would like to start working with bloggers and influencers, Instagram can be a great place to seek out those most relevant and to also see who has the most engaged audience.
Utilise stories and go live
Using video if you’re a beginner can sometimes seem daunting, but that’s where Instagram stories come in. Stories disappear after 24 hours, and due to the fast paced nature of the platform videos don’t have to be fantastic quality to work on the platform. Made up of snippets of photos, video clips or interactive ‘boomerangs’, stories allow you to show what you have been up to over a period of time. Similarly, if you have something you want to share there and then, going ‘live’ and giving your viewers an insight in to your day is a great way to capture your audience in real time.
