Current Market and Dominance of Instagram
Before getting insights into Instagram’s marketing strategy and how to promote our business, let’s see the robust ecosystem of IG. With tremendous growth and trend, Instagram is the leading engaging social media platform. With 500M+ monthly active users, people are sharing 100M+ photos and videos daily.
From MNCs, SMEs to Startups, companies use Instagram as the best weapon and make a significant return on investments by branding and marketing. It has 800M+ active monthly users, 65M+ photos are getting uploaded each day, with the daily “likes” of 1.6B+.
In a short period, Instagram attracts 80% of the total audience from Facebook. Whether it is selling a product or a service, or being an influencer, it has an immense and great opportunity. From celebrity influencers to micro-influencer, everyone is making huge money from Instagram.
But, reaching a particular level, you need to take care of certain things regarding the post, content, ad campaigns, followers. You must also be aware of which kinds of posts (Photos, Videos, creatives, Animations) will work more and attract more audiences.
Let’s get a complete detailed analysis, proven ways, and ways to market your brand on Instagram. Here is the perfect guide of things you should and must not do. Also, mistakes which you are not supposed to make, else it will cost you heavily.
Switch to Business Account ASAP:
First of all, before marketing and promoting your product or services, you have to switch your business account from a private account.
Switching on the business account is a straightforward and one-step process. Go to the settings and click on “Switch to Business Profile.” It is all that you need to do.
Three main reasons for switching to the business account and having a business profile are;
- Followers can click on your contact button to get in touch with you from your Instagram page just like they would from your Website.
- It allows you to create and publish Instagram “ads” without using FB tools of advertising.
- You will get access to Instagram analytics tools, which are known as “Insights.” It will provide the statistics of growth and pattern of total impressions and reach of your posts. It gives you an understanding of analyzing the data, tracks the behavior of your audience.
Relate Instagram Name with your Business with Short Description about Business:
Your Instagram account name must be directly related to your business. The image of your IG business profile must have a direct connection to your business. The titled description on the top of the Instagram account should be concise, attractive, and eye-catchy. With the minimum possible words, the specification must define your product or service offerings.
You should be consistent with your IG account’s photo and name because all your interactions and engagements of yours with the audience on Instagram will be accompanied by your IG account profile photo and thumbnail.
So, make it professional and decent, which can be recognized. If it keeps changing, then there are higher chances of losing followers. Brand image and recall value will also get diminished.
Link your Website below the description to Boost Traffic:
On the IG account, the only opportunity to drive direct traffic on your Website is “Adding your Website link right under name and description at the top of your IG page. Always include the link to the targeted landing page in this spot. If the audience finds the offerings of your product or services relevant, they will click on the link and go to your Website for inquiry or purchase.
Hence, you can drive high-quality traffic and a relevant audience by linking your Website to your IG account description box. You can change your bio or description anytime, anywhere based on your latest trend of offerings, but don’t forget to link your Website.
Focus on High-Quality Content Only:
It is a prevalent and silly mistake that most people make on their IG account. While promoting their products, they lack creativity and professional photos.
So, try to create high-quality content. It is factually proven that Instagram has 23% more engagement than content uploaded on FaceBook. But, you can experience it only when your creatives are of high quality.
Never crop or upload blur images. It will lose the credibility of your IG Account and finally will diminish your brand image. If you upload high-quality professional photos, then Instagram will automatically square your image within a 612* 612-pixel frame. Hence, keep your photo size 1024*1024. It will automatically reduce based on the IG parameters.
For rectangular images, you can use free applications such as InstaSize and Squaready. To get a competitive edge, you can use Instagram’s editing tools for more graphics and color combinations. For products are services, survey shows, “BLUE” is the most dominant color and gets 24% more likes.
Collaborate and Partner with Influencers for Greater Reach:
Nowadays, Influencer marketing is one of the best weapon and trending tools that Instagram makes for businesses to take advantage of.
Influencer marketing is a technique of promoting your business or brand by connecting with others’ Instagram accounts, who are ready to promote your brand in exchange for payment. Most commonly, it is done in the form of a sponsored post.
Influencer marketing can drive colossal Return on Investment (ROI) and help you to earn exponential growth. It can drastically increase the sales of your product or services.
Sometimes you might lose some money in influential marketing. But, you must understand that this is the investment in educating your mind, which will multiply your business’s growth once you learn. First, you should learn how to find accounts that would be a good match for what you’re trying to promote.
Most of the Influencers prefer that the brand should reach out to them directly. Directly reaching the influencers will save your cost or brokerage premium charges. The trend and behavior of influencers are represented on the table based on their preference.
| Partner with Influencer | |
| Ways in which you can work with an influencer and monetize at a considerable level | |
| Approaches to Work with Influencers | Percentage |
| Direct brand | 73.10% |
| Through Influencer Marketing Agency and PR Agency | 69.70% |
| Through Influencer Marketing Platform | 69.60% |
| Through an Agent | 17% |
| Through an Ad Agency | 16.80% |
| Other | 4.7 |
| Source: Altimeter |
Creative and Interactive HashTags #
Hashtags are among the most important marketing techniques to get greater reach, more engagement with the relevant audience. So, using # hashtags must not be done blindly. Try to come up with branded hashtags.
To choose branded and creative hashtags, brainstorm your keywords with your brand’s relevancy and research trending hashtags. Also, create your hashtags, which can lump all your uploaded content into a searchable collection.
Also, try to include your users’ content on your feed. Research shows, they feel honored and excited when any brand mentions them. If you do it, your users will circulate your post, and they keep checking your position. And you can get maximum user engagement.
Sometimes brands are using more than 30 hashtags. But based on the research of TrackMaven, it is found that posts with 11+ hashtags get the maximum engagement from a free Instagram follower.
Post at the Right Time in Right Quantity is one of the best Instagram Marketing Strategies
Don’t post content blindly on your Instagram Account. Time plays a crucial role while displaying. Make sure you are analyzing your user matrix and audience engagement. Also, do not over-post. The number of content must not exceed more than 3 in a day.
You can post a minimum of one content a day; 2 posts in a day are the most recommended, and the maximum number of posting content is 3. But, you should not post more than three pieces of content in a day. Otherwise, people will start unfollowing you, and you will lose the following substantial base in less time. So, don’t irritate your audience by bombarding them with the content.
Researches and Surveys shows; the most suitable and favorable time of posting content on an IG Account is;
According to the survey of HootSuite and Sprout Social, 8:00 AM- 9:00 AM is the best and most engaging time for the posts on Instagram. 1:00 AM-2:00 AM is the best time for 2nd post. Try not to go for 3rd post in a day. Most companies do not prefer posting three content in a day.
Highlights on Instagram Marketing Strategy
1. Brand of your IG account should include a website link, a short and catchy bio, and keep the IG Account fix’s image and name.
2. No blurry or low-quality content. Keep pictures high resolution. Always post high-quality content such as Photo, Video, Carousel/Dynamic Ads, Stories, Stories Canvas.
3. Use relevant, trending, and creative hashtags. Using 11 hashtags is the best and most engaging algorithm of Instagram. Invite brand ambassadors to share your brand.
4. Like your followers’ posts, use their brand as a hashtag in some of your posts.
5. Track your audience, and analyze your matrix to make the strategy.
6. Do not post more than three contents in a day. Also, try to post at the recommended time.
Also, Read Facebook marketing strategy from basic to advance
Thanks for sharing this informative post. I agree that content should be of high quality. Your content has to either inspire, educate, or entertain your audience. Whether you take pictures with an iPhone or DSLR, your photos have been able to stop people from scrolling passively on their feeds. If your goal is to organically grow your Instagram following, you have to give a reason for people to follow you. Providing value in their lives is one reason people will follow you. Make sure you’re creating content that brings something to your audience.
Just like Facebook groups, there are also Instagram groups that you can join and gain visibility for your business. There are tons of them, but it is paramount you join a group within your niche for the best result. A lot of newbies used the strategy and were able to get over 2,000 followers within a week. It all boils down to how you engage and contribute to those groups.
One of the best tips to grow your Instagram followers is to use a 60/40 rule as used by many professional digital marketing firms. The rule is; for every set of 10 pictures, six images should be about your brand, products or services and rest four should be about quotes, lifestyle, stock photos, and other user-generated content.
If you have a video that is longer than 60 seconds then make use of Instagram Tv. This format helps to keep your audience hook for a longer period of time and thus you have good chances of having increased conversion.
Embed the content in Q&A sites, Paid Promotions, Sponsored Content, hosting giveaways or reaching out to different bloggers and convincing them to include your content on their pages are some other strategies that can be used to increase Instagram followers.
I really enjoyed reading your post. It’s informative and interesting. Collaboration sounds a great idea. I’ll work on it. I hope I achieve my chosen end results.
Thanks, Michael Gray for your overall analysis and appreciation on this blog. And, great for sharing some more bites of wisdom.
If you are on Facebook and finding difficulty then go through with this https://www.theblueoceansgroup.com/complete-guide-to-facebook-marketing/
And let us know if you have any query.
Thanks again,
Sugandha
Like!! Really appreciate you sharing this blog post.Really thank you! Keep writing.
Thanks so much for the blog post.
I like this website very much, Its a very nice office to read and incur information.
Thanks so much for the blog post.
My Pleasure!