Instagram is a great marketing frontier for small businesses with the potential to bring new customers to the global level. Nearly 65 million monthly active users, 10 billion photos, and iconic logos make it an appropriate platform for small businesses. Instagram, as a photo-sharing platform growing continuously, so does it impact users’ buying behavior? We should know that Instagram isn’t just limited to sharing pictures, but it grabs new customers for your business. If you’re a small business owner and looking for top Instagram marketing ways, you’re at the right place. We have gathered the best strategies from SMBs in this article. Here are the top ways to use Instagram as a marketing tool. Let’s get started!
Make a Business Account
First of all, you have options to make a personal or business account while joining Instagram. A business account is appropriate for businesses as it assists you to view analytics, link your account with a Facebook page, run a paid advertisement, and makes it easier for the follower to reach you.
Fill Your Bio
Instagram offers 150 characters to tell about your business to followers. Use this space accurately keeping the goals in mind. You can add hashtags in the bio that help people find your profile. Don’t forget to include a link to your official website.
Keep an Eye on Your Competitors
Are you not sure where to start? Just analyze what other small businesses are doing on Instagram and identify their strategies. Take note of the content they post, the hashtag they use, and their visual language. You can also check how many followers do they have and how much engagement do they receive on posts to get a better idea of where you need improvement.
Build Content Pillars & Plan Content
Once you’re done with Instagram marketing research, there is an important step to follow before planning the content. Creating content pillars is a key to grow your small business on Instagram. Streamline some themes for the content you plan to post while scheduling content. Now it’s time to decide what type of content you need to post and be strategic about it. Plan in advance what you’ll be posting on weekly basis.
Use Hashtags Wisely
Hashtags are a significant factor of Instagram marketing for small business. They make it easy for people to discover the content even they don’t follow your page. Research has proved that using 7 to 30 hashtags per post is good for marketing, but it varies based on how many followers you have. Instagram recently updated a feature allowing you to see how many people reached your post with the help of hashtags.
Upload Instagram Stories
The story feature on Instagram makes a splash and helps small businesses to stand out from the crowd. Stories appear at the top of the feed and are more dynamic than regular feed posts. You have a choice to post multiple stories a day. Make Instagram stories an integral part of your marketing strategy to scale your business.
Offer Discounts and Deals
Nothing can excite potential customers to follow your Instagram account except offering discounts and deals. It will not only grab new customers, but you will notice an increase in followers as well. Loyal customers who are already familiar with your business are more likely to engage with you.
Use video
Instagram isn’t limited to uploading photos, but you can also upload videos. Videos are more engaging, and there are different ways to post them. You can share a clip of up to 1 minute on the feed and a 15 seconds clip on the story. There is another feature IGTV that helps you to post videos of up to 10 minutes.
Actively Engage
An Instagram tip that is imperative for businesses and influencers of all sizes is to actively engage with others. Follow interesting accounts, likes, comments, and share their posts. The more they get notified of you, the more they will think of you. It’s the best way to grow your small business on Instagram.
Paid Advertisement
Even with all the above strategies, it’s still the biggest challenge for small businesses to reach a new audience organically on Instagram. A paid advertisement is the right solution. Instagram ads help you to target a specific audience, improving your experience to reach the people who are most likely interested in getting your services.
Geotag Your Posts
It’s a powerful way to grow your Instagram small business followers in the local area. You can tag location in feed posts and stories. Geotagging will show your content in the search results when people actively search from your area. To geotag a feed post, you are required to add your location on the caption editor page. If you want to geotag a story, you can use the location sticker.
Use Highlight Feature
This feature enables you to choose from a range of stories to display on the top of your profile. They are the best way to showcase your business services, and to get more followers.
Give Shout-Outs
Shout-outs are one of the unique strategies of Instagram marketing for small business. Now you can stand out your business from the market with this feature. When you give a shout-out on Instagram, make sure to tag all the accounts properly.
Feature Your Instagram Account on Website
Is your small business Instagram account linked with the official website? If not, do it right now. Make it easy for your customers to find and follow your account through the website. This is an imperative Instagram marketing tip for small businesses to gain followers.
Post Regularly
It’s beneficial for business accounts to post regularly, but make sure that the post is engaging and relevant. It is a great chance to showcase your brand personality and connect with potential followers, so utilize it with the right content. Many businesses use Instagram stories as another way to make their content striking. You can achieve this by creating short videos, and act as an extension of an account that meets your brand image.
Use the Save Post Feature
Now you can save content on Instagram similar to Pinterest and Facebook. Save the content that you like most with Instagram ‘save’ feature. Whereas it is not required to create collections, it’s just suggested. Some collection ideas are:
- What are your competitors posting about
- Visual inspiration for pictures
- Quality captions
- Potential influencers
- Future posts ideas
- Customer feedback
Connect with Influencers
As a small business, you have enough budget to invest in influencers for Instagram marketing. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t connect with them. Find local influencers around you that meet your requirements and engage with their content frequently. Once you get connected with them, ask them to send them a free sample for PR.
Sum Up
Instagram is the best platform to raise your business awareness and connect with new customers worldwide. As you can see, there are so many opportunities available to scale your business on Instagram. Start experimenting them these strategies and find which of them goes right with your small business.
