By The importance of your Instagram account would rise when you own an Instagram business account which you are using to promote your business, a brand, or even a product. This way, you are using Instagram with a purpose. The purpose to grow your business and get more people to know it and to make it more successful. This highly depends on the engagement you get through your Instagram business account since engagement is the key to success and becoming popular on Instagram.
Do I need an Instagram business page?
This question has surely come up to your mind that “If I want to promote my business on Instagram, do I have to switch to a business account?”. The answer is definitely YES!
There are currently more than 25 million business accounts on Instagram. If you aim to promote a business on Instagram, the first thing you need to do is surely to have an Instagram account and switch it to a business account from a personal one. Instagram business accounts have some great benefits for your business, which a personal Instagram account cannot provide. Below are some of the advantages of switching to an Instagram business account:
- You can see your Instagram Insights
Instagram insight is the best feature of an Instagram business account would provide for you. Instagram insights is an in-app analytics tool that Instagram would make you able to access only if you have a business account on Instagram.
The Instagram insights would provide so many useful information and analytics on your followers, posts, and stories, which can be very handy when trying to grow your business on Instagram.
- You can promote your Instagram posts and Instagram ads
Instagram ads are much like Facebook ads, so It has one of the most powerful advertising tools with which you can run an ad and then track your campaigns later.
After you switched to a business account, you can promote your Instagram posts to get more reach and engagement, and as it is reported by the users who have done Instagram promotions for their businesses, it has a great result and leads to a rise in the account’s engagement.
- You’ll get the contact button
One of the other great features you’ll gain access to, after switching to a business account, is the contact button on near the top of your Instagram account. You can add your phone number or email address and also directions in the contact button.
Add Links on Instagram Stories
I’m sure you have always wanted to add links to your Instagram stories since it would be awesome if you could redirect your followers directly from your Instagram stories. It has now happened, and as soon as a business account reaches 10k followers, they can share links on their stories.
What are the benefits of using Instagram for business?
If you have decided to start your own business page, I have to tell you that you have made a wise decision because being on Instagram is really beneficial for your business and can help your business to be noticed. There are several reasons why introducing your business on Instagram can help it to be more successful, and some of them are:
- Promoting your business through visual marketing
I’m sure you are also aware of this fact that images and visuals are much more useful than just text and paragraphs when it comes to Instagram marketing and Instagram is somehow wholly visual, and it is based on sharing images and videos. We have always been told that “one picture is worth a thousand words” So when you want to use Instagram marketing to grow your business, you have to use attractive pictures and videos to capture more attention to your account. People love visuals and would be more interested in interacting with you when you run a business account with user-friendly visuals about your business.
- Instagram is the king of engagement
It does not require a vast knowledge of lots of studies to know Instagram has more engagement than any other of your social media accounts. This can be known by just taking a look at how many likes and comments a picture gets on Instagram comparing it to the same image on other socials. This means that people are more likely to engage with your content when shared on Instagram.
- You are much more visible
There is no strict algorithm on Instagram for showing your posts to your audiences, and when you share a post with relevant hashtags, it will be shown both on every single one of your follower’s feed and on the list of your chosen hashtag’s posts. The only thing that might keep your post from showing up to others is to get shadowbanned that it can easily be predicted and avoided if you learn some information about the issue.
Your posts are always alive when shared to Instagram. By this I mean it is not like tweeter that your old tweets get archived, and they don’t get lost so far down your stream, like Facebook and they all always visible for the people who are interested in seeing them just need to scroll down your profile to gain access to all your previous content.
- Your customers are already on Instagram
Instagram has more than 1 billion users, and it is yet growing daily. With this massive number of users, a lot of your customers are already on Instagram waiting to get to know your business more and to know any news and updates on your job.
Instagramers are so active and curious, so a lot of accounts Instagram maybe your future customers and all you need to do is to introduce your business to them and to give them more information on what your company offers and its advantages for people.
- You can engage your followers in a more fun way
Instagram has made marketing much more fun by rolling out interactive features now and then and by giving out useful updates for all kinds of its users.
By taking advantage of some of Instagram features, you can make your followers engage with you more in an exciting way. For example, it is proved that Instagrammers love to interact with stickers on their Instagram stories. By stickers, I mean that kind of interactive stickers like emoji sliders, question stickers, poll, and quiz stickers.
These stickers make your audience able to give out their opinions on something or express how they feel about a specific subject related to your content. So if you want more organic engagement on Instagram, and you want your followers to feel how much you care for them and their opinion, keep interactively using your stories using different stickers.
- Gaining more trust for your business
For sure you already have some customers before deciding to make an Instagram account for your business, and the reason you have decided to promote your content on Instagram is to gain more customers and to make your older customers trust you and become more interested in what you offer.
With Instagram, you can strengthen that trust by taking your customers and audiences behind the scenes of what you do and how you do it to make your customers have more confidence in your business. This way they’ll purchase more reliably from you, and they are sure about the way that they bought their products or services are produced, and they’ll use it at ease.
How to promote your business on Instagram?
Now that we know how switching to an Instagram business account can help us in growing our business, it’s time that we talk a bit about the steps you need to take to promote your business on Instagram. There are several ways to consider and apply for your Instagram business growth, and here are the most effective ways to promote a business on Instagram:
- Using relevant hashtags
Using hashtags Is the key to more reach on Instagram because when you choose hashtags for your Instagram posts and use them in the captions, you are exposing that post to all the people who search that hashtag. Your post will show up to every person who searches those hashtags, and they are 100% interested in the subject since they searched it up.
- Show what you do in a creative way
It is obvious that you need to introduce the service or product you offer, to your Instagram followers so that they can get to know your business more. And for the people who already know your brand/business, you need to make it more tangible and interesting, so they’d become a customer and interested in your business.
Customers are always curious to know where their products come from or what is the origin of a business and what is going on in the company and all that so just take them behind the scenes of what your business actually does and how it is done using Instagram stories, live or even IGTV. You’ll see a great reaction and a huge increase in your engagement.
- Keep engaging and interacting
In order to be seen more by the relevant people of your niche and to be noticed by the accounts who might be interested in similar businesses as yours, you need to maintain a good and consistent interaction.
You have to search for your desired hashtag, which is also among the hashtags you choose for your posts, and try interacting with the people who use those hashtags. Keep liking their posts, follow them, and leave comments for them.
When you engage with accounts, you make them engage with you as well so they’ll pay a visit to your profile and if they find your content useful and exciting they’ll follow you and after some times which you provide them with the right information and posts about your business, they’d become a fan or a customer.
- Be on the Locations
Adding locations to your Instagram posts is something that so many users might have overlooked until now, but that can be useful as well as all other Instagram options. In fact, every little to big choice on Instagram can be used in a very effective way to bring engagement to your business.
You need to remember to tag your location, or the location the picture/video was taken. So many people search their favorite or local locations to see relevant businesses or content, and this will help you to get noticed easier. And also if the area of your business is located in a tourist destination then you are just on your way since so many tourists search to know a place and its businesses before going ther4e and you can appear on the Instagram of their destinations business and attract those tourists as upcoming customers.
- Encourage your customers
You need to pay a significant amount of attention to the people who are already your customers or have previously bought something from you or used any of your business’s services and are now your followers on Instagram. Encourage them to show off the things they have obtained from you and re-share their experiences with your products and tag you on that story or post. This can be considered as another way of advertising.
You can even offer further discounts for them and make them more appealing in sharing their experiences with you and your business on their accounts. Then all you have to do is to re-post the posts you are tagged in and help your business reputation grow much more. And this also builds up trust for the followers who have not yet interacted with your business and know less about it.
- Get Instagram to market your business
Another option so many businesses use to grow on Instagram is to get Instagram itself to promote their account on their chosen target audience’s feed, which I believe to be the right way for more traffic for a brand. On the Instagram business website for advertising, you can get all the information you need before choosing Instagram to sponsor your business content for you. You can get various adoptions such as:
- Stories Ads
- Photo Ads
- Video Ads
- Carousel Ads
- Collection Ads
- Use Influencer marketing (You might need to pay)
Another great way to promote your business on Instagram is to get an influencer to promote your business, brand, or product, which is believed to be way more productive and costly than Instagram promotions or sponsored ads.
Influencer marketing is a popular and common way of marketing on Instagram these days, which so many businesses use to grow their business and to reach more people. You can choose an influencer that has the nearest niche as your business. For example, if you run a fashion business, then a model would be your best option for influencer marketing.
It is an effective way to promote your business on Instagram and brings a lot of followers and engagement to your account quickly, and in return, you surely have to spend some dollars. Since Instagram has announced that It would soon Let Advertisers Boost Organic Posts as Feed Ads, the importance of Influencer marketing has increased since you’ll just pay your influencer and they can later promote your paid ad to the Instagram feed of users that are neither your followers nor the Influencers.
How to find the right influencer to market business?
- Search for relevant Influencers
The first thing you have to do is to find an influencer that has the same niche as you or it is somehow related to your business. For example, you are a business offering makeup accessories and beauty products; it would be so awkward to get an influencer who is a fitness tremor for marketing your products because this way people would know this is just a promotion and the advertiser actually knows nothing about the thing they are advertising.
- Pay attention to the Influencer’s engagement
Now that you have a list of the influencers you are considering to pay for promoting your business, you have to start examining their engagement so that you can choose the best one.
Note: Engagement is way more important and effective than just follower numbers, so do not decide your Influencer based on their follower numbers.
A right Instagram influencer is the one whose followers trust and frequently interact with his/her content, such as commenting on them or liking their posts. When the engagement rate of Influencers is high, it means that their followers love them and would be affected by their advertisements so that your business account has more chance to be visited by them.
- Post good content and have a specific theme
Posting good content such as high-quality photos and videos are one of the most important things you need to consider while trying to promote your business on a platform like Instagram which its users care a lo about visuals what they see.
Try to post interesting videos and pictures of the things your business offer and make appealing videos which would be interesting to watch and remember to make it a bit funny. People love the things which can bring smile to their faces. And also you need to maintain a theme which is not boring. You can not only keep posting your products and services your business offers; you need sometimes to vary the content you share.
Try to have a contest or have giveaways once in a while to keep your followers happy. Once in a week post a motivational quote or a funny picture or video, but remember they need to be related to your content and not completely out of the subject because that would be awkward!
- Get help from Instagram automation and post scheduling tools
As I mentioned above, you need to be very active on Instagram, and you have to keep a consistent interaction on the platform to get noticed and to attract more people to your Instagram account, and that takes a lot of effort and time.
You need to post at the best time to get the most engagement. With an Instagram scheduling tool, you can schedule your posts to be posted at their best time to get the most engagement, and you’ll have a well-organized and user-friendly profile.
One of the most popular Instagram scheduling tools is Instazood, which has some features, not all the other similar tools have.
Instazood is not only a post scheduler but also a very powerful and safe Instagram automation tool that would automate all your Instagram activities and would fulfill your daily need to be interactive and active on the platform and it make your way to promote your business much more convenient.
Usually, people who run businesses do not have that much time to devote to Instagram daily trying to grow their business accounts that’s when automation tools would be very useful, especially for Business Instagram accounts.
Nowadays, with traditional advertising on its deathbed, social media advertising is quickly becoming the primary outlet for all marketing. There has been an increase in the number of social media outlets over the past few years, and the number of people using them has skyrocketed.
Moreover, the usage of social media shows no sign of stopping and is going to increase among the masses with every passing day.
Everyone these days has access to the internet on the go, with smartphones becoming more readily available with every passing year. People rarely use the traditional call and messaging features on their phones these days, choosing to use services like WhatsApp and Messenger instead.
Another rising trend is the sharing of public content. This includes social media applications such as Snapchat and Instagram. Both allow users to share photos and videos, the former temporarily only while the latter permanently as well.
Both are seeing a vast amount of attention from the masses, and while the former has its unique use, it’s the latter that happens to be the one everyone needs to pay attention to. Instagram is quickly becoming the one social media outlet that matters.
Being owned by social media pioneer and giant, Facebook, Instagram has existed since the start of this decade. It has quickly risen in popularity and importance for users and now sits at 800 million plus users. The number of people using Instagram is staggering. Out of those 800 million, 500 million plus people log into Instagram every single day. There are an enormous 4.2 billion likes on the application every single day from users all over the world. There are 95 million plus posts on it every single day, with users sharing videos and photos.
To localize the numbers, nearly 30% of all citizens of the United States happen to have Instagram accounts, with 77 million Americans using the application at least once a month. Beyond that, more than half of the millennial population in the country use Instagram every single day.
The usage of it also happens to be almost equal for both genders, with males representing 51% of the user base, while females make up the other 49%. Hence, the number of people using the application regularly is nothing short of remarkable. These numbers make Instagram the top social media outlet currently, and by an effective margin.
Why you need Instagram for your business?
A business is always looking to attract businesses. The hunt for new customers to use products and services is in the common creed of the occupation. Beyond looking for new customers, a business also wishes to communicate with existing customers and inform them about any changes, deals, and more.
Traditional marketing had been this existing link between businesses and customers. However, with the rise of social media, a new link has been established. Social media offers a far more direct link and allows businesses to directly interact with their customers. With that in mind, here is how Instagram is so important for businesses:
1. Enables businesses Reach a Large Number of People
One of the critical aspects of marketing is reaching people. With the figures mentioned above, you can see just how much of a reach Instagram allows businesses. Hundreds of millions of people are available through a series of 5 or 6 clicks.
This huge user base is bound to increase over the coming years, and with people being added to the user base, the number of people businesses can reach is just immense. The potential can say to be unknown.
2. Allows Businesses to Focus on Millennials
Millennials are the people who use Instagram the most. Scrolling through their Instagram feed is an everyday task for them. The millennial population also happens to be the target of numerous businesses, With Instagram, such businesses can market directly towards millennials on a platform that millennials use every single day.
This direct link to millennials can be handy if exploited smartly and in the correct manner. Hence, for businesses who happen to have millennials as their targeted user base, using Instagram to its full potential would be the best marketing solution and plan.
3. Keep Up with Rivals
The number of businesses actively using Instagram is rising and is projected to increase manifold with every passing year. Instagram offers a great opportunity for new companies and businesses and allows them to target customers with what Instagram offers immediately.
With the number of companies using Instagram increasing with every passing moment, you need to keep up with the trend and with your rivals as well. Instagram is the competing ground where marketing strategies can allow you to reach uncountable people. And all of your competitors are naturally moving towards just that.
4. Allows You to Interact with Customers
In the old days, companies had to use surveys in order to obtain customer opinions. With the rise of social media, businesses can now interact directly with customers. The comment feature on Instagram, for example, can allow customers to share their thoughts at any moment.
A single comment on a post will enable the customer to review not only a product or service but also ask questions. And by replying to customers, a business can make sure that they are satisfied or not. Beyond that, finding out about what customers need has become more comfortable, saving businesses money and effort.
With so many benefits, Instagram is a highly important platform for all businesses in the current day and age. Businesses can market their services and products directly to a huge number of people and share information at any time with just a few clicks.
The idea of sharing information and answering questions also allows them to improve customer satisfaction and take care of customer needs. Considering all this, your business needs to start being active on Instagram immediately.
Conclusion
All the nuances about the social media algorithms and their hidden tricks are known by true social media experts. If you are one of them – you have a job of the future, but if you are struggling to find your working place – there is one of the resources you may check out and I am pretty sure that will be helpful.
Jooble is the third-largest employment site in the world and is working as a job aggregator. So, all the possible job posts that exist on the internet and are active, will be saved there. So, instead of scrolling all the career pages of your dream companies – just go to social media jobs here and check out the openings as fast and as easy as it was ever possible.
If you aim to grow your business using Instagram, you have made a wise decision since Instagram is a great platform for marketing businesses and already a lot of businesses are active on Instagram and trying to promote their products and services. You only have to apply the tips above and after sometimes you will see a great rise in your business success.
