Does Instagram fit your brand’s needs? Yes! No matter what sector you work in, you should use Instagram for business purposes. It is evident that brands are investing in this medium given that there are more than 25 million Instagram business accounts and that over $7 billion was spent on Instagram advertising in 2017.
Others, however, choose to stay away, and one of the main reasons for this is that they mistakenly think they have nothing to post.
The opposite is true, as you can see.
There is room for both modern B2C businesses and established B2B businesses on Instagram. Avoid assuming that your company has nothing aesthetically appealing to post on instagram. You’ll discover there’s a tonne you can post on Instagram with a little imagination and forethought.
Regardless of your industry, there are nine good reasons to use Instagram for business.
Things to remember when you start instagram business
1. Customers Demand it
Customers will Instagram search for you.
They may expressly look for you using your name or hashtags associated with your brand or area.
In either case, not being able to find you is unpleasant.
The best practise is to create an account that, at the at least, contains your business name, contact information, and a few posts to showcase your brand, even if you don’t intend to be highly active on Instagram.
In any event, you don’t want their search to turn up nothing, or worse, point them in the direction of a rival.
2. Stay Motivated
The existence of an Instagram account, particularly one that has been verified, is another indication of the trustworthiness, reality, and openness of your company.
Having yet another social media account where your customers may learn more about your company is quite beneficial if you just conduct business online.
3. Customers and Users feedback
Imagine that you provide a client with great service or that a client is ecstatic about a product they recently purchased from you.
They might publish the story on Instagram, and their gushing review would be priceless.
That kind of activity is one that you definitely want to tag yourself in so that it can appear on your Instagram profile.
However, if you don’t already have an Instagram account, the customer will never be able to tag you, which is a tremendous potential lost.
4. Your products can be tagged and sold.
Sharing Instagram images and videos that contain links to your items is a huge advantage if you sell goods.
Because Instagram gets its product information from your Facebook page, you must build a product catalogue there in order to use this feature.
5. Use Instagram SEO and Internal links
You can display your white papers, infographics, blog pieces, and any other online content from your website as well as from your Instagram account.
Instagram is an additional social media platform where you can direct visitors to your website.
Additionally, you may turn on sharing to Facebook or Twitter directly from Instagram, or you can use a social dashboard to quickly post the same message across multiple social networks.
6. Managing Your Online Reputation
Having an Instagram account is essential for managing your online reputation and optimising your brand name for search engines.
Due to the importance of your online reputation to your company, you must constantly monitor the results of client searches for your company’s or brand’s name.
Your social media pages typically appear on the first page of search engine results along with your website.
Because of this, even if you don’t intend to use social media frequently, it’s excellent practise to set up business profiles on all social media platforms (including Instagram) using your brand name.
By building profiles and material that link to your business, you may exert as much control over the search engine results page as you like.
In the event that you do receive poor internet press, your website and social media profiles will have a better chance of ranking above any damaging news.
7. Track your competitors in Instagram
Simply put, if you don’t have an Instagram account but your rivals do, you’re giving them the upper hand.
If you’re at a loss for what to post on Instagram, observe what your rivals are doing.
You’ll get lots of ideas for things you can do from it as well!
8. Social Media Networking
Instagram is a helpful networking tool as well.
You can like, comment on, and mail other like-minded companies or people in order to develop a relationship with them over time through fruitful exchanges.
This will provide you a foundation on Instagram in case you ever want to connect with them in person or run into them at an event.
9. Recruiting New Talents
Every time someone is thinking about joining or working for a new company, they want to know what it’s truly like.
A excellent method to showcase your company culture on Instagram (and other social media platforms) is to transparently share behind-the-scenes photos.
Make a successful Instagram marketing strategy.
Every marketing platform where you have a presence needs its own unique strategy, and Instagram is no exception. Due to Instagram’s emphasis on visual content, a significant portion of your strategy must be on locating or producing the photos you publish.
There are a few other things to keep in mind, though.
1. Identify your targeted audience.
Make sure your target audience will be interested in the material you create first. But in order to do that, you must first identify your target market. Look at your current customer persona, then look for profiles on Instagram that fit that persona. Observe them and evaluate the information they share. Examine the brands they follow and the sharing of material they make.
Utilize those evaluations to inform your personal Instagram content strategy after that. Keep track of which of your posts, stories, or reels receive the most views so you can start producing more content that is similar.
2. Setting Targets and KPIs
What do you want Instagram to do for you? The most likely goals can like these:
- Sales
- website visitors
- Engagement
- Followers
- User-created material
- Influencer collaborations
You can easily complete all of the aforementioned tasks, but you must change your Instagram strategy for each one.
For instance, if you want to use social media to increase sales, you should create an Instagram shop and tag your products in all of your posts. If increasing website traffic is your aim, use the link sticker in your Instagram stories as well as a link in bio page with several links to your website, blog posts, and sales pages.
Create a strategy that satisfies your goals and KPIs after outlining them.
3. Monitor your stats and performance.
You have access to built-in insights, data, and analytics with your Instagram business account. Use this to your advantage to monitor the effectiveness of your strategy. Look at your most popular posts, the level of interaction with each one, information about your followers, and more.
You can also use social media analytics dashboard to gain even more detailed information about the performance of your Instagram account:
4. Make a publication timetable and content calendar.
Choosing the types of content you’ll produce, creating a social media content calendar, and starting to schedule your posts are the final steps in developing an Instagram strategy.
With the help of a social media calendar, you can track and test various tactics to determine which ones connect best with your audience. As a social media manager, you can avoid spending every day searching for inspiration by creating a social calendar months in advance and scheduling posts beforehand. In comparison to posting in a reactive or impromptu manner, it will also help you establish greater consistency in terms of your brand voice and style.
Improve your Instagram account for business.
You can do a lot with a short amount of space by creating an Instagram business profile. Instagram users can go there to find out more about your company, browse your website, or even make an appointment.
1. Create an interesting bio.
People who read your bio were interested enough to go to your profile. So, grab their attention and convince them to follow you.
Your Instagram bio should sum up your brand in 150 characters or less, especially if it isn’t immediately apparent, and highlight your brand voice.
Here are a few short tips before you read our comprehensive guide to writing an excellent Instagram bio for your business:
- Get to the point quickly. The goal is to keep things brief and sweet.
- Line breaks are used. Line breaks are a useful tool for structuring bios that contain various types of information.
- Embrace emoji. The right emoji can be used to reduce space, add personality, support a point, or call attention to crucial information. Be certain to strike the ideal balance for your brand.
- Insert a CTA. You want folks to click the link, right? Inform them of the benefits.
2. Improve your profile picture.
The majority of firms use their logo as their profile photo while utilising Instagram for business. To improve recognition, keep your photo the same throughout social media networks.
The size you should try to upload is 320 x 320 pixels since your profile photo displays as 110 x 110 pixels but is actually stored at that size. Make sure you consider the fact that, like the majority of profile icons, your photo will be surrounded by a circle.
3. Put one link in your bio.
This is the only place on Instagram for accounts with under 10,000 followers where you can publish a natural, clickable link. Therefore, make sure to add one! Include a link to your website, most recent blog post, ongoing advertising campaign, or unique Instagram landing page.
4. Add relevant contact information
It’s crucial to include a direct contact method on your profile while using Instagram for business. Include your phone number, email address, and/or home address.
Instagram adds relevant call, text, email, or get directions buttons to your profile when you add contact information.
5. Set up the action buttons.
Customers can schedule appointments using buttons on Instagram company accounts. You must have an account with one of Instagram’s partners in order to utilise this feature.
Tap Edit Profile from your business profile, then scroll down to Action Buttons.
6. Add Story covers and Highlights
Another approach to make the most of the space on your Instagram business page is with Instagram Story Highlights. Whether they are user-generated material, advice, recipes, or commonly asked questions, organise Stories into stored categories on your page.
Whatever you choose, use Highlight covers to give your profile some gloss.
Analyze success and make changes.
Monitoring outcomes with analytics tools
You must monitor your success in accomplishing your objectives while using Instagram for business.
You get access to Instagram’s built-in analytics feature if you have a business profile on the platform. Remember that Instagram Insights only records data going back 30 days.
There are a number of alternative analytics tools that can track data over longer time periods, automate reporting, and simplify comparing Instagram metrics with those of other platforms.
Learn what works using A/B testing.
Examining the performance of various content types is one of the finest strategies to improve your results. You can improve your overall strategy as you discover what functions best for your particular audience.
Here’s how to conduct an Instagram A/B test:
Select a component to evaluate (image, caption, hashtags, etc.).
Using the information from your investigation, produce two versions. Make no changes to the two versions aside from the one component you want to test (e.g. the same image with a different caption).
- Monitor and evaluate each post’s outcomes.
- Pick the winning option.
- To see if you can get better results, try a minor variation again.
- To create a library of best practises for your brand, spread the knowledge you gain throughout your organisation.
- Replicate the procedure.
Conclusion:
Because social media is a real business booster, most businesses use sites like Instagram to reach out to new target markets and progressively increase their consumer base.
The obvious fundamental advantages of using Instagram are increased visibility and new lead generation. The network offers you many more privileges in addition to these benefits, though. We covered eight unforeseen advantages of using Instagram for business in this article.
