With the advent of social media and the kind of popularity it holds today, it would be extremely beneficial for a business to create a strong social media presence. Instagram is one of the most widely used websites and would help in creating a strong buyer base. Especially if the target audience for the business is millennial or Gen Z buyers.
The Facebook owned platform, Instagram gets 1 Billion (2018 reports) active users on Instagram per month and 500+ million daily users. The brands have seen 4% of average engagement from their followers which is much more than the follower's engagement rate of Facebook or Twitter which is around 0.1%. In fact, brands get 10x engagement on Instagram from all around the platform than that they get on Facebook. In other words, it is better for more visibility of the brands.
With an Instagram business profile, you can see real-time data on how your stories and promoted posts perform, get insights into how followers are interacting with your content and unlock features only available to businesses that make it easier to get noticed and drive sales. Creating a business profile on Instagram is free and can help you a lot to understand your audience.
So, lets talk about how you can use Instagram for your business, and aspects that you need to keep in mind. It will help you in understanding the features of Instagram for Business.
How to use Instagram for Business
- Create an Instagram Business Account
- Make Your Feed Visually Appealing
- Marketing On Instagram
- Write An Interesting Bio
- Use Geotagging
Tools Provided By Instagram To Monitor Outreach
Benefits Of Using Instagram For Business
How to use Instagram for Business
Create an Instagram Business Account
If you already have a personal account and the content of that profile is engaging and appropriate for your brand. Then you can simply convert that into a business profile. After that, you will be able to access all the features and tools that are available only for Instagram business account.
You can easily convert your personal account into a business account by following the below steps:
- In the Instagram Mobile App, go to your Profile.
- Now go to "Settings"
- Go to "Account"
- Tap on "Switch to Business Account" or "Switch to Creator Account" as you like.
This will convert your profile into an Instagram Page. It is a helpful feature of Instagram for startups.
Make Your Feed Visually Appealing
Users of Instagram are the group of a new generation of people. As Instagram is mainly an app to share photos, users need to see your product before they even visit your website. It is important to upload photos of your business and products in a way that is eye-catching and stands out from the plethora of content that is thrown at users. It is essential to maintain a colour scheme and aesthetic that makes the grid layout visually appealing.
When users find a post or image that is appealing, the key instinct is to open your profile check out further products. A typical user views an image for about 3-4 seconds and on finding it interesting, takes 6-7 more seconds to skim through your profile. So, it is important to make these few moments count.
One should market their products keeping in mind current trends, and the latest viral happenings, as they bring viewers easily. People tend to engage more with the posts related to the latest trend. And they help brands to get more shares from their followers. That is why it is essential to monitor these trends. Videos, though can give across more information are less engaging for users. Putting up photos, especially of high quality will increase your engagement. Typically, users view about 10-20 seconds of a video. So when uploading one, businesses should try to put more colourful content at the beginning of their videos, and try to keep the viewers engaged.
Marketing On Instagram
Keep in mind, your page is not isolated on Instagram, keep it up to date with the latest hashtags, trends and content that may help sell your product and gain mass approval for your products. Some of the biggest world wide trends were "Fidget Spinner" "Mature Bag" and the latest social media trend is based on iPhone 11's design. When users come across your page, catch their attention by producing content that is both relevant and contributes to your business.
- Use hashtags
A major way of attracting users is by using hashtags that are widely used, and viewed by many users or those which are relevant to your business, this helps your page visible to a greater number of viewers. Never forget the caption of your photos or don't take it lightly, describe your images and videos creatively, use hashtags or ask the viewers questions, use the caption to keep viewers engaged. An inspirational quote or a pop culture reference helps you score extra points. - Stories
Use Instagram stories effectively to display new additions to your product line or promote your business. Be creative, original and crisp with Instagram stories. - Story highlights
Maintain clearly defined important highlights as a part of your profile as they are the first to attract attention. Make them seem interesting and use these to especially highlight any offers or competitions that your brand is holding.
Vidhi Punamiya
Write An Interesting Bio
The first aspect of your account that users will view when they visit your profile that is the bio. Keep the bio crisp and to the point, describing your business, but do so in a creative manner, one that shall intrigue users to further explore your account and your website. Add a link in your bio, it could be the link to your website or one that features your latest or most popular product. This makes your business easily accessible to the community. Use points to give information about yourself and use attractive emojis. Or go to the extreme opposite direction and give a one-line introduction if you’re daring to be pretentious and if it works with the aesthetic of your product.
Make the logo of your company your profile photo instead of changing it with each new product to give your brand space to become known and recognized by users. Often seeing the same logo, again and again, may instil a feeling of familiarity amongst the users.
Use Geotagging
Geotagging is a feature on Instagram. With geotagging, you can tag the location of each of your image. You can also tag your work address or the address where your business is placed. It can make easy for the followers and users to know the location of a business. To use geotagging, you can simply press the “add location” button and then you can type an address or select an address if it is available.
Tools Provided By Instagram To Monitor Outreach
- Actions taken from story: You can view the number of people who visit your profile through your stories by swiping up and checking insights, this helps you view the nature of content that attracts users and what is helping you gain more popularity. You can also promote the stories as your post so that a larger audience views your content.
- Post insights You can check the number of people that view your page, who among them already follow you and the number of people you have reached through the explore page or the tags you have used. This helps one optimize their business, brand and Instagram account to produce content that is mass approved and will help you increase sales.
- People Visited your Page: Instagram also shows how many people have visited your profile in one week on your home page.
Benefits Of Using Instagram For Business
- Your audience is already there: In June 2018, Instagram had reached one billion monthly active users, up from 800 million in September 2017. Instagram has become one of the most popular social networks in the world. So, if you have a proper Instagram strategy then there is no limit of success for your business. This is the best platform where any quality service or product can go viral within a short period.
- Build your brand reputation easily: No matter how big or small your business is, if you have the confidence in your product or service then you have the key to success. Instagram has allowed the businesses to grow equally for everyone. You just have to take advantage of the built-in features at the right time and you are well on way to success. Interact with more and more people, try to post quality content regularly and make sure the images you are using is in HD. Instagram prefers quality more than quantity so make sure your content is visually appealing.
- Generate revenue directly from Instagram: Few year back there was a limited opportunity for businesses to get success on Instagram. But now Instagram has allowed businesses to earn money directly from Instagram. There is a new feature Instagram has launched that is the shoppable post where you can add tags to the products in your photos with links and that will include product description, price and the "shop now" button or link. Your audience can directly buy the products from your online store.
- Show your creativity on Instagram: Instagram is the best place where you can show your creativity and also how attractive your brand is. Show your enthusiasm while posting content, make it as much appealing as possible. You can also organize some contest, giveaways, special offers and many more. This will help you to attract more and more visitors to your profile and also to your online store.
- Promote through influencers: Influencers are the people who have a big following on social media and other online platforms. When you start a venture and you want to market it to a large audience, influencers are the people who can help you out with this. Many influencers promote brands and products to take them to the growth path. They have the audience who follow them from the heart and also loyal to them. So here you have the opportunity to build the reputation of your brand.
Conclusion
Keeping in mind all these points will help increase outreach and sales of the product, despite other businesses being low on Instagram engagement. Instagram is a crucial marketing tool for startups. Using Instagram for business will help gain your brand publicity and a larger market. Many businesses are solely based on Instagram at this age. Using a platform which is this popular will add to your startup.
Parnas Ghosh
FAQs
What is Instagram for business?
Instagram is a popular social media platform that can serve as a valuable marketing tool for your business. You can create a business account on Instagram by first creating a personal account and converting it.
What are the benefits of Instagram for business?
Benefits of Using Instagram for Business:-
- Learn What Your Customers Like
- You Can Present Products or Services
- Build Customer Relationships
- Drive Website Traffic
- Reach New Audiences
- Make Brand Ambassadors
What are the advantages of using Instagram?
Advantages of Instagram:-
- Extend Your Reach
- Instagram Helps Celebrities and Fans
- Tools Exist Which Make Succeeding on Instagram Easy
- Building Engagement is Easy
- Marketing Opportunities Galore
Piyush Mishra
Author: Niku Mandal
Source : https://startuptalky.com/instagram-for-business/
Date : 2021-05-25T11:48:00.000Z