It is the year 2020 and if your business is still not on Instagram, then you are seriously missing out on something worth considering. No matter what product or service you offer, whether you own a small, medium or large business entity, Instagram is an apt place to promote your business. Due to the increasing popularity of this social media platform, Instagram has become a significant part of our everyday lives. It is the latest marketing tool which a vast array of businesses use to attract potential customers and to maintain their relationship with existing customers.
Instagram strongly focuses on visuals and thus acts as an efficient medium to showcase a brand and its products. Not only that, but it also offers a range of features businesses can utilise for FREE, enabling a better focus of your online marketing budget. As it plays such a vital role in building an engaging online community, it would be wise to include Instagram to your marketing strategies in 2020. To make your work easier, here is a list of the top 10 marketing strategies on Instagram for a small business.
Add your contact information
Once you've set up an Instagram business profile, make sure to add all of your contact details to it. When people want to buy or know more about your products, they will look out for your contact details. Fill in your bio with accurate contact information such as email address, phone number, website link, etc. This will make it easy for your audience to reach out to you.
Know your audience
Before posting any content on your Instagram profile, make sure you know your audience. The more you understand the need and expectations of your audience, the better it will be to create appealing content. Once you start understanding your audience, you will be able to differentiate between potential buyers and audience which can help you enhance your brand.
Instagram offers several features such as Instagram Insights which allows businesses to check the Impressions, Reach, Website Clicks, Follower Activity, Video Views and Saves of their content. Additionally, it gives demographic information about the followers making it easy to establish the age, gender and location of your followers.
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Watch your competitors
If you are not sure about what content you should post, then check out the Instagram profiles of your competitors or businesses from your domain. This will help you discover the latest Instagram trends in your industry and will give you ideas to make exceptional content. Make a note of hashtags, the type of content and the visual language of your competitors. Additionally, you can look out for any weaknesses in their content which you can utilise to improve your content.
Define your goals
Once you know your audience, the next task is to define your goals. Creating a clear vision for the coming months and outlining realistic and specific goals will greatly enhance your Instagram marketing strategy. Many small businesses make clear goals and then build their marketing strategies around them. You can add goals such as increasing brand awareness, growing your online community, acquiring leads, enhancing social media engagement, increasing website traffic, etc. to your marketing strategy.
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Engage with your audience
Instagram marketing is not about spamming your followers feed with mere sales material. It is a medium through which you can engage with your audience and make an everlasting relation between your brand and your followers. So, be creative and create posts which are likely to draw the maximum number of shares and comments. As Instagram favours profiles that produce content with higher engagement rates, an increase in the number of comments and shares on your post will increase its chances to appear in a greater number of feeds.
Hold contests
One of the most efficient ways to increase engagement with your audience is by holding contests. People LOVE free goodies, so using competitions in return for some exciting giveaways can take your marketing strategy one step further. Hold simple contests such as “Share a post”, “Invite friends to follow your page” or “Caption this image” to draw the attention of your audience to your page, brand and products.
Make good use of hashtags
Never underestimate the power of hashtags to enhance the visibility of any Instagram content. Hashtags are extremely important as they make your content visible to people who do not follow you. Several Instagram users use hashtags to search for their desired content. So, make a note of all the trending hashtags in your industry and use them wisely to attract more audience towards your profile. You can also find out the number of people who found your post using hashtags and measure the engagement generated by your hashtags. This can be very useful in adjusting your Instagram marketing strategy.
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Add Call-to-action
Adding call-to-actions (CTA) to your posts is a great way to tell your followers what you want them to do after viewing your content. For example, if you want your followers to visit your website or buy new products from your online store, then you can tell them to find more information by clicking the “Link in bio”. You can even add “Promo codes” to your Instagram posts, so whenever someone makes a purchase using the promo code you will be able to track the source of the sale. When your page reaches 10,000 followers, you can also add 'swipe up' links to your Instagram story, which leads on to my next point...
Tell stories!
According to the latest Instagram trends, experts believe that in 2020, businesses will focus more on Instagram Stories to engage with their audience. Instagram Stories appear at the top of the follower’s feed and allows them to view several posts from the same user in a row. Stories help brands to showcase their personality and give followers an insight into their latest events, product releases, demos, etc. There is even speculation that Instagram favours profiles that make good use of both Instagram Stories and IGTV.
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Focus on wellness
Instead of only sharing promotional content on your Instagram feed, try to be sentimental and focus on the wellness of your followers. Do not miss any opportunity to share thoughtful and motivational content in order to build rapport and make your audience feel valued. As you align your strategy towards an intentional and mindful approach, you will see an increase in the number of your audience yearning to establish a relationship with your brand.
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Anna Clarke is the owner of online writing company 15 Writers. She is a successful entrepreneur with over 20 years’ experience in freelancing, academic dissertation writing consulting, specialising in Business, Economics, Finance, Marketing and Management.
