Instagram Marketing Strategy For Businesses: 14 Easy Ways to Ace It

Instagram has a massive advertising audience of over 1.16 billion users, giving Instagram business profiles a huge reach. And Instagram marketing’s potential reach has risen significantly this year, growing by 76 million people in just the previous quarter. Nearly 90% of Instagram users follow at least one company.

Consumer goods aren’t the only ones that profit. When it comes to investigating new products or services, more than 36% of B2B decision-makers utilize Instagram. In addition, Instagram has beaten Facebook in terms of engagement, generating 4x the number of interactions. These figures demonstrate why so many companies are eager to join the Instagram marketing bandwagon.

What began as a basic photo-sharing smartphone app has grown into a formidable advertising platform for marketers and company owners all over the world.

Developing a solid Instagram marketing strategy may be challenging, can be even more difficult if you are new to marketing and don’t understand how Instagram works. To conduct campaigns that result in conversions, you must grasp the ins and outs of the platform. You can build a powerful brand with an effective marketing strategy. 

This article will walk you through many nuanced and underlying aspects of Instagram marketing in a very adaptable and pragmatic way that can enhance the potential of your businesses to unprecedented proportions.

What is Instagram Marketing?

Instagram marketing is a sort of social media marketing in which businesses advertise themselves through the Instagram platform. If the phrase “promote their business” seems wide, that’s because Instagram marketing may encompass a variety of techniques and approaches that can be utilized to achieve a variety of business objectives.

When it comes to using Instagram for marketing, there are two major areas to consider: paid techniques such as advertising and influencer marketing, and unpaid methods such as generating organic content such as posts, Instagram stories, and comments, as well as connecting with other users’ material.

Selling your products or services, gaining more followers and interaction, developing relationships with potential consumers and other companies, and overall improving a brand’s reputation are all common commercial aims. We’ll get into the mechanics of how to create objectives and how to employ particular methods to achieve them a bit later.

Related Read: What Makes ContentStudio a Great Instagram Management Tool?

Understanding Instagram Algorithm

You may have come across the phrase “algorithm,” which is a concept that is commonly misunderstood. You don’t have to be an Instagram guru, but having a basic grasp of the algorithm may help you reach your goals faster and with fewer difficulties.

While some marketers perceive the Instagram algorithm as a foe, it is actually an ally. That’s because, like every other online algorithm, its ultimate objective is to provide each user with relevant, interesting, and engaging material.

Algorithms do this by monitoring their users’ actions and behaviors and then making educated estimates about what they will like to view in the future. If your material passes the “test,” you’ll be rewarded.

We could talk about the Instagram algorithm for hours, but the key point is that you should always, always focus on generating high-quality material that benefits your audience.

There will be no spamming postings or comments, and no material will be created only for the sake of generating anything. Always keep in mind what your audience wants and how you can best serve them via your efforts by being smart and strategic.

14 Hacks to Build An Effective Instagram Strategy for Businesses

Instagram is rapidly becoming a popular marketing medium. Instagram is currently used by many customers and businesses to sell their products. According to various statistics, about 60 million photographs are uploaded to this site every day. 

Instagram offers a wide range of benefits to small companies when their presence is well-planned and managed. If you’re utilizing Instagram to advertise your business, you’ll need a documented Instagram business marketing plan. Yes, even if you’re the only one in charge of the account.

According to Instagram’s own research, 81 percent of users say the platform aids their product and service research. You don’t want to lose out on a large number of consumers just because you aren’t engaged on social media. Continue reading for advice on how to make the most of your Instagram account as a small company.

1. Setting Up a Business Profile 

Make sure you have a genuine business profile – not just a personal page – before you delve into Instagram marketing. You’ll be able to make use of Instagram’s business marketing capabilities as well as Instagram Insights, which we’ll go over later in this piece. It’s also more trustworthy in the eyes of your viewers.

You’ll need two items to build an Instagram business profile:

a. An Instagram account, which might be a personal one you already have or one you’ve made just for this reason. For brand identification, we recommend generating a new handle with your company’s name.

b. Create a Facebook page for your business. This is required for Instagram verification, so go ahead and create one now. 

Here’s an outline of how to create an Instagram business profile without further ado.

• • • Log in to Instagram on your smartphone using your company’s handle. In the lower right corner, tap the circle icon.
    • A new menu will appear on the screen as the screen expands. In the lower right corner, tap “Settings.”
    • Then scroll down to “Switch to Business Profile” on the Settings page. Instagram will next prompt you to link your account to your Facebook business page and update your company’s public contact information, including its email address, phone number, and location.

Avoid putting personal information on your profile because it will be visible to the public. After that, you’ll be ready to use Instagram to market your brand.

Also Read: How to Create the Perfect Instagram Grid

2. Use Landing Page Strategy

Instagram’s single link field has prompted social media managers to go outside the box in order to maximize its potential. In articles, it’s become standard to refer to your “link in bio” and to utilize this link to serve up a landing page with a mix of new content and evergreen connections to your most essential product and service sites.

The landing page strategy is for you if your firm shares one link, share several links it wishes to present to clients, has multiple offerings, or all of the above. An optimized link for social media bios meant for landing pages may be created using a variety of branded link management tools.

SproutLink from Sprout Social makes it simple to create one by providing a landing page that mimics your grid and includes clickable links for each post to showcase and direct visitors to your most essential content.

Plus, you can optimize and plan the remainder of your material using Sprout’s Instagram publishing strategy. Small companies should provide the most important information, much as you would set up your profile with key company information.

3. Sort your business goals 

Your Instagram marketing plan will work best if you have a clear objective, pick specific techniques that will gradually build toward that goal, and measure your progress along the way so you can modify where needed, just like any other sort of strategy.

The foundations of your marketing strategy are your goals and objectives. For goal-setting, we like to use the SMART acronym:

• • • Specific: Instead of a broad aim, give specific figures and milestones.
    • Measurable: Choose goals that can be tracked and measured using analytics and insights.
    • Attainable: Be reasonable in your expectations. It’s quite unlikely that you’ll gain a million followers in a week. (Unless you’re an egg, of course.)
    • Relevance: Maintain relevance by staying up to date on your industry, business, and prospects.
    • Time-bound: Set a deadline for yourself to achieve your objective.

Also Read: How To Ace Instagram Aesthetics For Businesses

4. Determining Marketing KPIs and a Budget

What marketing objectives do you have for Instagram? Instagram is the ideal social media channel for many businesses to employ to raise brand recognition.

It’s critical to clearly outline your objectives and goals so you can use them as a foundation for evaluating your KPIs using a social media audit at the end of each month or quarter.

If paid social media is a component of your plan, make sure your budget is clearly defined and divided so you can take advantage of Instagram’s advertising possibilities, such as promoted posts and shopping features.

Related Read: 7 Brands that are Killing It with Their Strong Meme Game on Instagram

5. Identify your Target Audience

When considering how to promote on Instagram, a little preliminary study may help you figure out who you can target the most effectively. For instance, according to our Instagram demographics report, the most active Instagrammers are between the ages of 18 and 29.

The largest Instagram market is the United States. Instagram is used by more city dwellers than their suburban counterparts. That isn’t to say you should exclusively use Instagram to reach out to urban Americans in their twenties.

Instead, you should identify your target audience so that you can develop content that appeals directly to them. When it comes to choosing targeting choices for your Instagram advertisements, this will be crucial.

6. Content Strategy

As previously stated, you have various publishing choices for developing your Instagram content strategy. Choosing the appropriate ones is heavily reliant on understanding your target audience. Consider the following: What are the major demographics of my target audience?

What do they like doing, seeing, and experiencing? What appeals to and entertains them? How can brands gain their customers’ confidence and persuade them to buy from them? It’s likely that you won’t know all of the answers right immediately, which is totally fine.

It’s a process that you’ll get the hang of as time goes on. However, as you gain a deeper grasp of your target demographic and what makes them tick, your Instagram marketing approach will improve. Here are some suggestions for developing an effective Instagram content strategy:

1. Customize your Content with your Brand

Because Instagram is all about appearances, curating acceptable and relevant material for your Instagram marketing plan is critical. Consumers will pay attention to your feed, so make sure your photos are high-resolution, consistent, and follow a similar theme that complements your brand.

You may use third-party applications like Planoly or Later to get a sneak peek at how your Instagram feed will appear before it goes live.

Maintain a constant “vibe.” If your business is high-fashion, for example, make sure all of your photos are high-resolution and convey sentiments of elegance and refinement. Instagram is a fantastic way to let your real colors emerge if your brand is unique or amusing.

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2. Keep an Eye on your Competitors

If you’re just getting started, looking at what other firms are doing may be quite beneficial. Examine the best-performing posts from comparable companies, your largest rivals, niche leaders, and the platform’s most popular accounts.

This competitive research will alert you to significant trends, best practices, and little-known Instagram secrets and hacks that will propel you to the next level.

3. Adhere to a Content Calendar

Make a social media content calendar so you can keep on top of your Instagram content strategy and make sure it’s consistent and coherent. To begin, plan and schedule at least three Instagram posts every week and write down all of your content for the following month.

Make use of free Instagram templates that follow typical post styles and popular posts from other companies if you’re seeking inspiration or having problems filling in all the blanks. You may use a service like ContentStudio to schedule automatic posting for your social channels if you truly want to remain on top of things.

4. Keep Track of Your Progress.

Instagram Insights is a free tool that anybody with a business profile may use. It provides you with a useful overview of your account’s main performance indicators, such as how much attention your posts receive and how engaged your users are.

You may also examine demographic information about your Instagram followers, which can help you discover your target audience. While the built-in analytics tool isn’t particularly extensive, it’s a great place to start.

Related Read: Social Media Marketing for Restaurants

7. Using Hashtags

Hashtags appear to be almost everywhere on the internet these days. Instagram hashtags, when used in your marketing plan, provide a clear message to consumers that your posts are relevant to what they’re looking for. Indeed, many people search for material only based on hashtags.

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If your postings are on a popular issue, be sure to use the hashtag linked with it. This can help you get your message in front of those who are truly interested in hearing it. Other amazing tools, such as Keyword Tool, can automatically generate hashtags based on your keywords.

Many of these tools provide some free results, but more comprehensive listings need a paid subscription. Creating a branded hashtag and using it regularly is also a good idea. This hashtag might include the name of your firm or the name of a specific campaign, event, or promotion.

8. Using Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories feature had been used by over 500 million users as of January 2019. Because they can only be 15 seconds long, they expire after 24 hours, and they aren’t featured on your main profile or feed. The psychology makes sense: they’re a more thrilling and transitory method to share with your followers.

Stories are a valuable complement to your Instagram marketing plan since they allow you to touch upon topics that are more timely or in-depth, or that don’t quite merit a full post.

9. Instagram Live for Broadcasting

Instagram Live, as the name implies, is a feature that allows you to interact with your audience in a real-time “live broadcast” style. This is a very useful tool if you’re attending an event or talking about something essential.

The nice thing about Instagram Live is that your tale will appear first in your followers’ Story feeds, and they’ll get a notification when they open the app that it’s occurring.

However, tremendous power comes with great responsibility: only utilize this function if you have really valuable material to provide, otherwise, you risk alienating readers by wasting their time.

Related Read: Instagram Alt Text: A Complete Guide For Everyone

10. IGTV for Long Videos

IGTV was created specifically for long-form videos, despite the fact that each Instagram Story can only be 15 seconds long. These may last anything from 10 minutes to an hour for accounts with a large following.

It’s akin to Instagram’s version of YouTube. Users may use IGTV to search for videos that interest them, as well as receive suggestions based on their previous behavior and activity. This ensures that people are exposed to material they will enjoy.

If you’re just getting started, IGTV might not be the best option for you. However, if you work for a media firm or create long films in any other capacity, it may be a great tool for getting your point through and captivating your audience.

11. Partnering with Other Businesses

Collaboration with another company to hold a contest or giveaway may be extremely beneficial to your brand. The idea is that if your customer profiles are comparable, you’ll both get high-quality followers.

Request that everyone who joins the contest ‘likes’ the post and takes a secondary action, such as tagging or following.

12. Instagram Shoutouts

Another version of the reposting strategy involves shoutouts. This is where you ask another business in your industry if they would like to post your content, and in return you post theirs. The cool part of it is that you can give and receive shoutouts in various ways.

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This is a fantastic Instagram marketing approach that helps both the company and its partners, who see a big increase in their following and credibility as a result of the campaign.

13. Influencer Takeovers

Influencer takeovers are the next item on our Instagram marketing checklist. This is the point at which you connect your company with a powerful figure in your industry. If you’re selling athleisure clothing, for example, you might team up with an athlete or fitness model.

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As the influencer announces the Instagram takeover in the days leading up to it, your brand will be exposed to its followers. Signing up for influencer marketing platforms will help you identify relevant firms and individuals with whom to collaborate.

These are web-based solutions that automate the finding, screening, and reporting procedures, allowing you to concentrate on building influencer connections and planning effective takeovers.

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14. Striking Captions

When bored or stuck in a dreary daily routine, many individuals look through their Instagram accounts. Create fascinating Instagram captions to entice and get people to follow you.

The objective is to communicate the story or emotion that your film or image represents. If the video or image is about a product, use the caption to provide a brief description of the item. Explain why people should be concerned, and don’t forget to throw in a few emojis for good measure.

Strong captions on your posts may assist to build your company’s identity and story. The goal is to write material that stimulates interaction and convinces them that they require what you’re selling.

What’s your Instagram Marketing Strategy like?

In the realm of social media, Instagram is unquestionably a force to be reckoned with. There’s an almost endless amount of untapped opportunity for businesses to attract attention, inspire interaction, develop strong connections, and exceed their annual financial targets.

While it may appear to be a huge and scary universe unto itself, new businesses have nothing to fear as long as they keep an eye on it, listen to it, and learn as they go. You have a lot of options at your disposal, and make sure you do invest time and energy in Instagram marketing for your business.

It’s time to use Instagram to expand your business. If you approach your Instagram marketing plan with a growth mentality, you’ll discover that it becomes simpler and more profitable as time passes. If you play your cards properly, it can also be rather enjoyable.

Also Read: Guide to Instagram Collaborative Collections