Instagram isn’t just a platform that you can use to talk with friends and share interesting photographs; it is also one that can be used for promoting and marketing businesses. Have you ever noticed how often advertisements for businesses come up on Instagram? As it is the largest social media platform currently operating it is the ideal place to drive awareness and boost business sales.
If you are at the helm of a business and want to steer it in the right direction, consider social media marketing. This post will tell you why Instagram is the perfect place for you to do that and how you can use it:
Building Page
If your intention is to use Instagram for marketing purposes then you’ll be pleased to know that you do not have to spend weeks or month building your page. Did you know that you can actually get thousands of followers in less than an hour? According to the experts at iDigic, you can buy followers and likes. While buying such things might seem like an underhanded way of building one’s page it is actually quite common. Lots of influencers and businesses do this.
Instagram is the perfect place to market your business because there are hundreds of millions of daily users. However, building a natural audience can be extremely difficult. Most platform users won’t follow a page until they are confident it is genuine and offers them a useful service. Buying followers makes your page look like it is already popular and will give new visitors the confidence of knowing that other people trust and follow you. Buying likes is not as important as followers, but they still help give your page more authenticity and make it look like your audience interacts with you.
Posting Content
It should be noted, a page that’s followed exclusively by bots and accounts that you have paid to follow you won’t benefit your business directly. You still need to post regular content and try and get organic followers. The type of content that you need to post depends largely upon your business’s industry and the type of page that you are running. A lot of business owners network and collaborate with influencers but that is something that will be covered in the next section rather than this one.
The good thing about Instagram is that when you post, you post photographs. Because you have to post photographs to make posts you have the opportunity to showcase your products and services. You may want to hire a professional photographer to visit your workspace and photograph it as well as some of your favourite products. These pictures can then be posted on your Instagram account and show followers what they get when they do business with you. Make sure that you post regular stories as well. Stories are your opportunity to show followers what a day in your life is like.
Using Influencers
Influencers are social media personalities with large followings. It is hard to say what influencers you need to work with without knowing what your industry is. Most influencers operate within the health, fashion and lifestyle niche. However, there are many others beyond that. Conduct extensive research and try to find an influencer popular in your niche. Finding such an influencer will give you a chance to sponsor them, so they post content with advertisements for your business. Bear in mind that if you are hiring influencers you are going to need to have a lot of money. Influences are by no means cheap.
Rather than approaching influencers directly you should hire an agency and ask them to source influencers for you. Influencing agencies are extremely popular and are most influencers’ preferred method for gathering clients. The good thing about agencies is that you can get in touch with them instead of researching influencers yourself. Once you have found a reliable agency to work with you can tell them what type of content you need and then they can find the influencer that’s right for your brand. The downside to them is that they can cost a fortune since you pay the influencer’s fees and the agency’s fees.
Instagram Store
Do you want to increase sales exponentially? If the answer’s yes (which it most likely is) then you should consider opening your own store on Instagram. In recent years the platform has allowed users to make their own online stores. These stores are great because they give people the opportunity to make sales on the platform rather than requiring customers to visit their websites to buy products. If you post good, quality pictures of products and then list those products for sale on your Instagram store, consumers might be unable to resist the urge to buy them.
If you do plan on opening an Instagram store then again you need to take steps to ensure that all of the listings are photographed professionally. Nobody’s going to want to buy anything from you if you do not provide good, clear photographs showing what the products are like. Rather than just photographing them on a white background, consider taking model shots too. Paying a model to pose with your products will give consumers a clearer idea of what they will actually look like, especially if they are items of clothing.
Direct Contact
One last thing to do if you want to build your business’s exposure and achieve growth on social media is to get in direct contact with customers. The good thing about Instagram is that you can send them messages. As your page grows more and more people will begin getting in touch with you. When this happens you need to hire somebody to manage your page for you. Not replying to people’s messages could annoy them and actually negatively impact your reputation and standing among customers. Ensure the person you hire is an experienced social media manager with a good attitude and strong skillset.
Instagram is the best social media platform to start a business on for two reasons. The first is because it is the largest; the second is because it is most popular with adults. If you haven’t got your own Instagram page then now’s the time to open one. The platform is easy to use and you can register an account in under five minutes. What are you waiting for?
