Instagram marketing is crucial, like having a store in a town’s busiest mall. This is because a 2023 report from Tech Report shows that 130 [1] million people worldwide use Instagram shopping. Additionally, the same report says that around 15% of all e-commerce shoppers in the USA start their product research on Instagram. If you don’t use Instagram for marketing, you could miss out on creating a strong and relevant brand.
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Why is Instagram Presence Important for Business?
As we earlier mentioned, Instagram, as one of the most popular social media, also influences the shopping habits and patterns of its users. According to a HubSpot report with over a billion monthly active users, the platform also helps 83% of its users discover a new product. How is it changing in a shopper’s go-to place as a social media? There are likely many reasons for this change.
1. Visual Media
Instagram is widely known as the most visually creative platform. It brings up some of the most stunning photos and videos that keep the users coming back.
2. Brand Awareness
Instagram is more personal than other social media. Most users use their personal accounts on Instagram, and you can create brand awareness at a personal level.
3. Engaged Community
Instagram, with its hashtags and algorithm, brings the most relevant content to your feed. This is why it’s easy to build a customer community there.
4. Trends
Instagram is not only the place where you find the latest trends. This is why it’s a great place to attract new customers for your business by actively using trending topics and hashtags.
Starting to create content and engaging with followers for every business on Instagram is crucial. And this process is known as Instagram marketing. In the upcoming section we will share more about this.
What is Instagram Marketing?
Instagram marketing involves promoting your brand on Instagram through content creation, consistent posting, and paid ads. It’s a form of meta-platform marketing aimed at boosting your brand’s visibility, followers, potential customers, and sales.
How to Create an Instagram Business Account?
Instagram allows you to switch from a personal to a business account, which offers features to boost your business. This is ideal for retailers, local businesses, brands, organizations, and service providers. Here is how to create one for your business:
Create an Instagram Professional Account
1. Download the Instagram App
- If you don’t already have Instagram, download the app from the App Store (iOS) or Google Play Store (Android).
2. Create a Personal Account
- Sign up for an Instagram account using your email address or Facebook account if you don’t already have one.
- Fill in your profile details, including your name, username, and profile picture.
3. Switch to a Business Account
- Go to your profile by tapping on your profile picture at the bottom right of the screen.
- Tap the three horizontal lines (menu) at the top right of your profile.
- Select Settings.
- In the Settings menu, tap Account.
- Scroll down and tap Switch to Professional Account.
- Choose Business as the account type. This will give you access to features designed for businesses.
4. Connect Your Facebook Page
- If you have a Facebook Page for your business, connect it to your Instagram business account. This will allow you to use additional features like Instagram Shopping and ad tools.
- If you don’t have a Facebook Page, you can skip this step.
5. Set Up Your Business Profile
- Fill in your business information, including contact details, business category, and additional options like a business address.
- Make sure to select the most relevant category for your business, as this will help customers find you.
How to Set up Instagram for Marketing?
Now it’s time to set up your professional Instagram for marketing. These are simple steps to optimize and prepare your Instagram for marketing.
1. Set A Business Profile Picture
In your professional Instagram account, set a profile picture that represents your business. It should be beautifully designed, of the right size, and with better resolution.
2. Bio Optimization
The bio should carry how your business is helping or what is the USP of your brand with relevant keywords. Remember to be concise, as you will get only 150 characters for your bio.
3. Privacy Setting
Keep your account public because, as a business, you need to remain discoverable to your audience and customers.
4. Message
From the Story Control setting, set your message replies for your followers only. It’ll help you reduce spam messages.
5. Comments
Go to the comment controls and set Hide Offensive Comments active. It will help you keep your account and viewers safe from malicious and offensive content.
To succeed in marketing on Instagram, it’s important to keep your account free from unnecessary content and spam. Let’s explore some effective marketing strategies for Instagram.
10 Tips to Build Your Instagram Marketing Strategy
Now that we’ve covered the basics of Instagram marketing and creating your account, it’s time to begin developing your Instagram marketing strategy. A successful Instagram marketing strategy is a combination of best practices on social media and innovation in publishing content. Here are our top 10 suggestions for an Instagram marketing strategy for your business.
1. Understand Your Target Audience
You need to create appropriate buyer personas for your business and identify the target audience for your business. When you have an overall good understanding of the ideal buyer persona for your brand, you will be able to craft your content around the interests of your target audience and attract a more convertible audience to your Instagram account.
2. Create Content That Hooks
WordStream reports that more than 95 million photos [3] and videos are shared on Instagram every day. This makes it challenging to attract more viewers to your content. To increase engagement and create eye-catching visuals, it’s important to also promote your brand, whether directly or subtly.
3. Post With Consistency
Most small businesses operate with a smaller team. However, the sheer number of business tasks can make posting on Instagram feel overwhelming. Establishing the right posting frequency and planning content in advance can lead to more consistent Instagram content. According to marketers, aiming for 3-5 posts per week is a good target.
4. Combination of Content Types
Instagram currently has 8 different content formats. Find an effective combination of these content types. While reels usually have a higher impression, general posts will be shared with users even after years of publishing if relevant. Instagram is also a good platform for publishing marketing videos. Shop posts on the platform allow sellers to list their products on an Instagram post. As a marketer, you should mix your content types according to their performance.
5. Plan Your Content
Instagram audiences love to see unique content. To constantly post interesting, relevant, and unique content, you need to plan your content aligned with your business goals. Research what your competitors are doing and how other brands on social media are promoting their products and services. Preparing a content calendar will help you plan, post, and track the performance of your posts.
6. Social Listening
Like every other social media marketing strategy, Instagram marketing also needs social listening. With robust social media listening tools, try to discover what your audience is thinking about your products and services. Make sure what you learned from social listening is directly implemented into your Instagram content plan and the overall strategy.
7. Engage With Celebrities and Other Brands
Instagram is always the best place to follow your favorite celebrities. As a brand, you can leverage their enormous reach for your benefit. Comment on viral posts from your favorite celebs and engage with other brands on the platform.
8. Repost Popular Content
Reposting your popular content is a time- and other resource-efficient strategy. Find which posts are the best performing posts on your professional Meta dashboard. Not only the best-performing posts from your account, but also post content from other creators on Instagram, but with proper credit.
9. Take Time to Evaluate and Develop
Regularly evaluate your performance and analyze the analytics. Assess how your posts are doing on Instagram, identify which content is resonating better, and determine which one has attracted a broader audience. Discover the factors that contributed to this content’s success.
10. Keep Going
Organic social media marketing takes time. As you keep posting interesting content and experimenting with different content formats, you keep learning about the Instagram algorithm. Marketing consultant Mark Schaefer once mentioned that people quit too soon. He estimated that it takes 18 months (about 1 and a half years) [4] of consistent content creation to gain traction.
Bonus But Most Important! – Instagram Ads
Until now, we have explored the organic marketing strategies for Instagram. But the last point we mentioned is that it may take several months to years to get the traction you need from Instagram with the organic strategies.
It needs to be clarified that organic marketing is not free marketing. You will need resources like time and money to plan and implement your Instagram marketing strategies. But the results will take time. To shorten this waiting period and meet your quarterly business objectives, paid marketing is the most effective solution, aside from influencer marketing. Because in a long-term organic marketing may cost more as you need to create content and keep posting.
What Is Instagram Advertising?
Instagram advertising is the process of creating and publishing different formats of ads on Instagram. You can also set different goals for different ad campaigns on Instagram. Here is a chart below to learn about Instagram ads with ease
Instagram Ad Chart: Overview of Instagram Ads
| Ad Formats: 1. Photo ads, 2. Video ads, 3. Carousel ads, 4. Story ads, 5. Collection ads, 6. Explore ads, 7. Shopping ads. 8. Reels ads |
| Ad Objectives: 1. Brand awareness, 2. Reach, 3. Traffic, 4. App installs, 5. Engagement, 6. Video view, 7. Lead generation, 8. Messages, 9. Conversions, 10. Catalog sales, 11. Store traffic |
| Ad Types: Cost per click (CPC), Cost per engagement (CPE), Instagram cost per thousand impressions (CPM) |
| Ad Duration: Typically, 90 seconds seconds or less |
| Ad Expense: Instagram Ads cost depends on your bidding model. The cost may go up to $0.40 to $0.70 per click |
Most popular types of content on Instagram
1. Regular Posts
Being the most common type of post on Instagram, regular posts are easy to produce and share. They are also one of the most sponsored post types on Instagram. They are great for brand awareness and sharing insightful stories.
2. Videos
Videos are now the most common and most consumed format of content across social media platforms. Instagram is also becoming a video-first platform super-fast. Earlier this year, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said that the platform is aiming to shift to a video-first platform.
3. Live
Instagram Live is another popular content type. It’s free, builds more direct connections, provides more insight into your audience, and can be personal. Your audience loves the human side of your brand, and live broadcasts are one good way to make it humane. In addition, you get the chance to interact in real time with your audience.
4. User-generated content
If you are following big brands like GoPro, Amazon, Netflix you might be familiar with user generated content aka UGC. It is photos, videos, reviews, or posts—created by customers or users, rather than the brand itself, and shared publicly.
5. Memes
Mems are now an integral part of the social media game in Bangladesh and around the globe. Memes have become magnets for eyes. But staying relevant to your business is the motto when sharing memes.
6. Tutorials
Tutorials are also popular on Instagram. Sharing videos or images that help the audience learn something new or something to get more benefits from your products or services will help attract more customers for your brand.
7. Inspirational quotes
Inspirational quotes from successful and famous personalities are popular on Instagram. Sharing positive and motivational quotes helps your audience connect with your brand at a personal level, as these quotes might help them cope with the struggles they might be going through.
8. Challenges and Contests
Sharing interesting and relatively easy challenges with your audience intrigues them to take part in the challenge and get engaged with your content. Contests with giveaways and gifts are also effective ways to engage your audience with your content on social media.
9. Questions
Asking questions is another popular content type on Instagram. You can ask quizzes, historical questions, color identifying questions and more. This also intrigues the audience to answer the question and increases the engagement on your content.
10. Behind-the-scenes
People prefer to do business with individuals rather than brands. This is why establishing a personal connection with your customers has become more crucial than ever. One effective method to achieve this is by sharing glimpses of your staff and the behind-the-scenes activities.
Instagram Marketing: FAQ
How do I grow my business organically on Instagram?
1. Post High-Quality Content: Share visually appealing, relevant posts regularly.
Use Hashtags Effectively: Utilize a mix of popular and niche hashtags for broader reach.
2. Engage Actively: Interact with your audience by responding to comments and DMs.
3. Leverage Stories and Reels: Use these features to increase engagement and visibility.
4. Collaborate with Influencers: Partner with influencers or other brands to expand your reach.
Is Instagram good for organic marketing?
Yes, Instagram is effective for organic marketing, allowing businesses to build brand awareness, engage with their audience, and grow their following without paid ads.
What is the difference between organic and paid Instagram?
Organic Instagram: This strategy focuses on expanding your presence organically, without spending money. It includes activities such as posting content, engaging with followers, and utilizing hashtags.
Paid Instagram: This approach involves promoting your posts or running ads by investing in paid advertising. It aims to reach a broader, more targeted audience beyond your organic followers.
How to get 1,000 organic followers on Instagram?
A simple method to gain 1,000 organic followers is the “Fiver” rule. This involves creating and sharing five posts about your business every week. Additionally, commenting on 5 posts and following 5 relevant accounts regularly can lead to gaining real followers, potentially reaching 1,000 or more over time.
How much does Instagram paid marketing costs?
Instagram Ads cost depends on your bidding model. The cost may go up to $3.00 per click.
