Consider your personal experience with Instagram marketing when you are considering using it for business.
You’re scrolling on Instagram and looking at your curated feed. It’s a mix between your personal friends and content creators, cute pets, and brands.
See ALso: Top 50 Marketing Agencies in Houston
These business accounts were not forced on you by anyone. You choose to follow them. You choose to follow them each time you see their Instagram Stories and posts.
But why?
You need to ask your potential customers why they should keep coming back to Instagram when using it for business.
To help you promote your company on Instagram, we’ve compiled the top Instagram for Business tips.
TOP 13 INSTAGRAM MARKING TIPS FOR 2021
2020 is rapidly approaching and it is becoming clearer than ever that social networking is the most powerful form of marketing you can use for your company or yourself. How can you be different in a constantly evolving and fiercely competitive market? Use the best strategies you can! We’re available to assist with that.
One-seventh of the human population has an Instagram account, with the vast majority following at least one business profile. This picturesque social media giant can either make or break your business through its rich marketing options and relentless competition.
Success is about staying ahead. These Instagram marketing strategies will allow you to thrive and meet 2021’s challenges head-on. Let’s start by looking at them.
1. GO BUSINESS (IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY) AND OPTIMIZE YOUR PROFILE
It’s hard to deny the many benefits of being a Business Instagram user. Did you know that Business accounts have access to all the tools that Personal accounts do not? These extras will give your business an edge, whether you want to use Instagram Insights or other marketing-related tools, as well as additional contact information and messaging options and call–to-action buttons.
These additional customization options should allow you to provide (and get!) all the information you need. more details about your business. Give your brand an attractive name, write a short description, and fill out the labels carefully. You can also use the extra to add more technical details. Make your profile a professional representation of your business to the rest.
2. DETERMINE WHO YOUR AUDIENCE IS
Knowing your audience is essential. It doesn’t make a difference if you give water to fish in an pond or water to camels living in the desert. This is the logic behind your Instagram targeting.
Find out your ideal audience by conducting research. It is important to have a business account as gathering insights requires the use of some of its tools. It is important to understand the needs of your customers and create a strategy. It’ll help you to drive sales (and your presence) sky-high by creating content that strikes the right chord with your ideal customer.
3. COME UP WITH YOUR OWN ESTHETICS
Instagram is all about visuals. Since Instagram’s content is visual, your graphics, along with the overall aesthetics, must be synonymous to your business.
Also, it is important to think about the way your business appears to your followers. Every color tells an story, and each color can be used in a unique way to weave that story. Focusing your attention on the color of your business will make it stand out more than if you ignore them or use them in random ways.
Insta can change forever with striking visuals. #gorgeous
4. HASHTAGS and CAPTIONS REQUIRE YOUR SPECIFIC ATTENTION
It is a well-known fact that intelligent hashtags make a positive impression on users. It’s not as well known that hashtags are a large network of posts that the algorithm relies upon when recommending content to other people. A shortcut to an increased number of Instagram users is possible with hashtags. Smart hashtag use is exactly what you need.
This is why you could use a hashtag management software for your Instagram marketing. Task Ant is an excellent example. The algorithm is always ready to provide something suitable by using links to rich libraries of hashtags that have been performing well. The extensive insights and the ability to track and borrow from other hashtag strategies will give you the tools you need to fix your hashtags permanently.
5. CATER TO FOLLOWERS BASE
Gamification of your audience will be the most successful marketing strategy in 2021. What does this imply? It is rewarding active participation in the development of your brand. How do you do it? This is easy: give shoutouts out to your most active followers. Incentivize them to interact with you by offering lottery or rewards system, creating collabs, and building case studies.
Your imagination only limits your options. Be creative. Be creative!
6. Decide why Instagram is used for business
It’s important that you have clear goals when using any marketing channel. Instagram is no different. Instagram marketing is no exception.
Common Instagram business goals are:
Increase brand awareness
To build a community.
Demonstrate company culture, values and achievements
Sell products, services.
Track your progress and write them down. You can think of your written goals like a formalized audit. This will encourage you to be more intentional in your Instagram content.
7. Optimize Your Profile
If you’re using Instagram to promote your business, your profile should be considered your homepage. You have 150 characters, one link, and some buttons to make a lasting impression on potential customers.
First, switch to an Instagram company profile. Business accounts have additional features that let you expand your profile and track content performance. You can also sell on Instagram.
Next, you should create a great Instagram bio. You should include the following information in your profile:
A brief description of what you do in your company
Your category/industry (Shopping & Retail, Business Service, Restaurant, etc. You can also use the “Request a Quote” button.
A tone that reflects your brand’s personality
Contact information (phone number, email, address, etc. Contact information (phone number, email address, etc.)
The link.
It is only possible to share a clickable link on Instagram. You can either keep the link static to your homepage or change it frequently to reflect current information. Buffer’s Shop Grid and other link-inbio tools like Buffer’s Shop Grid allow you to use the link strategically. They turn the single link into an index of resources.
Shop Grid allows to quickly create landing pages from your Instagram posts.
Action Buttons, which are additional clickable buttons to specific calls to action, such as Book Now. Contact. View Shop. Action Buttons are an excellent way to increase your profile’s links and make it easier on your fans to communicate with you.
Remember to also consider your grid. People who visit your profile will see your grid-formatted posts. You should not share visually similar posts back to back, so that your grid always looks attractive.
Bonus: Use a well-known profile photo
When selecting a profile image, it’s crucial for users to immediately recognize it on your Instagram profile. Most businesses choose one of the following options.
Logo
Logomark (the logo, sans any words)
Mascot
There is no right and wrong here. You don’t need to be restricted to any one of these options. But, think about what will help your audience recognize your brand quickly.
8. Find your visual aesthetic
Instagram is all visuals. You might not like what works well for one business. Think about what you want to portray on your business pages, and then create branding guidelines to ensure consistency.
Pay attention how you choose your colors. Instagram accounts that are most successful use a particular color palette for their photos. This helps them create a unique style. Oneika Raymond is a fan of bright colors and strong contrasts.
Oneika Raymond’s style is focused on color saturation and careful visual composition.
If text is a major part of your Instagram content, you should also consider how the font you choose matches other fonts used in marketing materials and on your website. Shine with Natasha is an example of a consistent design. She uses bright yellow and other white colors as well as a common font for all her Instagram posts.
Shine with Natasha has an easily identifiable look and feel. It features a consistent font style and color palette.
9. Post consistently
Regular posting is a great way to show up in your target audience’s timelines. Instagram seeks to display content that people enjoy. It looks for content that is relevant and up-to-date.
Instagram’s algorithm uses machine intelligence to continually analyze every person’s activity, and then customizes their timeline accordingly. People won’t be able to like what they don’t see. Posting often helps you get noticed in people’s feeds. It also gives you more chances for them to interact with your content. You can increase the frequency with which they see your content in their Instagram feed by engaging more with it.
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To ensure your content is up to date, schedule posts in batches. This will help you keep your account stocked with the right information so that it doesn’t go dark when you are busy. You can also experiment with posting times and scheduling is easier. There’s no one time that is best to post on Instagram. But there might be times when you are most likely to reach your target audience. Buffer allows you the ability to choose preferred times slots. Simply add content to your queue, and the posts will automatically go into the next slot.
You can then return to check if certain times have higher engagement rates.
10. To reach new audiences, use hashtags
Hashtags can be used to group content across multiple social media platforms. Hashtags are a way for Instagrammers discover new accounts and content. Track Maven research shows that posts with more than 11 hashtags receive more engagement.
Instagram hashtags allow for posts to be seen by a larger audience.
However, it can be complicated to organize, group or save hashtags. Many people keep groups on their phones ready to copy/paste to each post before they publish. Buffer customers with Hashtag Manager Buffer can create and save multiple hashtags from within the Buffer composer.
11. Engage with your local community
Instagram for business does not mean that you should make your profile a sales pitch. Instagram is a platform for social media, so socialize.
It’s important to listen to others and respond to their comments. A great way to build a strong Instagram community is to respond to comments. Buffer’s engagement feature allows you to reply directly to comments made on Instagram posts.
You can also encourage interaction with engagement prompts. Use interactive stickers on Instagram Stories to create polls, questions or ranking systems.
Tito the Raccoon engages in conversation with his followers via the poll sticker in Instagram Stories.
Your caption can be used to ask questions or to encourage people to post their thoughts in the comments. Although it may sound cheesy at first, consider it a real-life conversation. It’s strange to talk at someone, rather than with them.
Cleveland Traveler engages in conversation with followers by answering each comment and asking a question via Instagram caption
Instagram doesn’t necessarily mean that everything you post on Instagram has to be your own. UGC, or user-generated content (or any other type of content created by users or contributors), is a great way to show your love to your fans and encourage them to interact with you. Encourage your community members to share special moments and stories about your brand via Instagram. Ask permission to repost the best content on your channels. This Instagram marketing strategy helped Buffer grow its audience by 400%.
Remember that every community is different so make sure you tailor your content to suit their interests. You can track your Instagram engagement rate and learn how to calculate it so you can keep an ear on what’s working.
12. Experimentation with different content types
Instagram is not just about photos. Instagram offers many content types.
- Video
- Reels
- Stories
- IGTV
If you want to increase reach and engagement on Instagram, it is important to share a variety of content types. We have shared our Instagram growth guide.
“The algorithm analyzes interests and attempts to show people the most popular content types. Instagram Reels can be liked and commented on more often by one person than other post types. This will result in more Reels appearing in their Instagram feed.
Buffer’s Instagram stream contains a mixture of IGTV (carousels), Reels and single-image photos.
Each type of content is beneficial and everyone has their preferences. Reels are loved by some, while Stories are more popular for others. You can maximize your reach, engagement and reach by using a variety content types.
Need content ideas? Perhaps our guide to content on social media might be of some help.
Bonus: Make great captions
Captions can help you enhance your content in many different ways. Some prefer to use captions as a way to share stories and micro-blogging. Others use them for a quick, catchy headline to a posting. Another use captions is to ask questions and encourage answers. There are many other options. Important is that your copy aligns with your brand.
You should know: Instagram captions limit to 2200 characters. After three lines of text, the captions become truncated using an ellipsis.
13. Analyze your results
The best Instagram for business tips is to look into your Instagram analytics frequently. Monitoring the performance of your content is key to increasing your followers, keeping your audience engaged, and promoting your business on Instagram.
Instagram Insights (the built-in analytics tool for Instagram) is a great start, but can only accessible via mobile. For key metrics such as shares, likes and comments, you will have to open each post.
You’ll need third party tools to see the analytics on a desktop. Buffer’s Analytics, for instance, can help you track trends and compare post performance. It also allows you to create custom reports around specific metrics. Did you recall the goals we spoke of earlier? Keep an eye out for them by using custom reports.
Buffer will generate reports on social media using its analytics.
You should remember that metrics only have value if they are useful. You may like to boost your self-esteem but is that really why you are using Instagram for business purposes? It’s easier to get actionable insights by looking at metrics that will tell you what motivates people to return to your content and purchase your products or services.
Let’s say that you create a tutorial for IGTV. While shares and saves tell you people like the tutorial and want to come back to it again, likes are more passive. But, if your campaign is for brand awareness, likes, and new followers, are great success metrics. You need to understand the context in which you are looking at results when analyzing them.
Instagram can be used to promote your business
It’s easy for your friends to click on your photo of a brunch or view a video featuring a puppy. While it is more difficult to create a business account than you might think, 92% of Instagram users follow brands. You don’t have to copy the companies you love, but it is a good idea to think about the things that make those accounts worth following. You can then combine this inspiration with the tips and tricks we’ve provided here to create an Instagram strategy that is specific to your company.
Instagram is an amazing tool that can connect your business with millions of potential customers regardless of what goals you have. Buffer makes it easy to manage all aspects of scheduling, reporting and marketing.
CONCLUSION
These aren’t as fine details as some might think. However, social media is all about every step. But, social media marketing will not lose its connection to humanity, no matter what time passes.
Be human. Show that you still believe in your business, even when it is surrounded with so many otherworldly brands.
If you can strike the right balance between optimization as well as being natural, you’ll soon be among the Instagram stars.