Instagram marketing is all about your brand’s visuals, which is why it hits users in such a unique way. Learn effective marketing tips for Instagram to take your business to the next level.
6 Smart Marketing Tips for Instagram to Grow Your Business
With more than 2 billion active users, Instagram is the number one place online to see and be seen. This is especially true for businesses and entrepreneurs, not least because 90% of Instagram’s users are following at least one brand. If you want it to be YOUR brand instead of your competitor’s, then it’s time to take a good, hard look at your marketing game.
In this post, we share 6 smart marketing tips for Instagram to help you grow your business and expand your audience. Let’s go!
What Is Instagram marketing?
Marketing through Instagram offers vast opportunities to showcase your eCommerce products and streamline the purchase process for consumers. Before we lay out our top Instagram marketing tips for your business, let's take a look at some of the key tools and strategies used to boost sales:
- Instagram Ads – Running clickable ads through 24hr stories and in-feed posts allow you to maximize conversions and brand awareness.
- Product Tags – Instagram allows you to tag your product in stories or feed posts, which your users can click to be taken to your shop and purchase in-app.
- Influencer Marketing – Expand your reach by collaborating with influencers that share your same values for product mentions.
- Reels – A fun way to show off your brand’s personality, reels can be seen on the Explore page by thousands of potential consumers.
- User-Generated Content (UGC) – Consumers are highly motivated by other shoppers’ experiences and reviews, so UGC can positively impact your business thanks to the power of social proof.
- Giveaways & Contests – Running a product giveaway with rules like following your page, tagging friends, and sharing via stories can boost eCommerce growth.
Tips and Insights to Make Instagram Work For Your Brand
Instagram marketing is more than just creating a business account and posting your product. It's crucial to develop a detailed strategy to set your brand up for success, so let's dive into our top marketing tips for the platform.
1. Know Your Goals
Navigating social media as a business can be pretty frustrating without setting realistic goals. Defining specific objectives will help you track whether you're succeeding as a brand, help manage an appropriate budget for paid advertising efforts, and determine the type and amount of content to share.
For example, some goals you might want to achieve could be to increase lead generation, boost brand awareness, drive sales, or grow your follower list to get more exposure.
2. Identify Your Audience
Identifying your target audience and what motivates them is a must-do for any marketing initiative. Learning more about your followers means you'll be able to produce compelling content that drives engagement, so look for some of these insights:
- Age – Knowing the average age of your audience can help you determine the messaging of your content and language to use (slangy and cheeky vs mature and authoritative, for example), which will build connection and trust.
- Location – Especially when producing online content, the location of your consumers is important to know. Using location tags on your posts that are the same or near your target audience’s location can improve visibility and community growth.
- Gender – While being mindful about inaccurate generalizations, knowing the gender ratio of your audience can also help craft relatable messaging.
- Income – Understanding audience demand and their buying ability helps to ensure you’re developing the right products and messaging for the right people.
- Interests – Relevancy is crucial, so you don’t want to promote a product to an audience that has zero interest in it. An easy way to discover audience interest is by posting Polls on stories to ask about their specific likes and dislikes.
3. Build a Consistent Brand
Consistency is key when it comes to crafting and maintaining a strong and distinctive brand identity. In such a saturated and competitive corner of social media as Instagram, your brand needs to stand out from the rest.
Make sure that your business has a consistent tone, messaging style, and visual elements across all channels since that will improve your chances of being remembered and recognized. Remember: while visuals are the bread and butter of social media, copy is the soul. Don’t treat text like an afterthought and take the time to prepare an ad copy template that resonates with your brand and audience.
4. Check Out Your Competition
Comparing what works and what doesn't between you and your competitors can help make your product or brand identity stand out. We suggest taking a deep dive into the following aspects:
- Followers – The number of followers a brand has compared to its engagement can be telling. If a brand has a high number of followers but very low engagement, then their current strategy simply isn't working, so avoid replicating it.
- Engagement – Engagement includes comments and likes, and the number of likes and types of comments signals how well the brand is connecting with its audience.
- Hashtags – Take a look at a few of your competitor's top posts and look for a pattern in their hashtags and amount of hashtags. Then use this intel to create a different version or your own branded hashtags (instead of just copying theirs, which is a no-no).
- Type of Content – Find out what type of content your successful competitors are posting and how their audience is reacting. Do they post more reels, static photos, storytelling pieces, or product-focused promos?
- Top Posts – Taking a close look at your competitor's best pieces of content can help you understand why these posts were so successful and how to craft your own version.
- Posting Cadence – How often are your competitors posting, and is it working for them? Knowing those answers can help determine if you're posting enough content at the right times.
5. Mix Up Your Ads
With roughly 30 million users tapping on ads each month, you might want to pay extra close attention to Instagram marketing tips that address ads. Instagram ads allow you to post product photo or video ads targeted at specific demographics to drive engagement and sales.
Boosting an ad is the simplest option to giving your top posts a "boost," although you're limited when it comes to customization and targeting. Actual Instagram ads offer more flexibility and extensive control, although they require a Facebook account ad and can be more complex to run.
You can post an ad as a photo, video, reel, or story. We find that using a mix of all ad formats is most effective to maximize reach and create an ad that sells every time.
6. Interact with Followers
Being relatable and authentic can help to build a strong connection between you and your audience. Instagram is about community through visual content, so Instagram users want to feel that they’re a part of the conversation, part of the community, and even a part of the brand.
Don’t let your followers think they’re just there to passively consume your brand. Make them feel like they’re in the loop with constant, clear, and open communication through comments, direct messages, and even likes. Creating a sense of personalized connection makes followers feel valued, which helps build loyalty to your brand.
Succeed on Instagram—Work with the Best
Instagram offers powerful marketing potential for businesses large and small thanks to its unique visual nature and massive reach capabilities. So if you're interested in even more Instagram marketing tips and are ready to develop a tailored strategy for your brand, the marketing know-it-alls at Social Ktchn are so here for it.
Social Ktchn is a full-service digital marketing company with experience in creating successful social media campaigns. As the mom-and-pop shop of paid social media ads, we give you the tools and guidance to reach your goals and achieve tangible results.