You probably have wondered how short
videos and images can be used to promote business awareness through Instagram
in a bid to enhance customer experience. It is simple. Instagram can be used to
promote your business online through a number of ingenious ways that have been
developed over time. Here is a list of strategies, tools and practices that can
assist you building your Instagram business.
Learning To Use Instagram
for Business
You should note that Instagram has
been used on a number of occasions for fun. People are gradually absorbing the
idea of using Instagram for business and hence you should learn how to use
Instagram for business other than fun. Since businesses are increasingly using
this platform for the purpose of promoting their business, Instagram initiated
the Instagram for Business Blog. The blog was initiated for the purpose of
offering helpful tips and ideas on how to use the platform for business.
If
you are new on Instagram and intend to use it for business promotion, it is
important to visit the Instagram for Business Blog. The platform is operated
and managed by Instagram HQ and offers numerous tips on how to make use of it
for business purposes. With this platform, a new Instagram user is able to
learn basic tips and practices of its usage for business purposes.
Therefore, the Instagram for
Business Blog is the very first avenue to explore when you want to promote your
business on Instagram.
Striking a Balance
b/w Fun
Instagram is widely recognized as a
social media meant for fun. Drawing from this, not many people view the platform
as an avenue for promoting business. Nonetheless, the enormous traffic drawn by
this social media platform is ideal for business promotion. It is for this
reason that entrepreneurs are increasingly using Instagram with the intention
of promoting their businesses. In the process of using Instagram as a platform
for business promotion, it is important to balance between fun images and
images meant to promote your business.
While you ought to include fun
images in order to attract and impress your audience on Instagram, be careful
not to overuse fun images. In the event that your Instagram is flocked with fun
images with only a few images and short vides that promote your business, you
are at a risk of misinforming your audience. It is always important to clarify
your intentions on your Instagram. Make it clear that your platform is meant
for business promotion. By doing this, you will be notifying your audience on
what to expect during your business promotion. Needless to say, it is
imperative for a business personality, or an entity for that matter, to balance
between fun images and images meant for business promotion.
Nurture a Following on Your Instagram
A key preamble to promoting a
business online via Instagram is ensuring you have a sizable number of
followers. The more followers you have on your Instagram the better your
chances of succeeding in your promotional activities on social media. Thus,
having an enormous following is one of the most significant tickets to
succeeding in Instagram marketing of a business. It should be noted that there
are a number of proven tactics of cultivating the desired following on
Instagram.
One of the widely used methods of
cultivating the desired following on Instagram is connecting an Instagram account
with a Facebook account. It should be noted that Instagram has a provision of
connecting to a Facebook account. With this tool, you are able to synchronize
your Instagram and Facebook accounts. When this is done, all your postings on
Instagram will be shared on your Facebook account and hence appear on your
Facebook timeline. By the way, Facebook and Instagram are associated entities
with the same ownership and the possession of the two somehow leverages a
business and individual’s online presence. This is an implication that your
Facebook friends will be able to view, like, and share your Instagram images
and short videos. Therefore, when your Instagram account is linked to your
Facebook account, you stand a chance of doubling your audience thereby enabling
your promotional information on Instagram to reach far and wide.
You can also make use of your
Facebook audience to communicate your presence on Instagram. This can be
achieved by cross-posting selected images and short videos to your Facebook
page
and aligning them to your campaign
on Instagram. With this provision, your Facebook audience can
be made aware of your engagements on Instagram and follow your there. On most
occasions, this practice comes in handy in the event that you are new on
Instagram and want to have the same audience on your Facebook page to follow
you on your new Instagram page. Therefore, cross-posting images on Facebook and
aligning them with your Instagram campaigns is an important strategy of not
only cultivating an audience on your Instagram page but also promoting your
business effectively on this platform.
The use of relevant popular hash
tags is also another useful strategy of cultivating the desired following on
your Instagram. Social media enthusiasts have a trend of identifying themselves
with popular or trending hash tags. On most occasions, trending hash tags are
used to disseminate current and highly persuasive information of any kind. You
can therefore take advantage of the enormous traffic attracted by these hash tags
to effectuate your promotional goals on Instagram. If this is done correctly,
your promotional information on Instagram will reach a wide audience thereby
assisting in meeting your marketing objectives.
Building a strong business through
Instagram can also be achieved by engaging other famous Instagram personnel and
liking their images and short videos. It is important to note that Instagram
users will feel free to like your content if you like theirs as well. You can
take advantage of this trend and like images and short videos posted by other
Instagram users with the intention of luring them to like yours as well. This
has worked for many and will definitely work for you if done correctly.
Make
Good Use of Debut Videos
Videos clips complement the image
and photo postings on Instagram. Therefore, it is advocated that savvy
promoters should make consideration in uploading video clips that are sizable
enough for the followers to peek through and generate fun. Notably, the video
support capability by Instagram has, in many ways, offered an alternative to
and, in fact, become a direct competitor to twitter’s Vine. The most notable
competitive edge that Video on Instagram has over Vine is the 15-second
editable video and filter-enabled functionality. This is in comparison to the
6.5 seconds of twitter’s Vine. The fact that Instagram is doing well with video
attachments is a direct implication that the use of videos can go a long way in
helping users cultivate the much desired following needed to grow Instagram
business promotion. Therefore, you should never hesitate to make use of video
attachments on your Instagram.
Using Instagram Videos on
Your Websites or Blogs
For
a long time this functionality was unavailable to Instagram users. Due to high
demand, however, Instagram recently came up with a desktop browser version that
included a new embed feature. With this new feature, Instagram users can now
attach their short videos to their websites and blogs. The secret behind this
provision is to increase the number of viewers of your posts. You can never be
sure of the number of people who will view your postings on social media
platforms. It is for this reason that embedding your Instagram short videos
will increase the chances of more audiences to your content.
By attaching your Instagram videos
to your website or blog, you are not only marketing your business to your blog
or website community but also informing them of your presence on Instagram. As
a consequence to this, you are highly likely to increase your following on
Instagram thereby standing a chance of meeting your marketing objectives on the
platform. Suffice it to say, it is imperative to take advantage of the newly
launched Instagram embed feature that allows you to share your Instagram videos
with your blog and website audience as a strategy of promoting your business on
Instagram.
Following Back As
Many of Your Followers As You Can
This is perhaps one of the most credible
strategies of succeeding in business promotion on Instagram. On most occasions,
quite a number of businesses on Instagram, especially those with large
following, do not follow their followers back. In doing so, they fail to create
long-lasting relationships with their followers. Thus, you need to have a
competitive edge over such businesses on Instagram by coming up with a totally
different strategy of creating strategic relationships with your followers. It
is important to note that your followers will feel recognized and appreciated
when you follow them back. The act of following back Instagram followers is a
trusted strategy of gaining a large following thus leading to success in your
promotions.
Create a Flexible
and Workable Posting Schedule
The frequency of sharing images and
short videos on Instagram is important in forming a credible following base.
Important to online promotion, you need not make postings every day on
Instagram. Instead, you should design or come up with a flexible and working
posting schedule that makes you able to determine what is to be posted and
when. You should not saturate your audience with too much information. It is
advisable to allow your audience to have time to digest your promotional
information before you post another lest you risk mind-numbing them with
repetitive or too much content.
Having a well-defined schedule for
posting information on your Instagram helps you remember what you have already
posted. With this, you are able to avoid instances of posting the same content
more than the required number of times that would make you look unprofessional.
Additionally, having a comprehensive posting schedule helps you keep track of
the kind of content that works best for you. It should be noted that some posts
always appeal to your audience while others may not be liked as much by your
audience. Therefore, a proper posting schedule is vital in assisting you post
the most relevant content that will meet your promotional goals.
Post Images and Short Videos Relevant To Your Brand
Being relevant at all times makes
you look professional and consistent. It is always important to post images and
short videos that are relevant to your brand. If this is done correctly, you
stand a chance of making your Instagram page identifiable with your brand. On
most occasions, businesses on Instagram make irrelevant posts that have nothing
to do with their brand. In doing so, they confuse their audiences. This is an
implication that they do not offer their audience a definite line of
identification.
Posting relevant and consistent
images and short videos also makes you readily identified by your audience.
Internet users have a wide range of interests and are expected to only engage
themselves with the content that pleases them. Capturing the interest of
internet users, especially social media enthusiasts, is perhaps the most
difficult thing when it comes to social media marketing. Being consistent and
relevant with your postings is an important step to capturing the interests of
your audience. Therefore, it is important to always remain relevant and
consistent with your Instagram postings in order to woo the support of your
audience.
Leverage a Photo
Contest on Your Instagram and Facebook Pages
The use of photo contests is a
proven strategy of winning the hearts of your audience. Photo contests, just
like the name suggests, are photo competitions. During these contests, people
post relevant photos displaying the same or almost similar themes with the
intention of identifying which photos are most likeable and relevant to the
theme in question. Such contests attract social media enthusiasts and can be
leveraged to cultivate an enormous following on Instagram.
In order to succeed in photo
contests on your Instagram page, you need to identify a common theme that is
likable. Ensure that your theme is not only relevant to your brand but also
lucrative to your audience. Once this is done, come up with a photo contest on
your Instagram page and link it to your Facebook account in order to woo more
support. If done correctly, your photo contest is expected to attract
participation from your audience thereby paying a significant role in promoting
your brand amongst the participants.
What’s more, these photo contests
become more effective in promoting your business on Instagram when done using
hash tags. RSS feeds and submissions can best be organized with the help of
famous hash tags. With this, more people will be attracted to your photo
contest thereby increasing the range of audience for your business. For
instance, Samsung Camera made good use of photo contest accompanied by a hash
tag. It used #LiveInTheMoment hash tag as a mechanism of promoting its
Instagram photo contest that was also linked to its Facebook page. The success
of the promotion was majorly attributed to the hash tag used. Participants were
drawn by the hash tag that spread far and wide. Thus, the use of hash tags as a
strategy for promoting photo contests on your Instagram page
can be significantly helpful in social media marketing of your business.
Marketing Your Brand
on Instagram Using Trends
The advent of social media has made
information dissemination quick and effective. People can now gain access to
any kind of information merely through their social media pages. As a result of
this, there is a growth in the mode of sharing trending information on social
media platforms. Such information always has significant importance to a given
audience. As a result, social media users take advantage of the trending
information to seek media attention.
You can as well make good use of trending
information on social media to promote your brand on Instagram. It should be
noted that not all trending messages might be relevant to your brand. However,
you can use the information on these trends to come up with a promotional
message that suits your brand. Always try to find a common ground between
trending information and your projected promotional message to your audience.
If this is done the right way, trends can be invaluable in increasing the
number of followers of your Instagram page thereby assisting you in meeting
your promotional goals.
Network Properly On Your Instagram Page
Business promotion on Instagram can
never be achieved without proper networking. People connect and interact on
Instagram through photos and short videos. They do this by sharing their
content widely. As a result, a wide network that allows these users to interact
freely is created. There are a number of proven tactics of networking on
Instagram. For example, liking images posted by others is one of the most
considerable tactics of creating a credible network of followers on Instagram.
In addition to this, you can include hash tags and engage other users in an
attempt to network with other Instagram users. You will be amazed at how
effective networking on Instagram is when done in the right way and at the
right time.
Attempt to Offer Incentives to Your Followers
Attempt to Offer
Incentives to Your Followers
Instagram is an amazing platform
that allows you to identify your most loyal followers. People that constantly
like your images and short videos posted on your Instagram account deserve some
kind of recognition or reward. Followers’ recognition and appreciation is a
creative way of motivating them and encouraging them to keep liking and sharing
your pots. While there are no industry-specific incentives that can be offered
to your audience, always ensure that the rewards you offer are relevant to your
brand and play a part in your brand promotion. In addition to that, do not
offer incentives produced by your competitors because you will be promoting
your competitors rather than your own business by doing this.
Successful
Instagram businesses have offered incentives such as backstage entries to
concerts, fashion shows and other related events that might interest their
customers. However, you should be cautious not to overdo this strategy. Do not
offer too many incentives to an extent that your operational costs go beyond
the profits gained from such incentives. It is difficult to calculate the exact
profit gained from internet marketing efforts. It is for this reason that you
are advised not to offer too many incentives that you will later be unable to
account for.
Other incentives that can be offered
to loyal followers include promos and discounted codes. While these are the
most commonly used incentives, they work best for retail brands. Therefore,
ensure that that the incentives you offer your loyal followers are compatible
with your brand. That aside, it is important to keep track of the frequencies
of providing these incentives. This makes your audience eager to be part of
your incentives by constantly checking on your Instagram
postings. Consequently, providing incentives and rewards can go a long way in
promoting your business on your Instagram.
Showcase Photos and
Short Videos of Your Back of the House
Posting images and short videos of
completed products on Instagram is increasingly becoming monotonous for social
media enthusiasts. Your audience would love to see something new, creative an
out of the ordinary during your promotional efforts. You can take advantage of
this urge to showcase photos of your back of the house in which you display
images and short videos that are hardly ordinary amongst your competitors.
These could include production processes, managerial activities or even
packaging of your fished products. It is noteworthy that displaying images and
videos of your back of the house gives you a competitive edge over your
competitors who bore their followers with ordinary pictures.
The use of back of the house images
on your Instagram page also wins the trust of your followers. While your
consumers may find satisfaction on your finished products, it should be noted
that they might not be immediately comfortable by their production methods and
processes before you show them how your products are arrived at. This happens a
lot with food products that are perishable. What’s more, cleanliness must be
emphasized at all times when dealing with cooked products. This implies that
consumers of such products are always uncertain of how their products are
prepared despite getting the desired satisfaction from consuming them.
Therefore, giving your audience evidence of the manner in which your products
are prepared wins their hearts and you are hence expected to create more loyal
customers from this lot.
Give Your Followers an Amazing
Visual Experience
Beautiful visual demonstrations for
your audience on your Instagram wall play a critical role of creating
entertainment and passing information. Succeeding in business marketing on
Instagram requires a number of strategies and practices that will leave your
followers amused and excited. It is important to be cognizant of the fact that
treating your esteemed audience to a visual experienced is one of them. There
are hundreds of ways through which you can come up with beautiful visual images
in an attempt to amuse your audience and nurture brand loyalty amongst them.
However, the only thing that cuts across board is creativity and most
importantly originality.
It is important to always be
creative when treating your followers to a visual experience on your Instagram
page. Come up with eye-friendly and balanced mixture of colors that would
impress people that visit your page. Always keep in mind that all the amazing
images that you use to impress your audience must be relevant to your brand. In
the event that your posting do not match with your brand, you are at a risk of
losing your audience. This is because they will not readily identify your
promotional materials with your brand. Therefore, treating your audience to a
visual experience can be helpful in meeting your marketing objectives but must
be approached carefully in order to evade the risk of confusing or losing your
followers.
Leveraging the Use
of Industry- Related Hash Tags
You can never fail to have hash tags
that relate to your industry or brand. This can be attributed to the current
trend in social media platforms that promotes hash tags from all corners.
People have become fond of hash tags to an extent that they are increasingly
becoming the norm in the contemporary societies. Virtually all industries and
brands have hash tags on a daily basis trending on social media platforms like
Instagram, Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn amongst many other similar forums.
You should therefore be on the lookout for relevant hash tags for your brand.
It is only through this that you can identify a tending hash tag on time and
act on it accordingly before it is rendered irrelevant by other upcoming hash
tags.
The use of hash tags comes in handy
when you want to align your brand with an ongoing trend. Social media platforms
have an amazing way of detecting similar hash tags and pooling them together.
This implies that hash tags bring together related posts and brands with common
goals. Through this, you can be able to promote your brand to more people who
are brought together on Instagram via hash tags. Therefore, making good use of
industry-related hash tags is an excellent strategy for promoting your brand on
Instagram.
Optimize your
Instagram profile
Instagram profiles must be optimized
in a bid to achieve the most while engaging in brand marketing. On most
occasions, social media platforms are optimized through numerous strategies
that have worked before for other social media marketers. One must be careful in
selecting a strategy for a brand because every product must be driven by
specific objectives. This is so because while some profile optimization
strategies might work for others, the same strategies might not work for your
brand. There could be a myriad of reasons behind this phenomenon and it is
therefore imperative to carry out a comprehensive research and feasibility
study so as to ascertain the tactic that would yield your desired results.
Brand optimization involves a number
of practices including determining the most recommended image sizes for your
photos, the appropriate number of characters or words that best fit your
promotional materials and the attention you need to accord to your branding.
All these are required to optimize your Instagram page as a strategy of gaining
the most out of your online marketing. If done appropriately and according to
plan, you stand a chance of succeeding in your efforts to market your brand on
your Instagram page.
Quantify and Qualify
Your Promotional Efforts on Instagram
Important as the discussed
strategies are, it is important to quantify and qualify them. It is only
through this that you can tell the tactics and practices that work best for
your brand. Quantifying and qualifying your promotional strategies simply means
that you need to know how you brand is performing on Instagram from the
promotional strategies that you are applying. Instagram has since come up with
impeccable image analytical tools that are able to provide comprehensive
insights on how you brand is performing on Instagram. These tools include
Curalate and BlitzMetrics that have been used in the past to streamline the
performance of brands on Instagram.
With the use of the aforementioned
tools, you are able to track comments and likes of your posts. This provision
therefore allows you to see how your promotional efforts translate into
additional followers. Even more, this provision enables you to know which
promotional tactic works for your brand and which ones do not. Therefore, with
this functionality, you are in a position to dismiss promotional strategies
that do not work well with your brand and maintain those that assist you
significantly in promoting your brand on Instagram.
Capture and Share
Short Videos of Your Important Brand Moments
Many social media marketing gurus
have confirmed the viability of capturing and sharing short videos of important
brand moment on different social media platforms. It should be noted that there
are countless brand moments that can be captured and shared with the intention
of effectively marketing your brand to a wide range of Instagram users. For
instance, preview of upcoming products and highlights of specific brand
launches and functions can be shared on your Instagram in the form of short
videos. In addition to that, you can decide to share important news in your
Instagram page in the form of short videos as a mechanism of wooing support
from your existing and potential followers. Through this, you can be able to
cultivate a wide range of following thereby increasing your chances of
succeeding in your promotional efforts on Instagram.
Driving
promotional awareness and co-creating content with your audiences and sharing
them in the form of short videos also amounts to important brand moments that
can be shared on your Instagram page. Additionally, creating videos that
highlight your fans appreciating your brand can also be considered as important
brand moments. Such videos can be shared on your Instagram page as a way of
confirming to your audience the participation of your customers towards
building your brand image. Therefore, it is advisable to capture and share
short videos of your important brand moments if you need to promote your
business effectively on Instagram.
Widen Your Instagram
Exposure to Other Related Brands
It is never a sin at all to borrow
followers from other relate brands that have been on Instagram longer.
Established businesses obviously have cultivated following that you definitely
want to associate yourself with. Quite a number of businesses have succeeded in
Instagram marketing because they have resorted to borrowing followers from
other more established businesses on Instagram. It is noteworthy that you too
can succeed in this form of marketing when you decide to make good user of
other businesses’ followers.
Widening your Instagram exposure
with the help of other related brands can be achieved by following other
related brands on Instagram. When you like and comment on images and short
vides posted by other brands, you are more likely to gain the confidence of
their followers. It is simple. When you are part of their following you gain
access to other followers who might be interested in our brand. Therefore, you
can succeed in meeting your Instagram marketing through if you widen your
Instagram exposure with other established brands.
Expose New Things on Your Instagram Page
It
is advisable for Instagram users to get out of the ordinary and post something
new and interesting on your Instagram page with the intention of amusing your
audience. This can only be achieved by being exceedingly creative and thinking
outside the box. Ensure that you give your audience something that would
solicit discussions because they are impressed. For instance, ABS World News
has taken advantage of the fact that social media users always want to be
subjected to new and interesting experiences. They have since achieved this
strategy by sharing photos and short videos about broadcasts that are yet to be
aired on their station. This strategy has received a warm welcoming amongst its
wide range of followers on Instagram. It should be noted that this can work for
you as well if addressed in the right way with the help of the right
instruments.
Create A Little Controversy in Your Postings
Controversial
stories might not be the noblest approach to wooing traffic your way. However,
it is undeniable that people love a little controversy. On most occasions,
gossips and controversial news have been used by social media marketers to draw
attention to their websites, blogs and other related social media platforms
like Instagram, Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn amongst many others. Amazingly,
these efforts have always resulted into the desired outcomes. They have played
a significant role in attracting enormous traffic to their specific sites.
Thus, including a little controversy or gossip in your posts on Instagram can
be helpful in your intentions of promoting your business on this forum.
The use of controversial news and
gossips should, however, be used very carefully. When you decide to make use of
such unscrupulous methods of wooing support your way, you must be fully aware
of the repercussions that might arise from the misuse of this strategy. An
exaggerated use of gossips and controversies to attract social media
enthusiasts to your Instagram page can be harmful to your promotional efforts.
This is because your followers might associate you with controversies and
gossips which are not too promising for a starter on Instagram. For this
reason, a little controversy and gossip on your Instagram page can be helpful
in promoting your business on this platform because of their ability to attract
traffic and solicit discussions amongst their viewers. Nonetheless, you should
be careful not to overuse this strategy because it might taint your reputation
amongst your existing and prospected audience.
Include Your
Location in the Bio Information
This is particularly important for
starters on Instagram. Make it clear for your audience from the beginning where
you are located. With the new Instagram, you are able to fill in your current
location in the process of filling in your bio information. Providing accurate
information regarding your location on you bio helps your followers identify
your location. It is important to note that there are a number of advantages
that come with providing the right information about your current location of
operation.
For
businesses, accurate locations allow followers to determine whether they are
able to gain from your business or not depending on proximity. With the right
information regarding your location on your bio, you are able to attract the
right and relevant audiences who will not only like and comment on your images
but purchase the products your brand is offering. This implies that accurate
location information on your bio will ensure that you attract followers who will
be close enough to buy the products and/or services you are offering.
Additionally, providing the right information regarding your area of operation
will help you identify your competitors in the same market niche. With this
information, you are able to plan accordingly on how to counter the influence
of your competitors in the same market.
As a matter of fact, the correct
information regarding your current location also authenticates your business
amongst your existing and potential customers. While your marketing efforts
might be based on Instagram, it may not necessarily need your location, the
people you expect to attract through your promotional efforts need to be
certain that you brand is credible and authentic. Providing the right
information regarding your location is one way of authenticating not only your brand but also yourself amongst your followers.
You need to earn the trust of your followers and by sharing your location with
them helps achieve this. Therefore, you need to make an attempt of including
your location of operation on your Instagram bio with the intention of winning
the trust of your followers as you go ahead with your promotional efforts.
Follow Celebrities
and Notable Figures
This concept is almost similar to
following other well established but related businesses as already mentioned
above. However, the only difference in this case is that you will be following
individuals as opposed to brands and businesses. Virtually all celebrities and
notable figures in the contemporary societies have Instagram backing. They
command a large audience on this social media platform. As a brand, you can
follow these celebrities in an attempt to win the support of their followers.
This has worked for a number of upcoming businesses on Instagram and will
definitely work for you if approached from the right angle.
While this strategy might sound
easy, you should be cognizant of the fact that getting audience from
celebrities requires persistence and patience. The outcomes of this strategy
are not immediate but they surely are long-lasting once you succeed. Taking
advantage of the audiences celebrities have for your personal gain can only be
achieved by constantly liking and commenting on their posts. On most occasions,
celebrities and their audiences will not ignore your efforts forever. A time
will reach when these notable public figures will recognize your efforts. This
happens particularly when they find your promotional materials relevant to
their personal interests.
In order to win the hearts of
celebrities and notable public figures, you should take your time to study
their posts in order to identify their specific desires and interest. Ensure
that you are keen enough to recognize what might piss them off as well. After a
comprehensive analysis of these trends, you can go ahead and forward seductive
posts that will capture the interests of these celebrities. It is highly likely
that they will follow you back if they are interested in your content.
This will therefore mark a turning
point in your Instagram marketing efforts because the followers of these
celebrities will come rushing to your Instagram page.
Following celebrities and other
notable public figures sounds lucrative especially after noting the varied
advantages associated with this strategy. However, you must be vigilant while
taking up this task. It is imperative to follow celebrities who are relevant to
your brand. Do not go ahead and follow celebrities simply because they have
managed to cultivate an enormous following for themselves. You ought to ensure
that the operations of these celebrities go hand in hand with the products and
services you intend to promote through your Instagram promotional efforts. It
is only through this that you can achieve the desired results from using
celebrities’ and other notable public figures’ following to achieve your
marketing goals. As a result of this, making use of networks of celebrities and
other notable public figures is an effective way of succeeding in business
Instagram marketing but only if done in the right way.
Build
Partnership With the Local Brands in Your Business Niche
On most occasions, people have
always viewed competitors as enemies in business while this is not the case.
With Instagram marketing, your competitors can turn out to be your most
valuable allies. The fact that they might be promoting and selling the same
products and services as you own does not necessarily mean you should hate
them. You can take advantage of their presence in your market niche to achieve
your promotional efforts on Instagram. With a cordial relationship with your
competitors, you are able to leverage their support and use their existing
networks to your advantage.
Partnering with your competition in
an attempt to meet marketing goals on Instagram can involve reaching out to
them with the aim of cross-promoting each other’s brands. When this is properly
executed, it amounts to a win-win situation in which everyone gains on
comparatively equal proportions. It is important to note that this intuitive
kills two birds with a single stone because it not only enhances the Instagram
visibility of both brands involved but also reinforces a sense of togetherness
in the business niche despite being evident competitors. Drawing from this, you
can further your business promotional efforts on Instagram by partnering and
cross-posting content on both your pages.
Partnering with your competitors with
the intention of cross-posting each other’s content on Instagram pages is a
clever over more of achieving marketing objectives on Instagram. Nonetheless,
this strategy might pose a myriad of challenges if not handled with care. For
example, the partnering brands must share common interests which are increasing
their visibility on Instagram. In addition to that, both brands must have
related products and services. This is required in order to
enable the participating brands to make relevant posts on their Instagram
pages. One of the most prevalent disadvantages that come with this initiative
is the fact that one brand might have a limited number of following while the
other might have enormous following. In this case, one of the brands will gain
more from the other’s promotional efforts.
Make Good Use of Photo Map to
Promote Your Business on Instagram
Photo
Map is an incredible feature that allows you to publicize the exact locations
where your photos are taken. This feature works best when you geo-tag the
images in relation to the places where they are taken. The feature has been
used successfully on other social media platforms like Facebook and is
currently one of the newest features on Instagram. With this amazing feature,
your followers are able to tell exactly where your photos are taken. Even
better, recent studies have found out that photos with geo-tags get over 80%
engagement as compared to other ordinary photos. This implies that photos that
are amalgamated with geo-tags are more likely to attract engagement from your
audience as compared to plain photos. Thus, the use of geo-tags on your
Instagram posts can play a significant role in not only wooing traffic to your
Instagram page but also ensuring that your audiences participate on your posts
accordingly.
The use of Photo Map is obviously a
major advantage when it comes to telling your audience about the location of
your business. It is important to the local marketing perspective because it
readily informs your audience about the location of your business. In addition
to assisting earning the loyalty and trust of your audience, this provision
also authenticates your brand as a one that has a physical location and can be
readily accessed. Even though this feature helps your followers know your
location, you cannot post images from the same location on a daily basis. This
is perhaps the only setback with Photo Map. You will at times need to post
images from a different location that might not necessarily be your place of
business. The flipside to this, however, is that it could lead to some degree
of confusion among followers. In order to avoid scenarios such as these, you
can make and attempt of using geo-tags only when you are at your desired location
of work.
Come Up With Local
Brand Ambassadors
The social proof of your brand is a
powerful tool of confirming to your audience the credibility of the products or
services that are offered. Coming up with brand ambassadors for your business
is an incredible way of showing social proof of your brand. Brand ambassadors
will praise your brand on their Instagram pages with the intention of marketing
your brand to their friends. This will definitely promote your brand equity
amongst the second level audiences of your brand ambassadors.
There are a number of ways that you
can implement to transform your regular customers into brand ambassadors. For
example, you can make an attempt of encouraging your local consumers to take
and post images of themselves making use of your products. They can also be
encouraged to take photos visiting your product outlets. When they post these
images on their Instagram pages, their followers are more likely to develop
interest on the brand and the products on offer. This initiative thus plays a
vital role in promoting your business on Instagram.
There is one worrying problem that
comes with creating brand ambassadors and giving them the freedom to promote
your brand on your behalf. Since they are merely customers and have absolutely
no shares in your business, there is little surety that these ambassadors will
always have the interests of your business at heart. They might gain the trust
of your other followers on Instagram and use it against you in future. Despite
this challenge, brand ambassadors can be influential when it comes to promoting
your brand on Instagram because of the social proof that comes with their
engagement in your brand promotion.
Hold an Offline Event for Your Instagram
Audience
One impeccable way of building your
local community on Instagram is holding an offline event. Make an attempt of
breaking the online monotony and hold an actual physical event that allows you
to meet your Instagram audience face to face. Inviting your Instagram followers
to a physical event is highly likely to make them feel recognized by your
organization and by you as a person. Additionally, this initiative can make
your audience feel like they are part and parcel of your business thereby
enhancing their loyalty to your brand. Therefore, you can decide to break the
online monotony and treat your Instagram family to a physical event.
Offline events can either be held at
your place of business or any other location that will accommodate the varied
interests of all the stakeholders. While such events might not require specific
locations, it is important to note that the offline events you decide to hold
for your Instagram family must be relevant to your products and services.
What’s more, you must recall and acknowledge that these events act as
promotional activities of your brand and hence must always go hand in hand with
whatever you are offering at your place of business. This is yet another
instance of killing two birds with a single stone. Inviting your Instagram
family to an offline even promotes your business. In addition to this, treating
your audience to an event that is relevant to your brand also markets your
business to your audience.
All you need to do is to post a
date, time and place of your offline event and invite all your Instagram
followers to attend. While this is an impeccable initiative of creating brand
loyalty amongst your Instagram audiences, it is worth noting that this strategy
only works for audiences who are close to you. Such events might be very
helpful to your audience in terms of monetary value. For
this reason, only the followers who will be in a position to come to your event
with limited expenses will make it to your function. Unfortunately, those followers
who will be required to undergo a considerable expense in order to attend such
events might not make it to the events. Therefore, this strategy only works for
loyalists who are close to you or your business for that matter.
Conclusion
Instagram
is a rich platform that people use to share photos, short videos and
information about their day to day lives. Interestingly, the platform has over
the years caught the eyes of investors and marketers who have continued to
design ways of promoting their products with their followers. It is a proven
fact that, just like other social media platforms, Instagram possesses the
potential to create awareness among users (followers) about products and brands
out there. As a savvy marketer, there are hundreds of ways that Instagram can
be tapped into to get the best out of it in terms of product and brand
promotion. While on one hand you could use geo location on your tagged
Instagram snaps and short videos, you could, on the other hand, adopt a
follow-celebrities strategy that could equally promote your profile and product
ultimately. What’s more, you could even go to the extent of partnering with
other competing organizations and brands to leverage each other’s products. In
a nutshell, each organization and brand is unique and it is upon the
management, and the marketing team especially to come up with the most
approp
strategy
for Instagram and other social media presence.
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