A question I’m often asked by clients is ‘how do I use Instagram as a marketing tool?’ If you’re looking to engage with your customers, build an audience, and insert your personality into your business, Instagram is for you. In this blog, I look at how to use Instagram to grow your business.
Instagram has over 1 billion monthly users
Instagram now as over 1 billion monthly users, which is more than Twitter, and the people who are using Instagram are shoppers. They soak up your marketing messages without having a hard sell marketing pitch. Instagram helps to convert shoppers into customers. But how do you achieve this?
1. Set up a dedicated business account
Your business profile must be separate from your personal profile. In your bio, be sure to include a link back to your website. Make sure that your profile name and image are on brand and relevant and keep it professional.
2. Create posts that will engage your audience
Post high quality images that will engage with your customers. While they should reference your products and services, avoid the hard sell. Be creative with your photos to keep things interesting and give your customers and prospects a reason to want to follow you.
3. Focus on Engagement
If an Instagram photo is shared with 10,000 followers, it will get an average of 331 instances of engagement. That’s a towering statistic compared to Twitter, which would receive only 7 interactions for every 10,000 followers who saw the tweet. Instagram offers the opportunity to enhance your customer service, receive direct feedback from consumers, and create relationships that convert visitors into loyal customers.
Write engaging captions, use relevant hash tags and include simple call to actions or ask questions to encourage your audience to engage with you.
4. Continual growth
The point of Instagram is to keep on attracting new customers, so don’t let your efforts plateau. Take time to analyse your profiles performance to see what’s worked and what hasn’t. Pay attention to the formats of the posts that have worked the best and repeat them.
Instagram provides a unique opportunity to increase customer loyalty, brand equity, and lifetime user value.
I hope that you have found this ‘How to use Instagram to grow your business’ blog useful. As always, if you have any questions or comments please do not hesitate to get in touch here.