You may not consider Instagram as the go to platform for business growth, but if you don’t consider it you run the risk of falling behind your competitors and other businesses. Whilst it is an amazing platform for getting your name and your brand out there and connecting you with markets you didn’t even know existed, there are also unexpected benefits of using Instagram for business growth!
Learning What People Like
Up until social media took over, marketing was a lot about attempting to guess what people like and then putting that guess work to the test with a product launch. Instagram have all but removed that guess work as you can actively see what consumers like! Consumers engage with businesses and brands post and will give open and honest feedback, and if this occurs on the prototype stage, you’ll be able to tell if a product will grow your business or if the idea will flounder. Taking the guess work out of product launches will help you grow your business faster as you’ve already received positive feedback from your customers.
Building Rapport
People will always buy from people that they like and if users ask you a question, compliment your product or give you feedback you are able to respond directly back to them. Not only that, other users will see this interaction and want to be involved, especially if you have handled it well. This type of interaction can help your business grow as you will be seen by customers to be helpful and receptive to their suggestions and needs.
Growth Services and Automation
If you are using Instagram solely to grow your business, automation via a software dashboard is a great way to make this happen faster. You can set up follower limits and allow the bot to interact on your behalf. Whilst this is happening, it will enable you to look at and understand what type of people you want your bot to follow and work with.
By setting these follow/unfollow parameters you can begin to really understand your target market, audience and niche. You may even be lucky enough to uncover a niche community, which are notoriously difficult to find on the platform.
By methodically going through your demographic and target market, you can really gain a valuable insight into the community that engages with you and your products, thus increasing your understanding of their wants, which you can then address by selling them your product or service.
User Generated Content
There is no better way to increase your growth than by engaging with your customers and sharing their content of them using or wearing your product. As a growing business, people are going to share their photos of them using their new items or a service to their audience, this on its own will help you grow as their followers may well be interested, but if you also share their content, that can further increase growth through solidifying the customer relationship. People like to feel validated and if you can do this for your users, you will see a noticeable difference in how many followers you have and how much more the traffic to your website increases by. Fundamentally, user generated content is also free marketing, it costs you nothing but time to share this to your feed and story!
You Can Collaborate With Like Minded People and Businesses
Prior to social media, businesses weren’t really into collaboration and working together to increase growth and sales, but Instagram has flipped all that on its head. You have access to a plethora of businesses and influencers, some of whom match your brands values and goals.
Why not proposition these businesses and work together to increase growth further? This is especially effective if you are both already well established on Instagram and have a healthy growth rate, even if you both have a high level of followers and engagement you can always grow more. By working together, you can further increase growth and sales by engaging a target market you wouldn’t have had access to previously. Even if you don’t have a high following, collaboration is an excellent tool to stimulate growth.
Final thoughts
If you use Instagram to grow your business and brand, there is so much more to it than just watching your numbers tick over. The side effects of using Instagram for growth can be leveraged to increase the growth of your business further, you just have to think outside the box and be smart about how you can do this.
Always remember the end user in everything you are doing as they can provide you with free feedback about your products and service without having to leave the comfort of their home. Work with other businesses that are established so you can both increase your reach and continue growing. The unexpected benefits of using Instagram for growth can be leverage to further increase your growth; you’ve just got to know how!
