Branding Marketing Social Media Marketing

7 Ideas How to Market on Instagram

Instagram has become one of the most influential channels of social media marketing in the last few years. Today, thousands of marketers, photographers, bloggers, writers, and brands are experimenting and marketing their brands on this social platform – and for good reason.

Instagram is the fastest-growing social media that currently attracts over a billion monthly active users. They are not just passive observers but very active participants: 60% of users seek out and discover new products on Instagram. Besides that, Instagram offers you a wide range of other benefits:

  • Helps you to raise awareness
  • Nurtures relationships and boosts customer loyalty
  • Generates qualified leads
  • Drives conversions

In such circumstances, the only dilemma is how to prepare a top-notch promotional strategy for this network. We want to help you out with this, so keep reading to learn seven ideas on how to market your brand or business on Instagram.

1. Optimize Your Account

The first step is crucial because you have to create a digital fortress that perfectly represents your business, professional orientation, and style. Account optimization consists of three segments:

  • A profile picture: Add a high-quality photo that shows the name of your brand or logo. If you are creating a personal account, then post your own image. 
  • A bio: Tell something about yourself or your business. Jake Gardner, from the https://my-assignment.help/, says you should answer a couple of basic questions: What makes my business so special? What can my audience expect from me on Instagram? 
  • A link: Instagram is not really a URL-friendly platform, which means you have to seize the opportunity to add a link to your website in the bio. 

2. Use the Best Hashtags

As you probably know already, a hashtag is what sets your content apart from the crowd of other Instagram posts. You must find the best hashtag options for your business because it’s the only way to reach the right audience. At the same time, it would be great to come up with a unique branded hashtag that could make your account easily searchable and recognizable among users.

3. Mix Content Types

Instagram is amazing because it allows you to play with different media types, so you should definitely make use of this feature. Years of experience have taught us to publish 70% of images and 30% of videos, but this doesn’t have to work in all situations. Therefore, you should try to find the best ratio for your account and mix the content accordingly. 

4. Organize Contests

Instagram contests may well be the most productive generators of user engagement. After all, everybody loves competing and winning free stuff – it’s just the way humans think and behave. Most marketers launch branded Instagram hashtag contests to raise awareness and create additional buzz around their products or services. 

Each post with your hashtag automatically displays in the contest gallery, which is where your fans can vote and choose the finest videos or images. Such a tactic is highly efficient and doesn’t require big investments.

5. Share User-Generated Content

UGC is yet another tool to market your brand on Instagram. According to the research, UGC has a 4.5% higher conversion rate than branded posts. Instead of creating your own content, you can share posts made by your followers. This mechanism has two advantages:

  • It saves time because you don’t need to invest too much effort into content creation. 
  • It builds relationships with your audience. When users notice that you share their posts, they are going to feel acknowledged and appreciated. They become legit members of a brand community and you can expect them to stay loyal to your business for a long time.

6. Work with Influencers

Social influencers are a powerful Instagram feature that you must use to market your business. They build a wide base of loyal fans that are willing to act upon their recommendations. For instance, if you are looking to best paper writing services, who would you trust: a well-known influencer with years of experience in this field or a random Instagram user? The answer is obvious, so do your best to exploit influencer marketing on Instagram.

7. Mind the Schedule and Timing

Consistency is crucial if you want to build long-term relationships with your audience. Instagram users publish millions of posts on a daily basis, so you have to be persistent, publish new content frequently, and do it when it matters the most. 

Create a schedule of activities and follow it without exceptions. Besides that, try to figure out periods of the day when your fans are very active on Instagram. That way, you can publish content at the right moment and increase the odds of inspiring user engagement.

Conclusion

Instagram marketing is an extremely effective tactic to promote your business online, particularly if you are running a product-focused company. The image and video-sharing platform can help you to raise awareness and generate leads, but only if you think strategically and make a good plan of activities.

In this post, we explained to you how to market on Instagram using seven highly practical mechanisms. Remember our tips and make sure to use them – they could earn you tons of new customers!

About the author

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Sharon Hooper

Sharon is marketing specialist and blogger from Manchester, UK. When she has a minute, she loves to share a few of her thoughts about marketing, writing and blogging with you. Currently, she is working as a marketer at Paper Writing Pro Coursework Service. You could follow Sharon on Facebook.