Utilizing Instagram For Your Business Success: Here’s How

Remember when marketing used to be one costly and tedious part of the business that can go either way: a success or a failure? Now, social media platforms have become a powerful marketing tool that is not only less costly but also convenient.

One good example is Instagram, which is the third most widely used social networking service worldwide, with over one billion users to date. Despite lagging behind giants like Facebook and YouTube, it is said to have the most engaged audience in all of the social media.

How to Use Instagram To Market Your Business

Instagram marketing has been booming in recent years. While some may not yet be convinced of its capabilities, a lot has been reaping its fruits already.

If you want to take the plunge but don’t know where to start, some of the most useful small business tips on Instagram marketing that you can use in maximizing the benefits of this platform are as follows:

1. Give Emphasis On Your Profile

Since this is the very first thing that people see on your Instagram page, you might want to make a good first impression. Typically, business accounts use their logos as their profile photo. However, you may also use a professional-looking photo that represents your brand like your latest poster or print ad.

Below your username are clickables like your followers and the accounts you follow. Then, there’s the bio section that you can edit whenever you want, so it is an excellent opportunity for you to maximize its use.

You may consider putting in descriptions of your latest events, new products and services, and their links. Yes, do not limit its use to just linking your website, as some may find it bland.

2. Create Powerful Content

People crave strong and unique posts, and sometimes, it doesn’t matter where they came from or who posted them. Use this strategy to gain more attention and reach people who wouldn’t even be interested in anything you say on ordinary days.

This may be the start of growing your following, which may eventually become your potential clients. Some may just be following you because of your unique post that might have captured their attention and can contribute in spreading your content through likes and shares.

3. Never Underestimate the Power of Hashtag

If you have been using Instagram for quite a while now, you may notice that people keep on using hashtags. These can be very beneficial to those people with very few followers and who would like to expand their reach. Those people exploring specific types of content across Instagram only need to search using these #hashtags to see what people are posting or talking about.

Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags in one post, but a standard post typically has around 3-5 hashtags. Plus, you don’t want your post’s description to look annoyingly spammy if you go beyond that.

Common hashtags used for business posts are those of the #companyname. But some of the most widely used hashtags include #love, #instagood, #photooftheday, #fashion, #beautiful, and #tbt (for throwback Thursday).

You can also use anything related to your product or services, especially when posting videos where view counts are monitored.

4. @Mentions are Just as Powerful

Another way of reaching those who aren’t following you besides hashtags is through the use of mentions. This is particularly useful when satisfied customers share their good experience using your products or services.

This is similar to gaining popularity through word of mouth. Only that, it’s on social media, which makes the impact a few folds better and faster.

Consider it a bonus if you got mentioned by a celebrity or an influencer who’s got a massive following. However, this doesn’t happen quite often as not a lot of things are free nowadays.

5. Instagram Stories

Another great feature of Instagram is Instagram Stories, which is very similar to Snapchat’s Stories. Here, you can create short videos, slideshows of photos, GIFs, etc. that can capture viewers’ attention.

It’s another ideal way of marketing through collaborating with influencers and celebrities. Since it’s at the top of the homepage of one’s Instagram app, it’s very convenient for people to view them, which makes it all the more reason to use it as often as possible.

Instagram Business Account

To be able to maximize the potential of your Instagram account for your business, it’s not enough that you have a regular account. To take advantage of the features that this platform can bring, a business account is a way to go. Here’s how to do it through the mobile application.

• For an existing account, log in to Instagram using your credentials.
• Go to your profile by clicking your profile photo.
• Open the settings when you click the three lines on the upper right corner of the screen.
• Click to ‘Switch to business profile’ and continue.
• Input all the required contact information like your business email address, contact number, and business address. Click done after completing it.

Parting Words

Always bear in mind that not every strategy will be applicable to all and that even innocent posts without any hashtags, mentions, and lengthy descriptions can become viral overnight just because they hit close to home or for some other reasons. These tips mentioned above are only a standard guide to get you going with social media marketing using Instagram.

Since there’s no perfect recipe to success, you can do trial and error and see from there what works well for your business and continue doing it. In the end, it boils down to whatever floats your boat.