Instagram is undoubtedly one of the most powerful and influential social media networks around. According to the latest official data, Instagram has a whopping 2 billion active monthly users worldwide.
Whether you are trying to increase your sales, get more customers, increase your traffic or expand your brand, Instagram is the platform to be on. Instagram is a pretty difficult platform to grow on, but it’s still one of the best social media channels you can use to expand your small business.
The beauty of this platform is that it’s highly visual, and it holds a strong place by focusing on images and videos rather than text posts, giving small businesses the chance to connect with existing and prospective customers.
If you want to take your business to the next level, we’ve put together an essential guide to creating an Instagram marketing strategy for small businesses that your followers will enjoy.
Find the Right Audience
The main priority for small businesses should be to find the right target group and try to learn more about them and how they use the platform. Otherwise, you will not have great chances to reach them and catch their interest.
Conducting a target group analysis is the first step to defining the audience and this will make your mission of reaching them much easier.
If you’re unsure how to go about increasing your follower count, you might want to look into Instagram growth tools like Nitreo. However, keep in mind that these tools will grow your account through automation and bots that add no value to your business. As a result, if you opt for growth tools, make sure to conduct thorough research and find a trustworthy one that can help you gain engaged and relevant followers.
To make things easier for you as a small business, consider your customers’ demographics and interests as you’ll get a better understanding of what type of customers would most likely want to buy your product or service and you’ll get a clearer picture of what steps to take next.
Content Rules
The most basic part of your Instagram marketing strategy is to create the content to best showcase your brand and reach your business goals.
The idea is to create content that is positively related to your audience’s needs and encourages your followers to share it. It will increase the impression of your post and you will be able to reach more people.
To develop a reliable relationship with your audience, consistency is more important than frequency. Plan your content according to when your followers are most active during the week. The Instagram algorithm also favors an account that publishes regularly. Also, videos have been transformed into the gold standard for content engagement. Videos are a popular and simple way to convey your message.
Although emojis can be quite effective if used properly, more extended captions get more user engagement and instead of filling the captions with emojis and hashtags, write complete sentences to increase your post’s performance.
Use Instagram Stories Highlights
Like never before, brands are adding stories to their Instagram marketing strategies. Stories-style content is both interactive and hard to miss as they pop up first in follower feeds and can help your brand stay fresh in the eyes of the audience.
You can use this Instagram feature to share updates, packages, offers, or simply playful content. Stories are something you should try to post daily to keep your audience engaged.
Paid Ads and Work With Collaborators
Paid ads can help you gain more leads, conversions, followers, and engagement. You can also set up your Instagram ads with Facebook Ads Manager, which offers a large number of targeting options to choose from, such as video ads, image ads, group ads, story ads, and more.
Finding and working with an influencer who’s a great fit for your brand is a marketing strategy that can help you convey your brand’s message to a wider audience on Instagram, generate brand excitement and engagement, and boost sales.
Use Free Instagram Analytics Tools
There are many online tools available, and these are invaluable as you can see post statistics like engagement, impressions, and more. Through insights, you can understand how users interact with your posts and how you can improve your content to increase engagement.
These types of tools can also help you analyze your audience’s demographics, obtain information about their location, gender, and most active hours.
Final Thoughts
Every small business must have a presence on the largest social media platform to reach a large audience, generate leads and increase sales. While hashtags can help you gain followers organically, you should implement the other tips in this article to optimize your Instagram account and win more loyal customers.