Instagram is the 4th most used social media platform in the world with more than 2 billion active users. 6 out of 10 Instagram users check their accounts at least once daily. This article gives a good Instagram marketing guide. Instagram is used by more than 25 million businesses to promote their products and services. If you are still not using Instagram to promote your business, you are missing out a lot. In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about Instagram marketing for businesses from creating an Instagram business account to monitoring and evaluating the performance of your Instagram content.

Why Market on Instagram?

One of the main advantages of Instagram over other social media platforms is its visual aspect. It has been proven that the engagement rate of visual content is 650% more than text-only content.

The growing popularity of Instagram has made it one of the most influential social media platforms for customers’ purchase decisions. In this digital age where the demand for online shopping is at its peak, one of the main challenges both customers and businesses face is the inability to experience the physical product. The visual components of Instagram like images, stories, and reels help companies minimise this gap between traditional and online shopping.

And also Instagram marketing guide allows businesses of all types and sizes to reach their target audience through Instagram hashtags for free. 

Now that you know the importance of Instagram for your business, let’s learn how to succeed at Instagram marketing. This article has covered everything you need to know about how to market a product on Instagram and how you can achieve at it through proper guide to Instagram.

Create an Instagram Business Account

You’ll need an Instagram Business or Instagram Creator account to get started with Instagram Marketing. To create an account, download the Instagram app on your device, sign up, fill up your details and it’s done. As simple as that! If you already have a personal Instagram account, you also have the option to convert it to a professional account by clicking on “Switch to Professional account” in account settings. Business account gives you access to some amazing features like Instagram insights, Instagram ads, Instagram shopping, primary and secondary messaging inbox, contact information and call-to-action button.

Optimise Your Instagram Profile

Having an optimised Instagram profile allows you to attract potential customers, make a good first impression and ultimately convert them into customers. When someone visits your Instagram profile for the first time, there is only a very short span of time to engage them and convert them into customers.

Here are some of the ways to optimise your Instagram profile;

• Select a profile name that accurately reflects who you are as a business. It is recommended to add a keyword along with the brand name. For example, rather than just saying Digifix, we use “DigiFix Digital Agency Melbourne” as our profile name

• Write an engaging Instagram bio. Although writing a good Instagram bio seems very straightforward, it requires strategy and creativity. It is important to showcase your brand personality through your Instagram bio. Some of the best tips are to include relevant keywords, use hashtags to communicate the services you provide, optimise your brand name and add a call to action. Here are a few examples of excellent Instagram bios;
  

• Add a high-quality profile image to match your brand or business. It is recommended to add the logo as the profile image for businesses. This adds confidence and encourages visitors to see who you are at a glance. Your Instagram profile picture is cropped to a circle with a diameter of 110 pixels and displayed at 110 by 110 pixels. However, since it’s 320 by 320 pixels, you can upload a file that size to ensure it looks good even though Instagram changes how profile photos are displayed.

Keep Your Goals Clear

Every social media platform is a part of your marketing strategy. Therefore, whatever you are doing on Instagram and other social media platforms should align with your overall marketing goals and objectives. If you are not clear on your goals, no matter how much time and energy you put into maintaining a nice looking Instagram profile, you won’t be able to achieve the expected results.

Know Your Target Audience

Once you know your goal, the next crucial step is to segment and identify your target audience to sell products. This is one of the most important steps in the entire process because no matter how much effort, money and time you invest in your Instagram marketing strategy, it won’t be successful unless you target the right audience.

The first thing you have to do is to group customers into different groups based on their needs, wants, characteristics and lifestyles in a way that customers with similar characteristics fall into one group. Some of the well-known segmentation bases are geographic, psychographic, demographic and behavioral.

Once you have segmented the market, you can select one or more segments of customers as your target audience based on what your business is, your objectives, the products and services you offer, etc.

Leverage All Types of Content Formats on Instagram

Instagram not only offers basic posts but a variety of different content formats that will help you achieve different goals and objectives. You should not limit your content to basic posts and should experiment with different content formats.

Instagram Live

This is another Instagram feature that has gained popularity in recent years. Using this feature, you can stream live videos and they will appear as stories. Instagram live has proven to be very effective for businesses because it allows them to interact with customers in real-time. Many businesses use Instagram live to have Q & A sessions where customers type in questions and businesses get to answer them in real-time. If you are collaborating with other brands or influencers, you can also invite them to Instagram live and chat with them.

Instagram Reels

Instagram reels are 15-second fun and interactive video clips that you can record, edit and share in your Instagram feed. And what makes reels different from other Instagram content formats is that users can not only see reels from the accounts that they follow but from all Instagram accounts on the Reels tab.

Use Hashtags

Hashtags are a great way to make your content more visible and discoverable. People search for content using hashtags and if you don’t use hashtags you will not appear for the topics or the keywords that are relevant to your business. Just like keywords are a priority for SEO, branded hashtags should be a priority for Instagram marketing. However, make sure that you are using hashtags that are relevant to your brand and your business.

Collaborate with Influencers

Working with an influencer will help you establish credibility while still introducing your brand to a different group of people. According to CivicScience, almost half of regular Instagram users have purchased anything as a result of an influencer recommendation. However, you have to be very careful in selecting the right influencer to represent your brand. Because just as a good influencer can bring in a lot of positive results to your business, an influencer that does not match your brand can do a lot of damage.

Make Your Posts Appealing and Search for Content Ideas

Because Instagram is a visual platform, your posts must be visually appealing. You don’t need professional camera equipment, so at the very least, your images and videos should be sharp, well-lit, well-composed, and in focus. If you’re using images other than photographs, such as infographics or cartoons, make sure they’re crisp, consistent, and appealing to the eye. More importantly, your visual content must be engaging. Great photographs are lovely, but they won’t engage followers if they don’t tell a story or get viewers excited. Search for content ideas for Instagram to engage your followers.

Consistent Look and Feel

After you’ve decided what kind of content to publish, you’ll need to figure out how it’ll look. Your Instagram profile should have a consistent look across all of your posts so that your followers can easily locate your content in their feeds.

For this, you can come up with a set of posting guidelines including a theme, colors to be incorporated, fonts, font sizes, tone of the wording and the artwork, a set of common templates, etc. If you and everyone in your team stick to these guidelines, it won’t be hard to get a consistent look at your Instagram profile.

Consistent Captions

Instagram is a visual medium, as we just said. However, this does not excuse you from paying attention to your captions. Your brand’s voice is just as vital as its visual appearance. It should be consistent across posts, just like your graphics. You can use Instagram captions for anything from a fast quip to an elaborate narrative because they can be up to 2,200 characters long. However, without tapping more, only the first two lines of text appear in the news feed. Because people scan captions rather than reading them carefully, you want to pack as much information as possible into the first two lines.

Engage with People

If you want to get people to engage with you on Instagram, you have to engage yourself. It is a two way street! Posting high-quality content is excellent, but if you never respond to comments or communicate with other users, you’ll be lonely on the network. If you’re tagged in a post, take a look and see if there’s something you can do about it. Is it possible for you to repost their post in your newsfeed or on Instagram? Try to comment and repost content published by other businesses and individuals that are relevant to your business or industry.

Choose the Right Time

Posting stories and posts at the right time is another important area to consider in Instagram marketing. There are no universally accepted right and wrong times to post on Instagram. For example, best time to post Australia Instagram is different from other countries.

The best time to post for one business might be not working for another. You have to consider several factors in selecting the right posting time such as your target audience and their online behavior, your Instagram marketing strategy and objectives you are planning to achieve, etc. Many companies and researchers have come up with some general best time slots to post for different industries. However, it is always best to conduct some research by yourself, do an a/b testing and identify what works best for you.

These features are getting updated every day and you get more and more interesting tools to work with for your business. If your business is still not on Instagram, this is the ideal time to start. And if you are already there on Instagram, there is so much room for improvement. Our team at DigiFix is more than happy to help you in every step of the way in your Instagram marketing journey. You just need to contact us in any way that is easy for you!

Happy Instagram marketing!