How to Create a Relevant Marketing Strategy for Instagram

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Social media marketing is a tried and true way to increase brand visibility and recognition. While there are several social networking sites that you’ll want to be an active member of, one that you don’t want to miss out on is Instagram. The site is the second most visited site in the world and boasts of more than 1 billion monthly active users.

If you don’t yet have a marketing strategy for Instagram, now is the time to create one! In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know to maximize your return on investment when using the social platform.

Start With an Attractive Instagram Profile

There’s a huge difference between a personal Instagram account and a business account. In fact, these accounts should look nothing alike! While you may have your own personal account on the platform, when building your business account, it’s crucial to separate the two.

The purpose of a business Instagram account is to improve your brand’s online presence, to appeal to customers, and to create new leads. This means that your business account needs to be all about your company with minimal or no mention of you.

When crafting a business Instagram account, there are certain things you’ll want to do including:

⦁ Create a bio that showcases your brand’s personality

⦁ Encourage a customer to take action (ie. follow, make a purchase, etc.)

⦁ Provide a link to your business website to drive traffic and sales

With a well-designed Instagram profile, you’ll find that you’re more easily able to attract new customers, as opposed to spending money to buy Instagram followers.

Research Your Competitors

Unsure of where to start in regards to building up your Instagram profile? Some of the best places to look are your competition’s IG feeds! Study your competitors to get an idea of what they’re promoting on the platform, what type of images they post, and commonly used hashtags.

You’ll also want to make note of details such as how often competitors post, when they post, and what content strategies they’re using. These are especially important details if you’re looking to market to a similar target audience.

While you don’t want to copy your competitors, it pays to take the time to research what others are doing. This way you’ll have insight into how to build and improve your Instagram strategy.

Looks Matter

While we’ve been told not to judge a book by its cover, aesthetics are critical in the Instagram world. When visitors come to your Instagram page, they want to see images that entice them to make a purchase or to want to learn more about your brand.

If the goal of your Instagram profile is to drive sales, you’ll want to take the time to produce detailed product imaging. Customers like to see products before buying them, especially when making an online purchase.
When posting images, make sure that they’re in line with your brand’s identity. This means keeping a consistent personality and tone.

To ensure your images are seen by the right people, you must have a clear idea of who your target market is. Figure out what types of images your audience is most interested in seeing and what attracts them to certain social media profiles.

By reflecting what your target audience wants throughout your Instagram feed, it’s much easier to attract and build a following while also retaining current followers.

Caption Each Image You Post

Posting eye-catching and unique images are only half of the battle in mastering Instagram. The other half of the equation is properly using hashtags and captions.

Creative and fun captions are a key part of attracting followers and customers. It can be a challenge to come up with captions on the fly, so instead of rushing to post an image the same hour you take it, spend some time coming up with a caption that will captivate your followers.

Captions should be kept short and sweet. Users generally spend no more than a few seconds reading them, so posting paragraphs isn’t going to get the results you want. Instead, focus on quality. Make your text valuable. Use humor when appropriate. Be conversational if it makes sense. Avoid being too formal.

Use Plenty of Hashtags

Similar to any type of social media marketing, tagging (known as hashtags on Instagram) is the best way to make your content locatable. Without hashtags, your content isn’t likely to get many views. This is because with hundreds of thousands of posts each day, it’s all too easy for your content to get lost in the ocean of images.

What’s nice about hashtags is that they enable users to find the content that they’re looking for by searching for specific terms. If your content is tagged with one of these hashtags, it will show up in search results.

Hashtags are more than just random words incorporated into a post. When using hashtags, you want to:
⦁ Use common hashtags that are often searched for
⦁ Use hashtags that are specific to your target audience
⦁ Incorporate branded hashtags as well as location-based hashtags

When using hashtags, quality and quantity matter. You don’t want to go overboard in using hashtags, but it’s generally best to include no less than five per post.

Conclusion

Building a relevant marketing strategy for Instagram isn’t something that happens overnight. Creating a quality strategy requires continuous research and trial and error. But once you figure out how to best use the platform to meet your business goals, you’ll wonder why you didn’t embrace Instagram sooner!