A Marketer's Easy Guide to Instagram

Advice  •  Wed 10 Jan 2018

As conventional marketing methods prove ineffective, millions of businesses are favouring social media platforms like Instagram to amplify their marketing reach, helping industries to better connect with their consumers.

Instagram exercises a variety of visual implements like videos, images and captions to provide its users with a greater insight into your products; successfully promoting your service or business. The platform is advertised to industries as “a place where visual expression from business inspires visible action from people around the world.”

Business Accounts

Instagram is an amazing marketing platform that benefits businesses of all types and sizes. Instagram enables users offering services or running establishments to convert a regular account into a business account, granting the user insights on their stories, posts and followers.  

Benefits of a Business Account:

A business account features the ability to view instantaneous metrics on how your stories and sponsored advertisements perform throughout the day, with subsequent insights on your followers and how they interact with your posts and stories. You are also granted the opportunity to add information about your corporation, such as business hours, location and phone number. Across the globe, there are 25 million+ business accounts and more than 2 million advertisers using Instagram to drive marketing objectives and grow their business.

How to Set Up a Business Account:

To set up a business profile, you need to possess a pre-existing account. If you don’t have this, simply download the Instagram app and install it on your mobile phone. When complete, open the application and tap “Sign Up”, you can either register with an email address or a Facebook account. Once within the Instagram app, find settings, then scroll down and tap on “Switch to Business Account”.

How to Market Your Business on Instagram

So how can your enterprise get the most out of Instagram marketing? It starts with your profile. When deciding on a username, it is best to go with something that features your company’s name or is similar to your other branded social media profiles. Correspondingly, your bio should include a brief description of the service you offer or your business. This gives interested clients a synopsis of what they can expect from your Instagram profile and your organisation.

Developing Your Brand:

Once you’ve set up your profile, you can begin to build your brand. Instagram promotes a highly visual experience, so to successfully develop a recognisable brand identity, businesses need to use a consistent visual expression to inspire possible clients.

Firstly, you’ll need to decide what subject matter will feature throughout your posts. It could be as simple as images of food to promote a local restaurant. The key here is to create a sense of visual consistency throughout your feed. This will establish a theme that will become distinguishable to your followers and customers. Another tip is to consistently use the same filter for all of your posts. The more identifiable your posts are, the better.

To further develop your brand’s identity, you need to amplify your Instagram presence. This can be done by following other influencers in your industry, regular customers with similar content, or other individuals relevant to your business or service. Another prevalent method is creating a hashtag for your brand. This simple technique not only promotes your enterprise but represents your brand's identity.

Tips to Enhance Your Brand:

After all these points are accomplished, you may still feel as if your business or brand doesn’t stand out against the stream of other accounts. To effectively boost your results, gain consistent followers and promote more creative content; here are some quick tips:

• Organise and maintain a schedule of when to post – this will help you track your results and keep followers interested in the regularly scheduled updates.
• Always use captions – this gives your business the opportunity to update your clients or release information concerning your brand.
• Stay true to your audience – what works for other industries may not work for yours, listen to what your clients are interested in and apply these expectations to your brand.

To successfully promote and market your business on social media, the key is not to fixate on the tools and technology but to aim to understand and implement them more effectively.

If you wish to learn how to navigate Instagram and understand the platform's basic functions, see my previous blog: How to Navigate Instagram: A Beginners Guide.