How Instagram Marketing can benefit your Business

In the modern age, everyone is on their device and sharing what they love to others. Instagram has created a fun and engaging way to allow users to share content that they love to friends and/or followers. What is even more exciting is that this app is also an asset for businesses marketing. Because you can now communicate/reach potential customers in a more effective and readily available channel.

What is Instagram?

Instagram is the most popular social media app after Facebook and is well known for instant photo and video sharing. Launched in 2010 and later purchased by Facebook in 2012, this app is popular with users due to the ability to load photos, set tags and locations on their account, and follow other accounts. The additional feature of stories where users can post a photo and it disappears in 24 hours, has proven popular amongst users. Instagram and its many features are also advantageous to business, as an array of potential customers are available.  

With the right profile set up, a business has chance to boost engagement and their brand.

Brand Creativity at your fingertips

So how can you market your business through Instagram?

The answer is to take advantage of the two main features Instagram has to offer:

Main posts:

A general rule of thumb with Instagram and Business profiles is the ‘right’ number of main feed posts to keep followers (Earned customers or potential customers) engaged and not lose, or ‘spam’ them. Content should be consistent but true to you. An easy target is three times a week with a theme per post.

It is key is to ensure you are authentic, as users want to engage with brands they can trust. Consider what your company style is and maintain that to retain engagement. Be careful not to be too pushy with product advertising posts, as this can risk potential customers scrolling past.

Also, take advantage of tags as this helps potential followers see you by their search of interests.

Stories, stories … and more stories:

This feature is important in terms of engagement as the Story feature is more current and can have stronger impact on current followers or lead to new ones.

This feature allows your posts to be seen more effectively due to the way the stories feed is set out, right at the top - where it is more likely to be seen then a standard post.

Unlike normal posts, stories should be shared more often, their positioning at the top of the page makes them more accessible and likely to be noticed, than standard posts – which can get buried in the chatter of the users main feed.
And because stories effectively expire after 24 hours, they are less likely to be considered as spamming, or oversharing.

Another advantage of stories is the ability to share a post that a user has tagged you in, this ensures engagement with customers is maintained. Also, your followers can share any recent main story posts to their own story which will then be seen by their own followers.

Power of social media user engagement

So, you have begun to build a following on Instagram, what happens next?

This is where the key to ensuring you create a connection with followers and maintain a good engagement level is important. If your followers are invested in what you post and desire to re share your content, then you have begun to establish a relationship.

Once the relationship is formed, then how you continue to share your posts and promote your brand should reflect your values, which in turn helps build your follower’s trust.

From there, those following will be influenced to purchase products - as they trust your brand, so will trust your product.

The way you promote products will be done in a different way to standard advertising, more subtle but still effective. Another way is through the help of an Influencer.

How Influencers can help your Business

What is influencer marketing?

This is where a company will use a well-known social media star to promote products on either the business account or the influencers own. The benefit is the influencers own high engagement levels and follower counts, which will in turn help the business they promote. This can result in the influencers followers trusting the businesses brand, which then can lead to increased purchases of promoted products.

How can influencers help your business?

If you choose the right influencer with a high engagement and follower count, then this can lead to an increase in followers for your own account.

As well as more followers, you also gain a trustworthy reputation which will also impact on product purchases.

It is known that most followers on Instagram are not interested in traditional advertising so having a trusted influencer promote your products ensures target customers are more likely to purchase.

A common way an influencer will promote products is by offering a discount code that can be used on your website - e.g. Their name20% exclusive to their followers.

This is another benefit to your business as their followers will trust what the influencer is marketing, and this will lead to more sales and in turn a higher follower count for your own business Instagram.

Here is an example of top Influencers in New Zealand (as of early 2022) and their follow count.

Instagram and the cost of Advertising

Advertising on Instagram is a great way to gain new customers and boost sales. As long as the posts remain consistent with your brand, reliably maintaining an authentic brand is vital to keeping followers.

Next is to establish what you want to achieve from the ads:

• Do you want more visitors to your website?
• Gain more sales of a particular product?

Once you have decided this, then you need to analyse how your followers interact with your profile.

• Are they viewing your stories more often and engaging in the content?
• Do they share your posts from their feed?
• What posts have gained more likes and reshares?

Establishing this will help you choose how to design the ad.

Once this is sorted then you can begin creating an ad and calculating how much cost is involved.

Costs can be broken down by the following:

• Daily budget (for duration of the ad with no end date)
• Schedule budget (Costs for whole campaign - Ad with an end date)
• CPC (Costs per click – e.g., visits to your website)
• CPM (Costs per impressions – differs with how many impressions gained)

If this all sounds like it would be good for your business, but you are not sure where to start, let us help you.

SquidGroup loves to help businesses with their social media marketing.

Please contact us if you would like assistance in setting up Business account on Instagram