Are you looking to increase your business profits with the help of Instagram? Yes, it is very much possible and we discuss the best way to use Instagram for Business.
Let me guide you towards everything about the Instagram business account. Instagram is a very critical social media means to advertise your business. It has a huge user base, and people are crazy about it.
It is extremely easy to use and is highly beneficial for businesses to market their brand. This article will guide you about using Instagram for your business, right from creating an account to establishing a competitive strategy.
If a business has a social media presence, especially on Instagram, it can do wonders in gaining more and more customers. Millions of companies are already registered on Instagram for their business, and millions of people visit at least one of those business profiles daily.
Instagram has defined and provide itself as a hub for brands that allow a high level of brand follower engagement. It helps businesses realize their goals in a short period.
Step by Step Guide to Use Instagram for Business
Step #1: Creating an Instagram Business Account
Creating a business account on Instagram is easy. If you already have a personal account from where you are advertising your brand and have also managed to have a good following, you convert it into a business account.
This way, you can gain access to all the business features, and at the same time, your followers will not get to know about this transition. You can also create a new Instagram business account if you do not have a personal one or if you want to keep your personal and business accounts separate.
Here are the steps with which you can easily set up an Instagram business account:
- Download the Instagram app on your device for Android, or iOS.
- Click on Sign Up on opening the app.
- Enter the email address you want to register with and click on Next. IF you have a Facebook business page, you can also connect your Instagram business account to that page and ensure you use the admin email to sign up or your Facebook login.
- Select the preferred username and password and fill up the personal information on the profile. It’s done then!
- Now, your personal Instagram account is all set to be converted into a business account, as explained below
How to Shift a Personal Instagram Account into a Business Account:
- Login to your personal Instagram account from the app.
- Go to the profile and then tap the icon with three lines at the screen’s top right. Then go to Settings.
- Click on Switch to Business Profile and Continue.
- If you want to link this account to your Facebook business page, follow the prompts; otherwise, add the contact details like email address, a physical address, and a phone number.
Step #2 – Developing a Winning Action Plan
1. Determine the Audience you want to target
It is important first to know who will see your posts; only then can you determine the kind of content you can post. For instance, most Instagram users are below 35 years of age, and the maximum number of users are from the USA, then India and Brazil.
It would help if you dug in more and understand who is going to be the target audience for your business, as explained below:
- Find out the customers who buy from you
- Find out who all follow you on social media
- Do some competitive research
- Find a statement for your business that is clear
It is very crucial to determine what the target audience wants and what kind of content they like. It is also important to see how the audience interacts with your competitors.
2. Understand the purpose and aim
When you run a business, you know your aim and objectives and what you wish to accomplish. This knowledge plays a great role in creating an effective business strategy on Instagram.
When you know your goals, you can easily monitor and track them and, after that, focus on all the efforts that are being put towards realizing those goals and objectives. Follow the SMART framework, where each alphabet stands for-.
S – Specific, M – Measurable, A – Attainable, R – Relevant, and T – Timely.
3. Performance measurements
Every business will have a different metric for performance measurement, but on a broader view, you should target the metrics related to the social funnel. The customer journey has four stages, and your goals must comply with one of those stages:
- Awareness – It comprises metrics like the growth rate of followers, brand awareness, post reach.
- Engagement – It comprises amplification rate and engagement rate.
- Conversion – It comprises conversion rate, click-through rate, bounce rate, cost per click, and CPM.
- Customer – This metric depends on the actions taken by the customer.
4. Post regularly
Your fans and followers would want to see regular posts from your account once you have a great following. It is crucial to keep your followers aware and updated with your brand and engaged with the content.
Simultaneously, the content must also not be so overwhelming that followers lose interest and unfollow you. There is no fixed time to post for any business, and it depends on your industry vertical.
You can also see what other brands from your industry are posting and at what times. The key is to understand when your target audience is online and scrolling through Instagram.
For this, go to the business profile and click on the three bars icon on the top right corner. Click on Insights, then the Audience tab to see at what times the audience is more active. This data is crucial as you can schedule the content posting on Instagram.
Step #3 – Perfecting your Instagram Profile
After creating a business account on Instagram, it is important to optimize this account to get the best results. Here are the steps you can take to optimize the account:
1. Adjust your Bio
The bio is of only 150 characters, and it must be very effective as it carries the whole burden on itself. It explains to the visitors about your brand who are visiting for the first time.
It shows what your brand is all about and why it is important to the followers. The idea is to crumble down all the essential and critical information about the brand in this small space to make it alluring. Follow these quick tips to do the same:
- Tell your brand’s personality, make it casual or professional, a bit bold, etc., so that it reflects your business.
- Use the Instagram hashtags as they are clickable and are ideal for showing-off on this platform.
- Emojis are small symbols that tell a lot about the character of your brand.
- Use line breaks so that the bio is readable and attractive.
2. Have a perfect profile pic
A profile picture says a lot about a person, and for businesses, their logos and brand symbols say it all. To maintain the same logo for your brand that you use on other social media channels.
This will help in the easy identification of your brand. Always upload a photo of at least 320 pixels square because it displays 110×110 pixels and is stored as 320×320 pixels. The photo that shows up on the profile page is cropped, making sure the whole logo easily fits in.
3. Complete the profile
Instagram is a powerful platform to use all its features to its full potential to get the best out of it. Use the name and username very wisely because these are included when someone searches for you on Instagram.
Use the real name of your brand and maintain it across all social media channels to make it simpler for the Audience to find you. If you have accidently set other user name on Instagram, you can simply change your username of your account name to your brand/business.
You can also post an organic website link on Instagram, so you must share the link of your website, campaign, blog, or some landing page.
4. Use business profile features
Having a business Instagram account gives you access to many different profile features than personal accounts. You must be sensible enough to make the best out of these features for your business.
Use contact information like email address, phone number, etc., so that followers can directly connect with you from your profile. Mention the category as it is shown under your name and tells the people at a glance about your brand.
Call-to-action buttons are extremely important as they enable the users to make reservations, book appointments, purchase tickets directly from your business Instagram account.
Step #4: Sharing Exclusive Content
1. Visually appealing
Visuals are very important for marketing a brand, and Instagram is all about visuals only. A human brain tends to fall on more visually appealing pages or websites.
Moreover, it also gives a visual identity to the brand. Determine what you want to showcase in your posts, like pictures of your clothing brand or restaurant’s food.
You can also post the customer’s experiences of your services. Your post’s content must possess a theme corresponding to your brand and keep the visual look very consistent.
2. Beautiful photos
You need amazing and beautiful photos to post on Instagram, but that does not mean you require a professional photoshoot. Use your smartphone to click the photos and enhance them to post them through your device directly. Keep the following things in mind to take the best pictures:
Avoid using flashlights as it makes the faces look more oily and casts shadows on the nose and chin. Even the product shots must be taken in natural light as these pictures come out to be soft and rich. Avoid the harsh lights and prefer clicking on cloudy days than sunny ones.
Use the in-built grid in your phone and place the photo in the grid lines to get a good photo that is balanced.
Take pictures from different angles by crouching down, standing on a chair, etc., to get the best versions of your subject.
3. Photos
It is good to edit the photos you have clicked before posting them. It is ideal for editing consistently and like a pro to make your brand images recognizable. You can use several photo editing apps on your mobile that offer great filters or options to help you unique your style.
4. Share good stories
Instagram stories are very popular, and people enjoy watching them. Businesses that post Instagram stories are likely to attract more people than those who don’t post.
You can share attention-grabbing content and photos in Stories as the stories vanish after 24 hours. It is a fantastic channel to share your authentic brand stories. Make these stories appealing and creative and ensure the viewers get the best out of what they see.
5. Appealing captions
Captions say a lot, even in fewer words; you need the art to design them. Even if your visuals are very appealing, a completing caption lets you tell the story that gives sense to the photo.
The captions help in building a connection between the brand and the Audience. While creating a caption, make sure you are aware of your brand’s voice and keep it consistent.
Step #5: Growing and Engaging Audience
1. Follow and Involve genuine Instagrammers
There is always a community that exists on social media networks who have the same likings and mindsets. Find the one relevant to your brand by engaging with the brands and people they follow.
Monitor the industry hashtags and posts, then follow the active people in the discussions as it will help you make them aware of your presence. Get more involved with such communities, and you will find people who are likely to like and follow your brand too.
2. Apt hashtags
Hashtags are the easiest and quickest way to help someone find you. One cannot search you on Instagram with captions, but can only do so with hashtags. On clicking on a hashtag, it will show all the content linked to that hashtag, and people can get access to your content even if they are not following you.
So, go in for creating your branded hashtag as it represents your brand and inspires the followers to share the pictures that fit in that hashtag. Several businesses use hashtags to get user-collected content, which they can share again for promotion.
3. Reply to mentions and comments
Instagram is a huge social media platform, and thus, it is important to respond to your brand’s comments and mentions. This way, users feel that they are active and engaging with them at a personal level.
It helps in motivating people to follow your brand. Avoid using bots to respond; rather, respond authentically when your brand gets mentioned.
4. Influencers on Instagram
It is essential and critical to get access to loyal and engaged Instagrammers by working with an Influencer who has flowers that may be interested in your brand. This kind of marketing is called Influencer Marketing. This type of marketing can be used by small budget brands as well as they can hire micro-influencers.
5. Promote your brand
Every business that wants a good digital presence has accounts on various channels. If you have that too, then let those followers also know about your Instagram account.
You can tell them the kind of content you are sharing on Instagram and make them believe why it is worth it. You can also embed the Instagram posts in your blogs so that blog readers can easily start following you on Instagram as well.
Your business card or email signature can also have the name of your Instagram handle so that anyone with whom you share it also gets to know about your Instagram account and can follow you.
6. Focus on the large target audience
You can target the Instagram ads to make sure your content is visible to a wider target audience. The more reachable your content is, the more popular your brand will become.
You can have call-to-action buttons so that the user can directly take action from the Instagram post. This way, there are less fewer steps to traverse before making a purchase.
7. Insta-specific campaign
If you have a certain goal in mind for your business, then make the best use of Instagram campaigns. You will get quicker results with this marketing strategy. These campaigns can have ads and target specific content for a fixed period. It is very easy to initiate and monitor an Instagram campaign.
Step #6: Monitoring Success and Making Amendments
1. Analytics Tool
Once everything is set on Instagram, it is important to keep a regular check on your promotion progress and see if it matches up to your business goals.
You must check the results of each post, story, and ads to know how the progress is. You can use any of the several analytical tools to get this data and analyze how things are moving for you on Instagram.
2. A/B Testing
There are several strategies on which businesses work, and the best way to improve the results is to test each strategy on its performance. You should know what works well for you so that you can amend the strategy if required.
A/B testing is recommended to test your Instagram marketing strategy, and this is how you can do it:
- Select what you want to test – post, ads, caption, hashtag, etc.
- Make two variations on what your research must be based on.
- Monitor and examine the results for each.
- Select the variation that wins.
- Make a small variation and see how you can change the results.
Conclusion
Instagram is a very powerful tool that lets the users take photos, give captions, and then share them on the social media platform. It lets the businesses create branding efforts by sharing images and posts online.
It is a powerhouse for marketing especially for small businesses and is relatively easy to use. In today’s time if you want to have a strong digital presence then you should be on Instagram.
Use this fantastic platform wisely, by following the above-discussed steps and get the best out of it. Gain more followers and increase your client base in no time.
