An in-depth guide for leveraging the social platform’s features for business.
Instagram is among the top social media platforms in the world and Instagram for business is among the most popular digital marketing solutions for companies of various sizes and industries. Instagram provides numerous opportunities for brands to engage with customers, build brand awareness, and drive sales. However, effective usage of the platform requires an approach that takes into account its particularities, unique features, and user behavior patterns.
In the article, we will explore the benefits of using Instagram for business, best practices for achieving more sales, and high audience engagement by utilizing the platform’s features to their fullest potential and go through the process of setting up an Instagram business account. By the end of it, you will get a deeper understanding of how to take advantage of the capabilities of Instagram for business.
Instagram has grown in popularity in recent years, particularly among younger groups. The platform now has a remarkable 2 billion monthly users globally, making it one of the world’s most popular social media platforms. For businesses, this means a hardly ignorable potential of new engagements with their target audience and expansion of user base.
Furthermore, several studies have revealed that Instagram has a particularly high impact on purchasing behavior, with 83% of users claiming that the social media has helped them discover new products and services, and 80% reporting that they have purchased a product or service after seeing it on Instagram, while half of the users say the platform helps them discover new brands. These figures highlight Instagram’s importance for companies trying to improve their key business metrics, such as total sales and conversion.
With the introduction of Instagram for business, features, such as Instagram Shopping and Instagram Ads, have made the platform an even more powerful tool for business to reach its target audience and drive sales. Additionally, the visual nature of Instagram makes it a particularly effective platform for brands in creative industries such as fashion, beauty, and design, as they can showcase their products and services in a visually stunning way that captures the attention of their target audience.
Instagram Ads feature comes with sophisticated social media advertising targeting possibilities, including age, hobbies, activity, and geography. Businesses may determine what segments of an audience have the highest potential of converting into long-term clientele. Additionally, Instagram lets companies target individuals who have already seen or heard of their brand. Custom audiences based on Instagram post interaction, client email lists, Instagram video views, and more are available for retargeting.
Thanks to Instagram’s extensive stats, which include link hits, leads, and conversions, businesses can get the most out of their Instagram marketing efforts by using A/B split testing to determine the best-performing ad approach.
Instagram assists in raising brand-awareness in several ways. For starters, by developing a visually appealing and consistent profile, businesses may establish a brand identity that followers can readily recognize and remember. Engaging with followers via comments and user-generated content also aids in the development of relationship with the audience and long-term brand loyalty. Using Instagram features like Stories, Reels, and IGTV to produce compelling and interactive content may also help enhance engagement and reach.
Instagram provides companies with multiple ways to profit from their activities on the platform:
Now, let us explore how businesses can leverage Instagram’s features to effectively promote their products or services and maximize social media presence.
Developing an effective social media strategy requires a solid understanding of its audience. This can be achieved by analyzing an existing customer base, learning what traits are common among the majority of subscribers on other social media, and examining the activities of competitors on Instagram. Understanding the audience’s demographics enables a brand to create content that has values resonating with it.
Having no plan means mediocre results at best, since it is crucial to produce unique content that covers various topics relevant to the audience and is created with consideration of the current moment and ongoing trends.
Onboard social CRM. By employing a CRM with extensive support of social media channels you’ll be able to interact with Instagram followers directly from the CRM system, viewing each follower as a potential lead, as well as comparing the effectiveness of Instagram activities with those on other platforms. For example, with Umnico social CRM, you can manage conversations across all popular social media within a single interface, track employee performance and streamline the process of converting leads into loyal customers.
One of the sure ways to facilitate more followers’ activity is tagging products from a brand’s Instagram shop that are present in your content. Instagram allows tagging of up to 20 products in a feed post. To tag a product, create a post or Reel, and on the final screen before posting select ‘Tag products’. By the way, you can tag products from other shops as well, which is useful for collaboration and cross-promotion. Use the tagging feature to make your offerings more discoverable to the followers and shorten the customer journey. This way, things get even easier than in real life: a client can potentially buy a product with a couple of taps on its ad!
Today, it is hardly enough for a brand that seeks to use the full capabilities of Instagram business features to simply broadcast its content at regular intervals. The current trend favors two-way interactions, with a company inviting its audience to participate rather than simply observe. This can be achieved by polls, asking the community for opinions, showcasing suggestions on product usage devised by customers, and so on. Reposting stories and reacting to comments contribute to the development of a community feeling and encourage the appearance of more user-generated content, which is a win-win situation for both the brand and its clients.
Now let’s see a step-by-step process of setting up a company’s Instagram account for attracting leads and clients.
It can hardly be questioned that Instagram sits on top of the social media mountain, among Facebook and Twitter. The incredible size of the active audience and extensive business features make the platform a unique tool for companies to reach new clients, strengthen relations with existing ones, and even sell products directly on it.
Since the best results of using Instagram for business can be achieved by making it a part of a larger social media mix, conducting customer communication through multiple social apps and devices can get overwhelming for employees. Businesses may link their Instagram accounts using Umnico’s Instagram CRM. The secure and stable communication service allows companies to effectively evaluate their Instagram marketing strategy and manage customer engagement. The best part: all Umnico functionality is available for free during a trip period.
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