Instagram marketing tips can help your business boost brand loyalty and generate more sales.
Today, Instagram is one of the most used social media platforms as users spend almost an hour browsing the platform each day.
Instagram marketing tips can help you make your content viral and generate social media following on the platform. It’s simple yet attractive layout can any business you skyrocket ROI effectively.
Here are the Top 25 Instagram Marketing Tips to Grow Your Business in 2019
1. Have a Relevant Instagram Handle
The Instagram handle of the account is one of the first things users notice when they see a post.
For personal profiles, the Instagram handle does not play a crucial role. While for businesses, their Instagram handle is their identity on the photo-sharing platform.
If your business is just starting, then you need a clear and relevant handle that will help you in acquiring customers and creating brand awareness to the new prospects.
So, businesses generally use the company name so the users can quickly identify the business and engage with the content.
2. Write An Engaging Bio
The list of Instagram marketing tips is incomplete without an Instagram bio.
Instagram bio will let people know more about your business. It is like having an about page on the website where users can read everything that you want them to know about your business.
A bio is what you tell people about your brand whenever they visit your Instagram account. So, a witty and engaging Instagram bio can play a crucial role in establishing a good first impression and making users follow your account.
You can also mention handles of other Instagram accounts that you manage inside the bio, or you can also mention your promotional hashtag to convey a specific message.
3. Set a Relevant Profile Picture
The profile picture is also one of the few properties that your users observe first while interacting with the content.
So, never put a random image or your personal headshot as the profile picture of business accounts.
The random image would ruin your brand reputation and affect your Instagram marketing strategy since people won’t be able to identify your brand.
You can put an icon or logo of your company as the profile picture to let users know about your brand.
You can go to Canva or find a graphic designer at Fiverr to change the size of your logo to 180 x 180 pixels to use it as the Instagram profile picture.
4. Include Relevant URL in Bio
One of the critical Instagram marketing tips is always to send users to relevant third party resources to generate desired customer action.
If you have a business that sells products and provides services, you can leverage the bio section of the Instagram profile and mention the URL of a third party website where users can go and find about the offer.
You can also mention the short URLs to track the clicks and traffic from Instagram bio or put a full URL of your properties like YouTube channel, email subscribing link, blog, website, etc.
The URL section can also help you create dynamic Instagram posts and stories.
Where you can tell users to check the link in the bio to know more about what you discussed in the product.
5. Include Email, Phone, and Location
If you own a place like a departmental store or a workplace, you can mention that in your Instagram bio if it helps your business acquiring more customers.
It is an excellent tool for restaurants, agencies, corporates, and individuals to let users know where the business is located so the users can visit the physical location.
Instagram also allows you to mention phone number and email address to let users connect with the brand instantly. So, mention relevant information in your bio so that users can inquire more about your business and may purchase your services.
6. Learn How to Click Images from Mobile Phone
Instagram is the most renowned photo sharing platform in the world right now. People click pictures and share it on the platform in the form of stories and posts.
More than 100 million pictures are being uploaded daily on the platform, and that shows the engagement of the platform and the amount of creative content generated over the channel.
For marketers, since there are so many posts uploaded every day, it would be challenging to make their posts stand out and generate desired engagement on their Instagram feed.
So, the marketers must know how to click pictures that are irresistible to users, and the viewers cannot help themselves but like and comment on the photo.
To do that, you won’t need expensive gears to click pictures. Just understand the few fundamentals of photography, and you are good to go.
You must develop skill in mobile photography and try to tell a story through your pictures, so check out the course on Linkedin Learning, Udemy, and Skillshare about mobile photography to clear your basics.
7. Check Out Different Mobile Editing Application
There are dozens of research done on the topic of how to edit pictures for Instagram to generate engagement.
Well, you may have a flagship camera in your phone, but a slight touch of editing can make your pictures awestruck.
Even though you have captured a magnificent frame, you might want to edit the shadows, brightness, hue, saturation, and color toning of your photograph to make its details sharper and crisp for your audience.
For every leading mobile platform, there is an intuitive photo editing application that can make your work of editing easier.
Snapseed, Adobe Lightroom, VSCO, Picsart are some of the top photo editing apps. Moreover, Instagram also provides built-in photo editor and filters that you can apply while publishing a photo on your feed.
Using these platforms, you will get granular control over the look and feel of your pictures, and you can blend your photos creatively.
8. Write Relevant Caption
A descriptive caption can make your posts relatable and engaging. A combination of the mind-blowing picture with readable caption brings more likes and comments on your photographs.
Through caption, you can encourage people to stay, read, and engage with your content.
The caption gives you the power of profound storytelling since you can tell journey, add emotion, mention BTS, and countless other possible scenarios.
For a business, you can mention additional details related to the post, use hashtags, or even tag relevant accounts.
9. Develop a Publishing Calendar
You need to share engaging and creative posts on Instagram to make your voice heard and get business exposure. However, creating a post is not essential. You will have to maintain the consistency to build rapport and engagement for your feed.
When you publish a few posts, Instagram will show you details of your audience who often engage with your content. It will show location, age, gender, and the time when most of your audience is online on Instagram.
So, you can anticipate from the numbers of when you should post and how much engagement you would get when you post a photo.
You can also register on other 3rd party tools to get such analytics. These tools also tell you when you should post your content to get maximum engagement.
Check out different social media management tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Buffer, etc.
10. Use Hashtags
Instagram allows its users to follow hashtags to see the posts of other users whom they are not following on the platform.
Hashtags are powerful tools to send your message effectively. Moreover, you can also get more impressions for your post if you use viral hashtags.
Because Instagram lets the users follow a hashtag just like they follow an account.
So if you find a hashtag that has a good following, you must use it in your post for more impressions and eventually get more engagement and following.
Moreover, you can also leverage hashtags to create dynamic and personalized communication for your Instagram campaigns. In a single hashtag, you can effectively communicate your message, promote products, support benevolent causes, and write CTA for your followers.
11. Use Hashtags Generator Tools
When you type a hashtag while writing the caption, Instagram’s autocomplete will give suggestions in a dropdown menu and show popular hashtags you can use for your post.
However, you can also use free online tools to know the popular hashtags to use for your posts. These tools are easy to use and make the process of finding relevant hashtags quicker.
Checkout Ritetag, Hashtagify, and Instavast to find out hashtags for your post.
12. Tag Brands and Influencers
Tagging popular relevant Instagram accounts in your pictures can give your posts and account more exposure.
When you tag other accounts in your brand, those accounts will receive notification of you tagging them, and they may check what you have published. This way, you can build a relationship and begin a conversation with relevant accounts of your niche.
Moreover, your post can be found out from those profiles, which you have tagged.
When you go to the feed of an account, you can tap on the third option from the left to see pictures where the particular profile has been tagged.
13. Utilize IGTV
While videos in Instagram stories can share 15 seconds and posts lets you have 1 minute long videos, IGTV allows you to publish long videos that can last from 15 minutes to 1 hour.
It is like having your own YouTube channel where you can leverage full mobile screen and showcase more content in a single post.
14. Create Engagement on the Platform
Unless you are Cristiano Ronaldo or Kim Kardashian, you need to be super active on the platform to build authorship of your account.
Because unlike celebrities, your business won’t start getting thousands of likes and comments from your first post. You will have to make your way to become a prominent voice in your industry on Instagram.
You need to be super active and engaging on the platform to develop authority for your brand. If the posts are helpful and provide value, people would engage more with them.
Instagram will observe the rise of people’s interest in your posts, so its algorithm will increase the impressions of your content on the platform.
15. Comment on Other’s Pictures
You sow what you reap. Yes, if you want to get exposure, then provide engagement to others’ posts by genuinely engaging, and interact with them.
You can follow relevant people on Instagram, respond to their stories, and reshare their posts/stories on your story and tag them in the same.
Comments are also a great way to show your appreciation and share your point-of-view related to what is being shared on the post.
Most importantly if you genuinely interact with others’ accounts, followers of those accounts will observe your comments and may come to your profile. This way, you can attract more visitors to your profile and generate more prospects for your business.
16. Publish Stories Regularly
You cannot ignore Instagram’s most creative tool — stories.
Most importantly, Instagram stories cover more area of the mobile screen compared to the usual Instagram posts. So, you get more screen space to convey your message effectively.
Now, there are interactive filters available on Instagram stories that can transform your selfies and stories to make it more purposeful.
You can tag relevant accounts, and mention location, current temperature and time on your stories to make it more personalized and engaging.
You can also share videos, boomerangs, and pictures as your story to communicate with your audience.
17. Stay Updated With the Trends
As a business which is present on social media and publish content regularly, you must know the trending topics and current scenarios that are prevalent in the real world.
You can amalgamate the trend with your post ideas and create dynamic Instagram content to deliver to your audience.
Follow relevant hashtags and turn-on post notifications of the leading accounts to be notified whenever a piece of news or post is published on the platform.
You can also go for Google Alerts to get email notifications of your niche.
You must ‘live your niche.’ By living, I mean, know what people are talking about, read blogs, research memes, and know industry forecasts to be able to deliver better content with each passing day.
18. Schedule Your Posts
As already said, publishing content at a particular time can give you more engagement on your Instagram posts, so you cannot miss the right time otherwise the opportunity to get the maximum positive results will be lost.
To cope with the scenario, you can schedule Instagram posts so that the creative gets published at your choice of time without fail.
Moreover, it will save your time and resource as you don’t need to remember date and time; you can schedule the post, and the post will go live automatically. So, you can focus on other essential tasks.
19. Use Location for Exposure
Instagram allows you to mention the location where the photo is clicked, or the post is made. Now, whenever someone searches the location on Instagram, the platform will show the other posts of that particular location.
Moreover, whenever a user clicks the location from any post, the user would be redirected to a new page.
Where the user would get the stories and a grid view of all the posts published from that area.
So if you can mention the location of your workplace or your city.
You will get slightly higher impressions and more engagement for your content.
20. Try Paid Marketing
You can promote your content in stories and posts while achieving dynamic objectives through Instagram paid campaigns.
You can bring traffic to the websites, increase app installs, generate sales on your store, and improve social media following.
Based on your objective, there are a variety of objectives you can choose from Instagram’s paid advertising.
As a business, the paid marketing option will let you achieve quick results and get instant sales for your business.
For example, if you are giving a discounted price or special offer for your products for a short time, you can run paid marketing for your brand to get maximum involvement.
21. Collaborate with Brands and Influencers
Instagram is all about generating unique content and provide value to users through posts and stories. To get your Instagram to the next level, get in touch with local brands influencers, and run an Instagram collaboration campaign.
Image Source: Mediakix
Instagram is the number one social media influencer marketing platform right now.
Where Influencers can review your products, share a post, and also tag your business. This way, you get brand awareness for your business.
It is one of the examples of collaboration; you can also run a contest or host giveaways in collaboration with the influencers.
22. Go Live
Instagram live gives you the power of broadcasting whatever is happening around you without any filtration. Moreover, Instagram is very kind to send push notifications to the followers of an account which goes live.
It also provides you the option to go live to broadcast an ongoing event at your workplace or to showcase the surroundings an event that you are attending in the given time.
You can also host a live Q&A session through Instagram live and give solutions to users. You can also add another Instagram account during your live session, and you both can go live at the same time.
23. Try Instagram Shopping
Instagram shopping can improve conversions of e-commerce websites and online sellers. With Instagram shopping, you can tag relevant products in your posts.
Instagram has a creative way to tell the name and price of the products on the post, and you can also specify the discounted price of the products using Instagram shopping to generate immediate sales from the platform.
The users would be redirected to your website to complete the purchase. So, you can leverage this feature to bring more visitors and generate sales on your website.
24. Publish Videos
Video content works best on the web as it is a perfect tool to communicate, educate, and convert users. You can tell a lot more things compared to what you can convey through an article or a photograph.
Video posts will give more impressions, likes, and comments on your Instagram post. In fact, videos will provide you with 38% more engagement and twice as many comments on your post on Instagram.
So, try publishing for videos once in a while to promote new products, announce the sale, and invite people to your store.
25. Share BTS
BTS stands for ‘behind the scenes’.
Whenever you are planning an event like a product launch, conference or preparing for a special occasion at your workplace.
You can post BTS videos or photos to showcase your audience how your team worked to make the event successful.
You can also show the backstage setup of your shoots in stories, IGTV, and regular posts are a great way to showcase the behind the scenes. Also, mention your team members to make your posts more affable and personalized to users.
Conclusion
Do share your comments on how do you promote your business on the platform and what Instagram marketing tips you implement for your accounts.
If you have experienced the techniques discussed in the post, also share your story in the comments.