Used by almost two billion users, Instagram is a great place for businesses to increase brand awareness, connect with people, promote their products or services, even sell, and so much more. A small business can thrive with the right Instagram strategy. Basically, you need to create relevant high-quality content and know-how and when to post it. If done right, this should bring you engagement with the right people – your target audience –, which translates into conversions and increased sales.
If you don’t already have one, set up an Instagram account for your business, create a strategy, and start reaping the benefits of the popular platform. Once you learn how to get more followers on Instagram organically and retain them with good management, you will be able to see real results – engagement, conversions, ROI, increased sales. Here are some of the steps you need to take to make sure that you are on the right track.
Work on Your Instagram Strategy
You can’t manage your Instagram business account haphazardly if your goal is to have a successful Instagram presence. Instead, you need a clear strategy. A strategy will help you regularly create and share relevant, valuable content, be consistent, interact with your followers, grow your community. All of this will help you analyze the results properly, learn what works and what doesn’t, learn more about your audience, make changes and optimize accordingly.
Before you start creating or improving your Instagram strategy you need to know the market, your competitors, and how they handle their Instagram, you need to know who is your target audience, and understand them – their interests, what appeals to them, and so on. You need to decide who will run your Instagram account, are you going to do it alone, or is someone else helping you or taking care of it entirely, will you use tools to grow, will you hire an agency, will you use paid ads, and so on.
Learn How to Inspire Engagement
People decide to follow accounts that offer them value. This is rarely simply because they offer good products, and more frequently because they post good content – something informative, educational, fun, etc. A good Instagram account has a lot of engagement. In other words, people react, comment, or share their posts. Encouraging this is of utmost importance because engagement is one of the most important indicators of the success of an Instagram.
However, you shouldn’t share any content just to inspire engagement. For instance, a cute or funny video with animals or babies, may bring you a lot of likes and shares, but not so many new followers, or at least not so many followers that may become your customers. Instead, boost engagement by offering content that will keep your audience’s attention, and is relevant to both of you.
Unfortunately, quality content can only take you so far. Not everything good becomes viral. This is why you also need to use hashtags, hire Influencers, live streams, stories, use paid ads, reply to comments, etc. Your Instagram strategy should be focused on interaction. You can also encourage engagement by creating contests or challenges, and offering awards.
Share Your Content Regularly
Instagram users follow friends, celebrities, businesses, and if they don’t see your posts for a while, you will be forgotten or even unfollowed. Successful business accounts share content regularly but they don’t post too much. To find this sweet spot you should create a content calendar. This will ensure that you don’t forget to share a post when you planned to and it will also remind you of important dates and events.
Once you analyze your audience and know who they are, you can use some of the data to determine behaviors that may help you optimize your Instagram and increase the efficiency of your Instagram efforts. For instance, if you can determine what time your target audience is generally online and on Instagram, you can make sure that you publish at that time.
Conclusion
When used the right way, Instagram can help entrepreneurs reach the right people, start or grow their businesses, it can give them more control over the way their brand is perceived by their target audience and the world, a way to establish a real, lasting relationship with their followers. Businesses can also advertise on it, they can sell your products on it, and so on.
Learning how to manage your Instagram business account can help you take advantage of everything it can offer you. Most of the people you want to reach are already there, and your only job is to find the right way to reach them. However, remember that your business should always be in your focus. Never forget that everything you post represents your brand.
