Instagram Marketing Strategies

Summary: In this article, we’re going to examine the importance of social media marketing for Instagram. Its population is growing rapidly, and you need to know various Instagram tactics for business to stay ahead of the competition. These Instagram marketing tips and tricks will help you turn your account into a revenue-generating platform and also, answer frequently asked questions like: How to do Instagram marketing? How to utilize Instagram for business? How to advertise products on Instagram? What are the best Instagram marketing strategies?

Instagram: A Boon for Business

The birthplace of all trends, Instagram is the ultimate social media platform for sharing photos and videos.

Recently, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri shared a video wherein he declared that Instagram is no longer just a photo-sharing app. The priorities of Instagram are shifting towards four key aspects: Creators, Video, Shopping and Messaging. This means that Instagram will give rise to new opportunities for entertainers, influencers, businesses, and marketing.

As of 2021, Instagram already has 1 billion monthly active users worldwide! With average usage of 30 minutes per day.

Instagram marketing business is booming and it’s about time companies realise the importance of business promotion on Instagram.

81% of users claim that they use Instagram to research products and services, and 90% of users follow at least one business account. This makes it an app of opportunities for business owners all over the world.

With the right kind of Instagram marketing strategies, your brand can successfully engage with your current audience, reach potential customers, and stay relevant in the fast-paced digital world.

Instagram social media marketing lets you creatively advertise your products or services. Visual stimulation with photos and videos makes your Instagram advertising strategy more retentive, memorable and engaging.

There are many Instagram marketing tips, but before learning what they are, let’s point out some benefits of Instagram social media marketing:

• Easy to learn and use;
• Easier to reach a new audience;
• Increase consumer engagement;
• Multi-channel promotions using Instagram content;
• Increase website traffic;
• Generate more leads and sales;
• Provides an image and personality for your brand;

In terms of ROI and cost, Instagram promotion is the most efficient online marketing platform, attracting more users and businesses every day.

Instagram for Business Tips and Tricks:

These simple Instagram marketing tips and tricks will give you an insight on how to build an Instagram content strategy that engages your audience, increases organic traffic, and generates leads and revenue conveniently.

Top 10 Instagram marketing tips:

• Tip #1. Always use a business profile.
• Tip #2. Define your goals.
• Tip #3. Understand your audience.
• Tip #4. Use Instagram Insights.
• Tip #5. Instigate anticipation and curiosity in your followers.
• Tip #6. Use Instagram Reels and Stories.
• Tip #7. Encourage User-generated content.
• Tip #8. Implement Instagram influencer marketing.
• Tip #9. Use sponsored Instagram ads.
• Tip #10. Use a branded hashtag.

For creating a successful Instagram social media marketing profile that resonates with your audience, you need to have in-depth knowledge on how to utilize Instagram for business and understand the top 10 Instagram marketing tips.

So without further ado, let’s get into the Instagram marketing strategies of 2021:

Tip #1. Always use a business profile.

To conduct business using Instagram promotion, the first thing you should do is click on “Switch to Professional Account” in your account settings to easily create a business profile for your brand.

This is one of the most basic Instagram marketing tips.

Using a business profile gives you many benefits right off the bat.

First of all, your followers can get in touch with you directly from your Instagram profile with the “Contact Button.”

It adds a collection of analytical and helpful features, making it easier to plan and manage your digital marketing Instagram promotion posts.

List of features in a business profile:

• Instagram Insights (Tool for analysing your audience and content)
• Instagram Shopping and Checkout
• Instagram Ads
• Promoted Posts
• Contact options and Action Button
• Branded content approval
• Quick replies
• Links for Instagram Stories

After unlocking the perks of your business profile, you need to decide your motives for Instagram marketing strategies.

Tip #2. Define your goals.

Before developing your Instagram content strategy, you must know what you want and don’t want for your brand on Instagram.

There are different methods of business promotion on Instagram, and you need to choose the ones most suitable for your brand.

• You can use Instagram marketing strategies promotion to sell your products directly;
• You can use Instagram as a portfolio to display your products and redirect customers to your website;
• You can use Instagram promotion for brand awareness by indirect advertising like motivational quotes, lifestyle posts, intriguing visuals, open-ended question posts, testimonials, etc;
• You can use Instagram business promotion to better connect with your audience by sharing user-generated content;
• You can create an Instagram monthly plan to post contents regularly.

You can implement a combination of these methods to create the most effective set of  Instagram marketing strategies for your brand.

With your marketing goals defined, the next step is to know your audience.

Tip #3. Understand your audience.

Defining your key demographics is the most crucial prerequisite for your Instagram marketing strategies.

Studying and analysing data is the best way to learn your audience’s online activity and preferences, helping you build airtight Instagram marketing strategies.

Data regarding age, gender, location, and interests should give you a basic idea of Instagram’s demographics.

• Age and Gender demographics of Instagram:

• Location demographics of Instagram:

• Interest demographics of Instagram:

These demographics reveal a few facts about Instagram users like:

• Most active Instagram users are between the age 25-34 years;
• USA and India has the highest number of Instagram users;
• Travel, music, food, fashion, and film are the top 5 sectors Instagram users are interested in.

Now that you understand the audience of Instagram, you need to segregate the Instagram community to identify the audience that is most relevant to your brand.

Instagram makes it fairly easy to identify your specific target audience.

Here are some of the Instagram marketing tips and tricks to easily identify potential customers:

• Monitor popular hashtags related to your brand;
• Track events related to your brand;
• Examine your competitors’ followers;
• Use the analytical tool “Insights” to get important statistics about your existing followers.

Now that we’ve mentioned it, let’s talk about this free analytical tool “Insights”

Tip #4. Use Instagram Insights.

Instagram Insights is a free analytical tool that you can use to get an in-depth understanding of your business profile.

This is the holy grail of Instagram marketing tips.

Along with a breakdown of your followers’ demographics, you can use this priceless tool to analyse specific posts and content on your feed.

You can track your audience’s behaviour and engagement of your posts to adapt and modify accordingly.

You can check what kind of posts your followers are interacting with and what kind of posts are missing the mark entirely.

If you follow the data provided by Insights, you can create an unforgettable experience for your end-users.

Understanding your users is the first step towards delivering an impeccable user experience and grabbing their attention for successful business promotion on Instagram.

Another way to put your brand under spotlight is by instigating anticipation.

Tip #5. Instigate anticipation and curiosity in your followers.

Anticipation is a strong emotion for marketing and it is one of the most overlooked Instagram marketing tips.

You can create a feeling of anticipation and curiosity among your users by using Instagram marketing tips like product teaser posts and giveaway posts.

Product Teaser Post Example:

 

Giveaway Post Example:

 

Along with your phones and TVs, your audience is also getting smarter. Most users don’t like to be pushed around anymore, they get annoyed or scared off by aggressive marketing.

That’s why brands are employing new and different Instagram marketing strategies to increase the effectiveness and engagement of their content.

Product teaser posts and giveaway posts provide a gentle nudge to your followers towards your product, leaving them with a sense of fascination and wonder.

You can also convey hidden or obscure messages through your content promotion on Instagram to encourage curiosity and redirect followers to your website.

Your audience gets intrigued by product teasers and special giveaways, which tempts them to try the product or service for themselves.

And even if they don’t end up buying your product, they’ll at least interact with your content by liking it, sharing it with their friends, or commenting on it, increasing your profile’s reach and engagement.

You can also utilise Instagram Stories and reels to boost the reach of your profile and advertise your products successfully.

Tip #6. Use Instagram reels and stories.

Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels promotion are the most versatile and concise ways to advertise on Instagram.

Instagram Reels promotion is a new feature that is in direct competition with TikTok. It is an effective way of creating trendy content to keep your brand’s image relevant in the fast-paced digital era.

86.6% of Instagrammers post on Stories and 500 million users use it daily.

No brand should miss out on the exposure that Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels promotion provide.

Instagram Stories are available in a slide-show format and they stay uploaded for 24 hours before getting deleted automatically. But don’t worry, you can use the same Stories again as it gets saved in your Instagram archives.

This feature gives you the freedom to think out of the box and experiment with different kinds of content.

You can use Instagram Stories to share:

• Short clips;
• Animated text and graphical videos;
• Selfie camera videos;
• Tutorial videos;
• Boomerang clips;
• Engaging memes.

Here are some of the interesting ways brands use stories for effective promotion on Instagram:

Spotify uses these Instagram marketing strategies in a very unique way.

They create a personalised slide show for their users displaying a list of their favourite songs, artists, genres, etc.

The users can directly upload the slide show on their Instagram Story to share music preferences with their friends and followers, providing Spotify with free marketing through user-generated content.

This brings us to the next Instagram marketing tip.

Tip #7. Encourage User-generated content.

This is an absolute no-brainer. It is the easiest way to increase engagement without expending any effort or money at all.
Utilise Instagram marketing tips in such a way that your audience do the work for you!

Encourage your followers to provide you with pictures or videos that display your product or service and in return, tag or mention them when you post the content on your feed or your Story.

This Instagram marketing strategy is welcomed by the users because the tags and mentions give them recognition and more followers.

Also, your followers feel involved with your brand and this type of content exudes empathy.

Here’s how Apple has been leveraging user-generated content to advertise the quality of their devices’ photography:

Vegnonveg, a multi-brand sneaker store, is another company that takes full advantage of user-generated content by posting pictures of customers wearing or showcasing their products. A couple of examples:

 

User-generated content can maximise engagement with your audience. Now let’s discuss a way to maximise the brand’s reach with Instagram influencer marketing.

Tip #8. Implement Instagram influencer marketing.

Instagram influencer marketing is growing rapidly, and yet it is overlooked by many companies. It is one of the most cost-effective method of Instagram marketing strategies with an amazing return on investment.

The influencer marketing industry is projected to reach $15 billion by 2022.

It is one of the quickest ways to increase brand awareness and reach potential customers on Instagram.

There are numerous influencers and social media celebrities who hold millions of followers, partnering with them exposes your brand to a whole new audience.

Choosing the right influencer to mirror your brand’s image is the key to successful Instagram influencer marketing.

Few examples of Instagram influencer marketing:

 

 

Even established companies like BMW use influencers marketing to showcase their products and unlock potential customers.

Some companies choose celebrities to influence the audience in their favour.

Another way to increase your brand’s outreach efficiently is by using Instagram sponsored advertisements.

Tip #9. Use sponsored Instagram ads.

Sponsored ads are one of the most commonly used Instagram marketing strategies.

As of 2021, the total ad revenue generated by Instagram ads for business is $ 18.16 billion annually.

While scrolling through the feed, one Instagram sponsored ad can be seen after every five posts.

Your content is only visible to your followers unless your audience shares it. Instagram Sponsored ads allow you to share and market your products outside your followers and reach potential leads.

Sponsored ads on Instagram are ideally eye-catching and conspicuous. Using your existing high-ranking posts in your Instagram sponsored ads is an effective way to guarantee its success.

Different companies use different Instagram marketing tips and paid promotion techniques to grab the users’ attention like discounts, special one-time offers, giveaways, etc.

You can use a variety of sponsored ads to boost your online presence:

• Photo;
• Video;
• Stories;
• Carousel;
• Ads in the explore section;
• Collection ads;
• Shopping ads with the products tagged on the image.

Along with Instagram sponsored ads, another way to spread your content all over Instagram is by using branded hashtags.

Tip #10. Use a branded hashtag.

Creating interactive and engaging hashtags makes it easy for you to share your campaign across all platforms. The campaign of contents and posts on Instagram can be spread to Facebook or Twitter using the same hashtags, increasing your brand recognition.

Once your branded hashtag is out there, you can use it to search for posts related to your brand, discovering potential customers and user-generated content.

If your hashtag is used by anyone, it directly exposes your brand to their followers.

Correct use of hashtags can increase the reach of your content, as well as provide extra exposure for your brand.

Things to remember when you create your branded hashtag:

• It should be easy to write and remember;
• It should bring out an emotion in your followers;
• Use words that are relevant to your brand;
• Using keywords can be very effective;
• Examine the hashtags of your competitors.

Any slogans or taglines that you might already have for your brand can be converted into a creative and relevant hashtag. Also, you can use hashtags to collaborate with other well-known brands.

For example, Nike’s #justdoit, Redbull’s #givesyouwings, Amazon’s #PrimeDay, etc.

 

Bonus Tip:

You can also use IGTV videos as an effective marketing tool. Unlike Instagram promotion with Stories, IGTV is a feature that lets you post long videos.

You can use this feature as a platform to share your brand’s story, share advertisements, product launch videos, etc.

For example, Chelsea FC recently used an IGTV video to launch their new home jersey.

Conclusion:
These are some of the Instagram marketing strategies that you can use to outsmart your competition.

Billions of likes and comments are given out daily, it’s time to take your share.

Use a business account to unlock its benefits, define your content goals, and understand your audience to deliver engaging and relevant content.

Use Instagram Insights to keep track of useful metrics like follower growth, follower demographics, high-performing posts, etc.
Posts that build anticipation and curiosity among followers generates sales in most cases.

Use Reels, Stories, and user-generated content in your Instagram promotion strategy to provide interactive, trendy, authentic, and extraordinary content.

Implement Instagram influencer marketing, sponsored ads and branded hashtag to increase your brand’s reach and exposure beyond your followers. Stay ahead of the curve by implementing these Instagram marketing tips.

Here at Communication Crafts, we understand the importance of social media marketing in this all-new digital era.

With 16+ years of experience, Our team of social media specialists can create a custom-tailored Instagram marketing strategies that can increases your brand’s exposure, resonates well with your audience, achieves all your marketing goals, and so much more.

Let’s make your brand the next big thing!