The number of monthly active users on Instagram is around 1 billion, and this is why being on Instagram is crucial for any business.
While some businesses struggle to get their share of the market on Instagram, there are brands like @GoPro, @Madwell, or @Tiffany & Co that are killing it on Instagram.
If you are in the first group, or just want to boost your sale, this article is all you need.
The tips represented in this article are the simple things that can help you reach your goal.
So let’s waste no time and start with the most important thing on any social platform.
Good content vs Bad content
Image by Quinn Kampschroer from Pixabay
This may seem too obvious, but I believe we really should clarify what type of content is considered good.
Aside from that, the way we manage our content on our Instagram account is something that needs some extra attention.
Instagram has already told us about bad content, so let’s talk about the other half of the story.
Quality
The reason we talk about quality before anything else is to emphasize its importance.
Instagram is a visual platform and the first thing your customers are going to focus on is the quality of your content.
Avoid any low-quality content and double or even triple down on the quality of your images and videos.
Consistency and Frequency
Let me be honest with you, none of your followers are going to buy from you if they don’t remember you.
Or even worse, you may spend dollars of your budget acquiring new followers, but there is a good chance they will unfollow you if you are barely present.
To keep it simple, you should be present every month, week, and day (if you have +1k followers).
So the first thing is consistency, just showing up on Instagram gives you a better chance compared to not showing up.
The other thing is Frequency, and the rules you need to follow on this matter are simple.
As your followers grow, the more you need to post on Instagram and be available.
For an account with 1k-5k followers, one post and one story per day seem perfectly balanced.
Don’t Get All Commercial
Just like your business, Instagram has its own sales funnel, and you can’t expect your customers to reach the bottom of the funnel on day 1.
You need to get their attention and lead them to the sale by slowly educating them or creating interest.
In other words, when someone visits your profile and takes a look at your feed, it should be all promotion posts.
Here are some other types of content that you can mix up with promotion posts:
- Educational posts
- Product reviews
- Product unboxing
- The process of creating the product
- Behind the scenes
- Introducing the team
- Contests
- User-generated contents
This way, you make sure that the customers of your product or business, aren’t going to be bored with your content.
After making sure that you are posting the good type of content for your Instagram, it’s time to go for the most important part of any business.
Engagement is the key to success
Photo byAnnie Spratt onUnsplash
If Instagram is a door to unlimited sales or branding opportunities, engagement is surely the key to its door.
You have surely noticed that nobody likes to feel like you are selling him something.
This feeling has caused a massive change in how brands or businesses approach people for sale.
The best way to make that sale happen is by engaging with your audience.
In other words, engage with them, make them feel heard and important, or even special.
This is a sure way to more sales and even positive brand awareness.
Start From Yourself
If you want them to like, share, save your posts, or even leave a sweet comment on your posts, you need to do the same for them.
Make sure you like their posts, ask them questions, and even reply to their stories.
As I said the key here is to make them feel heard, seen, important, or even special.
When you create this environment they are more likely to engage, buy, or even create a positive word of mouth marketing for your business.
Use Shareable Content
When we talk about shareable content for a business Instagram account, dozens of ideas come to mind.
You need to keep in mind that not all those ideas are suitable for your business and you should choose wisely.
Here are some shareable types of content for Instagram business pages to help you start your brainstorming process.
Educational
Educating your customers is an amazing way to make them committed to your brand and also get your content shared.
You can teach them how to use your product/service the right way or any skill related to your business.
Humorous
During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, people in different parts of the world spent months in quarantine.
What type of content do you think was shared the most during that time?
Exactly! Memes or funny posts.
Inspirational/Aspirational
These types of content are the ones that make people sit and think, or give them a dose of motivation for the day.
We all love to motivate and support our loved ones, this is exactly what makes these contents highly shareable.
Keep Instagram’s algorithm on your side
Keeping yourself updated about Instagram’s algorithm and its latest changes won’t do anything rather than good.
Instagram uses many factors to whether your post is worth more exposure or not, but let’s talk about one of the most important ones.
Whenever you share a post, Instagram doesn’t show it to all your followers right away.
It only shows it to a small percentage of your followers and checks to see how much engagement they have toward it.
If the numbers were good enough, it shows it to more people and eventually sends you to the explore page.
Keeping this key factor in mind, there are two important things you need to take care of.
Ghost followers
According to Wikipedia, Ghost followers, are users on social media platforms who remain inactive or do not engage in any activity.
With Instagram’s algorithm explained above, you can guess how it can ruin your growth or even exposure.
Here are a couple of tips about ghost followers:
- Avoid buying fake followers
- Avoid hosting giveaways or competitions that don’t focus on your target customers
- Unfollow Ghost followers on Instagram as soon as possible
- Stop focusing on numbers, Good content brings followers sooner or later
Use every feature Instagram offers for your business
As we mentioned earlier, not all your followers are always going to see your content.
So the best thing to do for your business is to use every feature Instagram has to offer, that includes:
This gives you a better chance for solid exposure and also tells Instagram that you are an active user.
As a platform that has advertisement as its main source of income, Instagram’s algorithm will surely boost active users or the ones who keep people on the platform.
Bonus Tips to use Instagram for business
By following the tips mentioned in this article, you are surely able to boost your business growth on Instagram.
In the end, here are a couple of short and important tips to make sure about your results:
- Make sure that your Instagram feed is as cohesive and clear as possible
- Make the best use of your bio section
- Check Instagram analytics frequently
- Use Instagram ads
- Partner with influencers to boost your exposure
- Use social monitoring and social listening tools
- Don’t forget to use related hashtags
Conclusion
Having an active, and growing Instagram page is a must for any kind of business around the world.
You can have different goals for your business on Instagram, such as sales, brand awareness, or even customer support.
Here are some of the most important tips we went through:
- Share good content frequently and consistently
- Have engagement with your audience
- Use shareable contents
- Remove ghost followers and stay away from them
How is your experience on Instagram as a business? Have you used any of these tips? How were the results?
Authors Bio:
Mehdi’s life is surrounded by words. Since childhood he had dreamt of becoming a writer, and now at AiGrow it’s a dream come true.
He is a content producer, and he is lucky enough to impact hundreds of individuals and businesses on social media at AiGrow.