Instagram is continuing to grow, and compared to Facebook and Twitter there is still room for this social media to evolve. At the end of last year, Instagram has announced that they have reached 600 million monthly active users, and if we take into account engagement rate which is 58 times higher than on Facebook, it makes Instagram a very serious platform for companies in acquiring new clients and engaging with their loyal customers. The popularity of Instagram continues to grow, according to Google Trends:
Instagram has drastically developed the application by adding Reels, Instagram Stories, Live Video broadcasting and other features, all ultimately helping business to grow and be as transparent as possible to their clients. Companies can share their news and promotions in their feed, they can broadcast the opening of a new store live and clients can contact the company directly through Direct Messages, which makes Instagram a perfect all-in-one solution for social media presence for a lot of companies. We are going to take you through the top 5 tips which will help you to efficiently manage your Instagram business account.
1. Use Business Profiles
We were recently shocked how many companies still haven’t switched to a new type of account which Instagram introduced in late May 2016. The new type of account specially produced for businesses allows you to place call-to-action button “Contact” which will automatically redirect your client to compose an email or make a call. This new feature also allows companies to add their address so that everyone can easily get directions via Google Maps in one click. Instagram Business Profiles are here to make it easier for companies to interact with clients and there are no downsides in switching from the usual profile. When you create an Instagram business profile, make sure you fill the account with the most important information, try to be concise, here is a good example:
2. Make exclusive, professional content
Use content with eye-catching pictures integrating news about your company or just promote your product, and make sure you never share pictures which don’t follow your brand strategy or views. We’ve seen companies using popular hashtags just to get noticed, but they actually didn’t know what this hashtag represents. Be authentic, people love that! Be imaginative and create your own brand hashtag so that people can not only tag your company in their posts, but also use your hashtag. Make sure you use at least 3 relevant hashtags under your photos. It doesn’t matter in what way you try to incorporate hashtags into the description, the most important thing is that you have used it in one way or another because it allows others to easily find you. Don’t use chart-topping and spammy hashtags like “instamood”, “shop”, “instalike”, “follow”, “followme” etc. Create your own list of hashtags which could be tied to your local societies and relevant communities who post about product/services your business offers.
3. Engage with your followers and potential clients!
This is probably the golden rule for success on any social media because simply posting is never enough. If you look at the most successful bloggers or companies on Instagram, then they are always active in the comments, they share photos of their happy clients and they answer to any questions which arise from the followers. In order to boost the engagement rates, create competitions or simply ask a question at the end of your capture. For example, you can engage with your café audience by simply asking them what’s their favourite hot drink.
Other tips to boost engagement include: posting at peak times (when most of your followers are online), tag your most active clients, other brands or influencers of your industry on the photos (or you can just mention them in a post), create giveaway competitions for a best photo/slogan/winter logo (money can’t ever be a prize of the giveaway), cross-promote your Instagram account on Facebook and Twitter (easy way to increase your followers base if you have other well-established social media accounts).
4. Use Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories is basically “Snapchat” in another application which helps you to post pictures, videos or create “boomerangs” to interact with your audience without spamming your actual profile feed. Practically all Instagram Stories could be found via the “Explore” button, which shows relevant posts and stories posted by other users. If your business is not using Stories, then it is missing out on an opportunity to grow the followers base completely FREE and to increase your brand awareness. A lot of companies don’t know what exactly they can post on Instagram Stories. It is very simple: create short “behind the scenes” videos of your company, share your happy customers’ photos as you would do in the normal feed, do pre-launch teasers of your new product/store opening, share your promotion offers. Sharing promotion offers is by far the most effective as you can create a promo code specially for those who watch your Instagram Stories, so it will push your followers to check stories more often. Don’t be scared to experiment, follow big brands on Instagram and peek on what content is working well for them.
5. Use Analytics
If your company doesn’t know how successful they are on Instagram, then they are just wasting their time. After launching Business Profiles all companies got access to unique Instagram Insights, an analytical tool, which helps you find out: optimal posting time, best type of content, your followers demographics (location, age, gender), number of your website visits from your company bio. A/B testing has shaped many companies’ decisions on what kind of publication is the best to use for their Promotional posts on Instagram. Instagram Insights show impressions and reach which could be used as a metric to target. If you see that metrics in Instagram Insights are going down, then action has to be taken to fix it. Integrated analytics also helps to set specific targets for your company marketing managers or agencies who manage your Instagram account.
In conclusion, we just wanted to say that these 5 tips on efficiently managing your Instagram business account are the basis to success on Instagram as a brand. All of our tips can be integrated into your content and marketing strategy completely for free, it’s just about putting understanding and absorbing the nature of the Instagram algorithm, because this platform is completely different to Twitter or Facebook, which are used more for social rather than business development.
