Boasting over 1 billion active monthly users, Instagram has become the 4th most popular app and the 6th most visited website, offering massive opportunities for small businesses.
Combine those stats with the fact that 200 million Instagram users visit business profiles daily and 81% of users say they use Instagram to research products and services, and it’s no wonder that Instagram has become one of today’s most powerful digital marketing tools for small and big businesses alike. An estimated 71% of businesses claim they use Instagram with many of them considering Instagram engagement as one of their most important KPIs. Here is Growthsilo who claims to provide authentic boosting services. Please read Growthsilo reviews here.
In other words, if you haven’t invested in Instagram marketing, then you probably should.
What Is Instagram Marketing?
Instagram marketing is basically what it sounds like. It entails using Instagram’s platform to connect with your target audiences to promote, advertise, and sell your products or services. As a visual-first medium, Instagram relies heavily on the use of imagery, video, and illustration, making it especially useful for businesses that have visually appealing products or brands. When used consistently, Instagram is an accessible and affordable way for small businesses to expand their customer base, improve brand awareness, generate and convert leads, and grow their online community.
Why Instagram Is Still A MUST For Small Businesses
To give a sense of why Instagram is still a must for small businesses in 2021, here are some numbers from 2020:
90% of Instagram users follow a business account
Instagram business accounts see an average of 1.46% follower growth per month
50% of Instagram users are more interested in a brand after seeing an ad for it on Instagram
Instagram’s potential advertising reach is 1.16 billion users
130 million users tap on shopping posts every month
50% of users have visited a website after seeing a product or service on Instagram
The numbers don’t lie.
But there are also some other compelling reasons to invest in Instagram marketing as a small business.
1. You Can Reach A Wider Audience
One of the biggest benefits of Instagram is its huge user base. Instagram can help you reach far beyond your normal audience, helping you to build brand awareness and even generate quality leads.
But it’s not just the size of the user base that makes Instagram so effective for growing your fan base.
Since being purchased by Facebook, Instagram’s ad platform has gained access to an endless amount of user and consumer data. This data allows you to target highly specific audiences with your ads and break down your target demographics by age, location, interests, behavior, hobbies.
2. An Active Instagram Builds Trust And Legitimacy
People are increasingly turning to Instagram as a way to check the legitimacy of brands and businesses. An active, authentic Instagram page is a great way to engage with your current and potential customers to help build their trust.
Of course, you want to make sure you maintain the best practices when it comes to building your Instagram page. It shows a deeper reflection and insight into who your business is and how you run things, and you want to make sure that reflects trust and professionality.
3. Great Place For Connection And Collaboration
An estimated 71% of businesses use Instagram. That means in addition to being a great way to reach potential customers, Instagram is also the perfect place to connect with other businesses. Not only can you discover potential business partners for running affiliate campaigns, but you can also connect with influencers who could become champions of your brand.
4. Cost-Effective In Increasing Brand Awareness
One of the biggest benefits of Instagram is that it’s affordable. Creating a business account, posting stories, pictures, and videos, and tracking metrics are all entirely free. That means you can get a lot of really productive marketing done without spending a penny.
5. Strengthens Your Brand’s Community
Making sure you stay engaged with your customer base is important for creating a sense of community and brand loyalty. Instagram is one of the best ways to engage with your target audience, establishing a strong presence of who you are and what your brand’s about through every story, post, and live video.
6. It’s Easy To Track Important Metrics
Measuring KPIs and tracking metrics like engagement and conversion rate are key to any marketing strategy. Instagram business accounts make tracking things like engagement and growth easy. But there are also some other really great apps out there to help you track the performance of your posts and your overall follower growth.
The effectiveness of your Instagram marketing can greatly vary depending on how you implement it. Like all marketing strategies, there are some best practices that you should adhere to for maximum effectiveness.
How To Maximize Instagram For Small Business
1. Switch To An Instagram Business Account
If you haven’t switched to an Instagram business account yet, then this is the first thing you should do! It’s free to switch and you can do it right from the settings. Simply tap settings > account > switch to professional account > business. You can select the option of linking your Instagram account to your Facebook page, if you like.
There are many benefits of Business accounts including the ability to schedule posts, track the performance of posts and stories, share links in your stories, and promote your posts with Instagram ads.
2. Create Consistent, High Quality Content
The key to a successful Instagram stems from your content. Above all, you want to make sure that your posts are delivering value to your audiences, whether that be through entertainment, tips and education, motivation, or thought leadership. Make sure you post pictures with quality resolution and that the dimensions of your posts are set accordingly.
3. Increase Instagram Followers Organically
More Instagram followers = better. Right?
Well, not quite. The key to success is having more REAL followers.
Instagram users and even Instagram itself have gotten really good at snuffing out (and penalizing) accounts that buy followers to try to increase their legitimacy. While that high follower number might look pretty, it doesn’t really mean anything unless your followers are actually engaging with your account.
That’s why it’s important to build your follower base organically, meaning you put in the effort to get real users who are interested in your business to follow you. In doing so, you’ll actually get Instagram followers who are much more likely to engage with your posts and become loyal customers and brand champions.
4. Improve Your Engagement
There are many ways to improve engagement on Instagram. Posting consistent, high-quality content is king. But there are some things you can do to boost the engagement of those posts including using hashtags to reach more users, creating polls in your stories, prompting people to check out links in your bio use, if you want to use free linktree alternative there are many in the market and starting conversations in the comment sections.
It’s also important to make sure that YOU are engaged. If a follower comments on your post, make sure to comment back. In addition, liking and commenting on posts from other businesses and users that are related to your business are great ways to gain new followers and show your current followers that you are engaged and invested in building your community.
5. Track Performance Through Insights And Other Tools
Tracking your metrics is critical for monitoring the growth of your account and refining your marketing strategy. The most successful small business accounts will closely track KPIs behind their posts and ads to figure out what’s working so they can iterate and replicate.
Instagram insights, which is available free of charge once you make your account a business account, can help you track some important metrics like engagement, impressions, views, and the demographics of your followers.
In addition to insights, there are tons of other great metric tracking tools out there to consider that can help you with everything from finding the right hashtag to creating the best bio to tracking (and getting rid of) ghost followers on Instagram.
Building a successful Instagram for small businesses can be challenging and competitive. The beautiful part about it though is that it’s entirely doable. It comes down to consistent posting, high-quality content, and diligent metric tracking. And don’t be afraid to check out some of your favorite small business accounts to see what’s working for them.
Looking for some inspiration? Here are some small businesses who are crushing the Instagram game:
Spikeball
If you haven’t heard of this new volleyball-like backyard sport, then we highly recommend checking them out. However, even if you aren’t into the sport, it’s worth checking out their Instagram page, which has been seeing tons of growth (along with the growth of their company) in the last few years.
Spikeball is the perfect example of a business that builds community and therefore legitimacy through Instagram. Their feed is chock full of highlight reels from pros and fans alike. Their posts always get tons of engagement, too, which is a testament to the quality of their posts and the loyalty of their followers. What’s more is that they often post video submissions from their followers, so they don’t even have to work that hard to generate their own content. They may not boast the prettiest looking feed out, but whatever they’re doing sure does work.
By creating a feed that shares the best videos from their followers, they’ve been able to build an Instagram that is sure to build them a huge community of lifelong fans.
foxinthesnowcafe
Fox in The Snow is a Columbus, Ohio-based bakery that makes rustic-style baked goods and sells them out of their three shops. While you might not be able to try one of their delicious looking pastries in person, you can still get some nuggets from checking out their Instagram page.
Fox in The Snow has a well-balanced Instagram feed made up of aesthetically pleasing pictures of their baked goodies, ads for items that are in limited supply, and recipe tips. They utilize both videos and pictures as well as stories to communicate with their highly engaged audience.
This is a great example of how you can build a successful Instagram (and business) by focusing on delivering value to your customersthey not only let them know what’s in stock for the day with consistent, daily posts, but they also share some of their recipes with them, too!
Start Maximizing Your Potential
Instagram is a powerful tool for small businesses. When used correctly, you can maximize your reach, gain new customers, build brand loyalty, and more. Plus, Instagram’s growth isn’t slowing down any time soon. So get on there if you aren’t already, start planning out your content, start utilizing Instagram’s features for small businesses, and start engaging your target audience. Who knows what kind of newfound potential you’ll discover amidst the Instagram arena!
I’m a 20-something stay-at-home mother and wife. I have an amazing husband, a beautiful daughter, two loving dogs, and a lazy cat. I wouldn’t change my life for anything! I love to read, listen to music, cook and blog!
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