If you’re not an avid social media user, you might not be aware of how much Instagram can do for your business.
If you’re an entrepreneur launching a new business venture—or you just want to take your business to the next level—it’s important to not discount what Instagram can do for you. Instagram is particularly relevant depending on the nature of your business, and the age of your customers.
If your target market consists of customers ages 16 to 34, your business needs a presence here. This means that Instagram can make a big impact in helping you reach your digital marketing goals.
When users post content to their Instagram accounts, their online friends can engage with it. This means your business can post photos and videos, and your customers – or eventual customers – can discover your business in this manner. Think of it as a modern-day word-of-mouth kind of thing.
Understanding the potential of Instagram is a fundamental first step. What can you tell people about your product? How can you show positivity? And how can you encourage your clientele to share positive experiences that they will, in turn, share with others?
Goals for Instagram Marketing
Building Brand Awareness
For many brands, this is the number one goal for their Instagram marketing campaigns. 69% of marketers report the goal of brand awareness as the primary reason for using Instagram.
By consistently presenting your brand’s image, values, and messaging, you can carve out a distinct identity in the minds of your audience. Visual content on Instagram, including high-quality images, engaging videos, and coherent aesthetics, plays a crucial role in this process. The goal is to make your brand recognizable and memorable. Regular posting, consistent style, and interaction with followers enhance brand recall, ensuring that your audience thinks of you first when they need products or services you offer.
Engaging with Your Audience
Engagement is key to building a strong relationship with your audience on Instagram. The good news is that Instagram is designed for high engagement. With the focus on images and video over text, the platform sees higher engagement than other social media platforms. In fact, Instagram has 58% more engagement per follower than Facebook.
This goal focuses on creating content that sparks conversations, encourages shares, and invites comments. Engagement can take many forms, from likes and comments to shares and saves. Interactive content, such as polls, quizzes, and question stickers in stories, can foster a two-way communication channel.
Regularly engaging with your followers’ content and responding to comments and messages on your posts reinforces your commitment to your community and can help build a loyal following.
Increasing Website Traffic
Driving traffic to your website is another vital goal for many Instagram marketers. By strategically using Instagram’s features, such as the swipe-up option in Stories (for accounts with sufficient followers) or clickable links in your bio, you can direct your audience to your website.
This can lead to increased sales, sign-ups, or engagement with your blog content. Tracking the traffic from Instagram to your website through analytics tools can provide insights into the effectiveness of your strategies and help refine your approach.
The problem is that it can be tricky to drive consistent traffic from Instagram. Things that may go viral will most likely drive traffic but that is not always going to happen. For now, Stories may be the best option to generate traffic from Instagram.
Generating Leads
Lead generation is about collecting information from potential customers, such as email addresses or phone numbers, to create a database of prospects you can reach out to for future marketing campaigns. Instagram can be a valuable tool for lead generation through methods like hosting giveaways that require participants to register, offering free downloads or access to exclusive content in exchange for contact information, and promoting products or services through direct messages.
Boosting Sales
Ultimately, one of the primary goals of Instagram marketing is to boost sales. This can be achieved by showcasing your products or services in action. An easy way to do this is by using Instagram shopping features. You can use this feature to create exclusive offers for your Instagram followers.
The very nature of Instagram primes users for purchasing. Many marketers consider Instagram the best social selling platform available. Social selling means using social profiles to engage, connect, and sell to followers of a brand. Effective sales strategies on Instagram often involve a clear call to action, highlighting the benefits of your offerings, and creating a sense of urgency through limited-time promotions or exclusive deals.
Read: 5 Pinterest Marketing Goals for Your Business
Maximizing Instagram
Create a Compelling Profile
Your Instagram profile should contain a link to your website, and it should contain a picture that will represent your business well. This could be a brand logo.
But, as you create your profile, understand who it is you’re trying to reach here. While many people who are found on Instagram are younger, it isn’t limited to the younger demographic. People of all ages can be found here, so know who exactly it is you’re talking to as you begin creating these social media posts.
Make It Fun
As you plan your strategy for Instagram marketing, don’t just think about how to make your brand visible or how to gain more sales.
Instagram is a place for people who want to have fun, and they want to share fun with their friends. So, how can you create fun posts? How can you create fun videos? Think about this as you think of opportunities for how to create content that people will want to discover on Instagram. And some other ideas:
- Hashtags: You might think of X – formerly known as Twitter – but hashtags are for Instagram, too. Make it a goal to incorporate relevant hashtags into your images and videos.
- Emojis: Who doesn’t love a fun emoji? Think about the emojis that are the most relevant to your brand
- Images & Videos: Capturing high-quality images and videos is a must here. Consider the shareability of what you’re posting, too.
- Be consistent: Don’t expect overnight results. Rather, be consistent with how often you post on Instagram (and other social media channels). Enjoy the journey, and your followers will, too.
Engage With Customers
It’s a missed opportunity to not engage with happy customers. So, think about the kinds of content from customers that you will repost or comment on. Here are some possible scenarios: if a satisfied customer posts an image or a video of themselves wearing your clothing, eating your food, or staying in your resort. Or, if you are part of a chain of other businesses, you can engage in playful banter with the other business, making it a running joke or a playful online rivalry.
Decide on a Budget
Businesses can pay for ads here, but if you’re not interested in that, you certainly don’t have to pursue that route.
Part of the built-in tools of Instagram for marketing is paid ads. You can pay for content on Instagram, which allows you to think less about social media marketing, at least on this platform.
The question is: do you want to do that? Do you want to pay for Instagram to create ads that could potentially generate leads for your website? Do you want to pay for Instagram to create images that could build awareness for your brand? Is it worth it to you to pay for ads that might help people who haven’t heard of your brand to learn about it on Instagram?
You may need to do some in-depth research to decide whether or not you want to spend on Instagram ads, or if you want to do everything in-house.
If establishing and maintaining a social media presence sounds like a lot, don’t get discouraged. Instead of getting overwhelmed and missing out on this opportunity, you can hire someone – like a freelancer – to help you achieve your Instagram marketing goals. Part of achieving success as an entrepreneur is knowing your limits, respecting them, and knowing when to hire an expert when you’re stretched too thin.
Conclusion
Marketing on Instagram may seem like a mystery at first, but as with other forms of social media marketing, practice makes perfect. Entrepreneurs with no budget or with a wider budget can get the word out on this special social media marketplace.
Also read:
Finding Your Target Market on Social Media
8 Business Goals for Social Media Marketing
