And odds are, you’ve been using it and checking it multiple times throughout your day. (Including when you should have been working.)
However, if you’re reading this post, there’s a good chance you’ve been using Instagram to market your business. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have ended up here! Whether or not you’re seeing the results you had hoped for is another question.
If you aren’t landing new clients and customers or directing traffic to your blog through your Instagram presence, you’re truly missing out. But there’s no need to worry because I have some tips that are going to help!
How to Use Instagram to Market Your Business
If you’re ready to take your Instagram presence to the next level, listen up! The tips I’m sharing in this post are going to help you build a following of the right people, increase engagement, send traffic to your website, and help you land paying customers.
Craft a Captivating Bio
Your bio can easily make or break whether or not someone follows you. So, you don’t want to mess up this opportunity to tell people what you do!
Even though you have limited characters to use in your Instagram bio, make sure you’re clear about what you have to offer. What’s your business about and who do you serve? These are important things to note.
It’s also smart to include your location because it may help you make connections with those who are local to you!
And of course, you can’t forget to include a link back to your website. Since you’re only allowed one clickable Instagram link, you better make sure it’s a good one. You can use a tool like Linktree to create a single link that directs people to a page with multiple offerings. For example, my Linktree provides people with links such as: my blog, my email opt-in, my YouTube channel, and my Facebook group.
Understand Your Audience
No matter which social media platform you’re using, it all goes back to knowing and understanding your audience. Why? Because you need to know what your audience wants in order to deliver the content that resonates.
When using Instagram to market your business, you need to think beyond pretty pictures. The content you post should serve some sort of purpose.
Post images that speak to your audience. Share something that is going to lead them to your website or promote your offering. Post content that builds trust and establishes you as an authority. Even personal posts are beneficial because it builds a connection.
Check out your Instagram profile right now. Ask yourself the following:
- Does the subject of my photos resonate with my audience?
- Am I writing captions that will grab attention?
- Is my post informative or entertaining?
If the answer to any of those is no, it’s time to make a change. Before you post, ask if it’s going to serve a purpose for your audience.
Try focusing on sharing valuable content that’s informative for your followers. Mix that up with some more personal posts, which will allow them to get to know you and connect with you better.
Choose the Right Hashtags
Wondering how to get your content seen by the right people? It’s all in the hashtags, baby!
Instead of using any random hashtag, you want to be strategic about the ones you’re using to caption your photo. This is going to help you gain more traction of the right people. So, think about which hashtags are related to your content and which ones your audience might be using or searching.
Those are the ones you need to go with. In (affiliate link), Gary Vaynerchuk said 11 hashtags is the sweet spot for posting on Instagram. As evidenced by the image above, I tend to use a lot more than that!
And since Instagram has been known to “shadow ban” people by preventing their images from showing on popular hashtag searches, you’ll want to switch it up. Don’t use the same exact hashtags with every post.
Be Consistent
Another important element to your success on Instagram is consistency. Their algorithm wants to see that you’re active on the platform.
So, if you’re going days without posting anything, it’s not exactly a good look. Instead, you need to be present by sharing something new on a daily basis. Ideally, you should be posting one or two new images per day. That may sound overwhelming if you’re already struggling with Instagram content, but it’s totally possible. Brainstorm content ideas, take photos or create graphics, and then schedule them out using a tool like Buffer. You’ll never forget to post again!
Engage With Your Audience
If you’re posting new content regularly and engaging with others often, you’re going to see better results. That’s just the way their algorithm works.
And when I say engaging, I don’t just mean liking posts that others share. Instead of scrolling through your feed and mindlessly double-tapping every pretty image, take an extra minute or two to leave a thoughtful comment. Not only will people appreciate it, but Instagram loves to see that you’re active.
To spark conversations on your own content, try asking questions in your captions. This gets the conversation started and increases engagement on your page. And when people reply, make sure you respond to them! Keep the conversation flowing to build relationships with your followers. In the image above, you can see I invited people to share their goals with me right there on Instagram.
Share on Instagram Stories
When using Instagram to market your business, you absolutely cannot forget about the Stories feature. While there’s a lot to keep up with on Instagram between the original feed and Stories, it’s still important to utilize it.
Instagram Stories provides an amazing way to connect with your audience. They’re able to see the person behind the brand and get to know you on a deeper level. This builds trust and ultimately, it’s going to help you see more success in your business.
If you’re feeling stuck for ideas on what to post on Instagram Stories, I have a few suggestions.
Collaborate With Influencers
Searching for a great way to expand your reach? Try doing a collaboration with an influencer in your niche. It’s an easy way to gain more traction because their audience will get to come and check out your profile. You’re essentially tapping into the engaged audience they’ve already built.
You can have an influencer post on your feed throughout the day and share photos. Or you can even do an Instagram Stories takeover. Either way, just make sure the influencer you choose resonates with your audience and has something valuable to share.
Measure Your Success
How will you know if you’re making progress if you aren’t measuring your success? You won’t!
It’s important to set goals when it comes to social media, especially if you’re using Instagram to market your business. Figure out what you’d like to achieve with your Instagram presence and go from there.
You can set goals such as:
- generating brand awareness
- increasing engagement
- establishing yourself as an authority
- more traffic to your website
- conversions (email list subscribers, new customers, etc.)
I’d urge you not to focus on the vanity metrics (such as followers) because it’s not about the quantity. It’s more important to have quality followers than a quantity of followers.
With your goals in mind, you can effectively use Instagram to market your business because you’ll know what kind of content you should be posting. Once you start working on those goals, track your progress. Make time each week to see how each post performed. Which ones resonated the most? Which ones were total flops? How can you improve? You’ll quickly see what’s working and what’s not so you can tweak your strategy accordingly.
Now that you know how to use Instagram to market your business, could you still use some help managing it all?
Download my free Social Media Tasks Checklist! It contains all the daily, weekly, and monthly tasks you can do to maximize your growth online. Managing your social media presence has never been easier with this handy checklist to keep you on track!
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