Elevate Your Brand with Advanced Instagram Marketing Technique

Instagram started as a place to share pictures of your meals and pets. Today, it’s among the world’s most popular and impactful social media platforms. Over 2 billion people use Instagram every month. 

With such a large user base, Instagram is the ideal platform for social media marketing. Businesses should take advantage of this opportunity to connect with customers, improve branding, and drive sales. Apply these strategies to get the most out of your Instagram marketing. 

How can you use Instagram for marketing?

There are two main ways to use Instagram or other social media for business. With organic Instagram marketing, you create an account and build an audience by posting relevant, appealing content. Over time, more people will engage with your Instagram content and hopefully become customers. You don’t need to pay Instagram anything to use organic Instagram marketing. Your account on the platform is free — you just need to commit the time and resources to creating your content. 

You can also run paid advertising campaigns on the platform. With your Instagram business account, you can pay to promote your posts and get them in front of other users. You specify the qualities of your target audience and how much you want to spend, and then Instagram puts your content in users’ feeds as a sponsored post. Instagram also provides a dashboard to help you track your ad performance and make improvements in future campaigns. 

Many businesses use both strategies together to boost their reach on Instagram. Organic Instagram marketing will typically take longer to yield results since finding and growing your audience takes time, but it’s worthwhile. Developing an audience on Instagram gives you a direct line of communication with your customers and potential customers. That’s a valuable marketing tool. 

Setting up for success on Instagram

Before reaping the benefits of Instagram marketing, start by setting up an account for your business. If you don’t have one yet, go to Instagram.com or the Instagram app and follow the on-screen instructions to create an account. Then, follow these steps:

1. Open the menu in the top-right corner of your account profile. 
2. Go to Settings and Privacy, then Account type and tools, and click “Switch to professional account.”
3. Choose the category that best matches your business, then click “Business.”

Once you complete these steps, you’ll have an Instagram business account. Business accounts have access to more features than personal accounts, such as:

• Viewing Instagram Insights, metrics and analytics about your account performance
• Creating shoppable posts
• Promoting posts
• Scheduling posts
• Adding swipe-up links to Stories posts (once your account reaches 10,000 followers)

You need an Instagram business account to execute an effective Instagram marketing strategy, so complete this step first. Then, you can start optimizing your account for marketing success. 

Developing an Instagram marketing strategy

Your next step is to develop your Instagram marketing strategy. Ask yourself questions like:

• Who are you trying to reach on Instagram? 
• What kinds of content appeal to that target audience?
• What tone and voice will you use in your content?
• What will set you apart from all the other businesses posting content online?
• How will you measure the success of your Instagram marketing efforts?

Start by defining and understanding your target audience on Instagram. As great as connecting with all two billion monthly Instagram users would be, that’s simply not realistic. Narrow in on exactly who you’re trying to reach so you can create content geared toward their interests and needs. 

For example, an athletic wear brand’s target audience might be men and women ages 18 to 35 who show an interest in fitness. More niche brands might have smaller target audiences, and that’s okay. Connecting with 10,000 Instagram users in your target audience is infinitely more valuable to your business than reaching 1 million people who largely don’t care about your brand.

Lay out some goals for your Instagram marketing efforts. Common Instagram marketing goals include:

• Growing your audience
• Increasing brand awareness
• Driving traffic to your website
• Improving customer loyalty
• Generating leads
• Boosting conversions and sales

As you set your goals, ensure they align with your broader business objectives. A business currently trying to improve customer engagement may set a goal of getting a certain percentage of the Instagram audience to interact with the content. 

Establish concrete metrics you’ll use to measure your success, too. Metrics like follower count, impressions, and likes give crucial insights into your Instagram marketing success. 

Content creation for Instagram

Whenever you post on social media, you should tailor your content to the platform you’re using. For example, long-form videos perform well on YouTube but may be less successful on a platform like Facebook. One of the great things about Instagram is that you can use many different content formats based on your goals and target audience. 

Consider using these popular content formats as part of your Instagram strategy.

Instagram Reels

Instagram Reels are short-form video posts like those you’d find on TikTok. When you record Reels in the app, they can only be up to 90 seconds long. The time constraints will affect the topics you can cover in Reels, but don’t underestimate these short videos. 

Posting short-form videos is a great way to reach new audiences browsing videos from creators they don’t already follow. Just make sure the first two seconds are fascinating and attention-grabbing since that’s about as much time as you have to convince viewers to keep watching.  

Instagram Stories

Stories are Instagram’s answer to Snapchat posts. These photos or short videos you share with your followers automatically disappear after 24 hours. Unless you add them to your profile as story highlights, no one will be able to see these posts again once a day passes. 

Stories are expected to have a slightly lower production value and are generally less formal than other posts. If you just want to share a quick piece of information or a behind-the-scenes look at your brand, an Instagram Story post would be a good option. 

Users access your story by clicking on your profile picture at the top of their feeds or in your account profile. As a result, Stories typically won’t help you reach new audiences. They’re better for strengthening your relationship with your existing followers. 

Posts

Traditional Instagram posts include single images, carousel posts, or videos. They appear next to all your other posts on your Instagram profile.

Image posts made Instagram popular initially, and they still perform well on the platform. You can publish photos, graphics, or images with written text in these posts. If you want to keep several together in one post, a carousel post is the way to go. These are posts with up to 10 images each that users flip through like a book as a single post. For example, educational content that’s too long to fit in one image is the perfect use of a carousel post. 

Threads

Threads is a social media platform where brands can take a personalized and casual approach to sharing entertaining, promotional, informational, or reactive branded content. Brands active on Threads are making connections with their customers by reacting to relevant Internet and pop culture trends. Experiment with your brand’s post using different post formats. Use text combined with any of the following to see what works best for your business:

• Emojis
• An audio clip (say hi to your customers or let them know what’s on sale this week)
• a visual (image, video, GIF, etc.)
• a poll (get feedback from your customers)
• a link

Scheduling content to maintain a consistent presence

A common mistake brands make when getting started on Instagram is just posting when inspiration strikes. While it is crucial to keep up the quality of your posts, consistency is also key. Instagram users expect a regular flow of content from brands to show they’re active and engaged on the platform. 

Ideally, brands should post at least two or three times per week, though three to five times might yield better results. That many posts may seem overwhelming to maintain, but once you get into the habit, it will get easier. You can also create posts in bulk and schedule them to go out at regular intervals for your convenience. 

Engagement and community building

The first few posts you publish might feel like sending messages out into the void. You won’t have many followers yet, but that’s alright. Focus first on establishing a small catalog of solid content for users to check out, and then you can put more effort toward engagement and building a community. 

Try these techniques for growing your follower base:

• Put your spin on trending topics or other trends
• Refer your audience on other social media platforms to your Instagram
• Run a giveaway with free products or discounts
• Promote your Instagram account on your website, in emails, and anywhere else you have an audience
• Align your profile with your brand colors and voice
• Don’t be afraid to show personality and fun in your posts

Part of what makes social media unique is that it isn’t one-sided. When you publish posts, users can interact with them and share their thoughts. That open dialogue between you and your target audience is useful for building brand loyalty and generating leads. 

Encourage Instagram users to interact with your posts. Respond to their comments, answer questions, and keep the lines of communication open. The more you engage with your customers on Instagram, the stronger their connection to your brand will be. Over time, you’ll build a community of people who care about what you post and are interested in your brand. 

Leveraging user-generated content 

What if you didn’t need to create your Instagram posts yourself? Sometimes, you can repost content your customers publish and share it with the rest of your audience members on Instagram. These posts are called user-generated content (UGC).

An example of UGC would be a video of a customer unboxing your product and showing how they use it. User-generated content serves as word-of-mouth from your customers and can help your brand seem more trustworthy. Include UGC posts occasionally as part of your social media marketing business strategy. 

Hashtags and discoverability

Everyone wants to expand their reach, grow their audience, and generate new leads through Instagram marketing. Hashtags are the tools you need to accomplish this.

Hashtags are like labels that apply to your posts and related posts from other Instagram users. For example, a law firm posting about legal services might be tagged #lawyer. People looking for content related to legal services could search through the tag #lawyer and discover the post from the law firm. 

Don’t overload your posts with hashtags. Include up to five hashtags per post that are closely related to the content and something users might search for on Instagram. Before long, users will start coming to your page by looking through the hashtags you use on your posts. 

Partnering with Instagram influencers can also help you expand your reach. Instagram influencer marketing is when brands pay popular content creators on the platform to promote their products or services. When you partner with an influencer, you gain access to their larger audience and the trust they’ve built with those users. Try Instagram affiliate marketing, too, which involves paying the influencer a commission on every sale they drive for your brand.  

Maximizing Instagram tools and resources

While you can manage your Instagram marketing efforts by hand, there’s no reason to. Many tools can take your Instagram marketing to the next level while saving you time and effort. 

Instagram includes an analytics dashboard where you can view your content’s performance insights. Other tools include:

• Buffer
• LinkTree
• SparkToro
• SproutSocial
• HubSpot
• Upfluence
• Constant Contact

Constant Contact, for example, includes a variety of social media marketing tools to help you schedule content, expand your reach, and respond to conversations online. Start your trial today. With tools like Constant Contact, you can get the results an Instagram marketing service or Instagram marketing agency would provide while saving money and remaining in charge. 

Leverage Instagram marketing to grow your brand

Instagram is an ever-evolving platform in terms of new features and changing user trends. Stay on top of these changes and adapt to get the best possible results from your Instagram marketing efforts. 

Start by defining your strategy and target audience. Then, focus on creating high-quality content that your audience enjoys. Stay consistent, and you’ll start seeing real results. Explore resources like Integrate Data and Best Practices for More Creative Instagram Posts and 5 Simple Ways to Engage Your Customers Through Instagram to take your content to the next level.