Instagram Marketing

What is Instagram Marketing?

Instagram marketing is the way that brands use Instagram to connect with their target audiences and market their offerings. Recently, it’s gained popularity as an exciting method for brands to show off their cultures, recruit new employees, engage with customers, and show off products in a new light.

Similar to Facebook and Twitter everybody who creates an Instagram account has a profile and news feed. Users can interact with one another by following, being followed, private messaging, and commenting on or liking photos or videos. The in-app filters and editing options Instagram offers make the app unique because it was the first app to offer in-app editing to this extent.

Instagram allows users to upload photos and videos to their profile and edit them with various options. Instagram hosts dozens of original filters that users can add to their photos. These preset filters make various changes to photos, including adding light, giving the image a warm or cool tone, increasing or decreasing saturation, and much more. Additionally, users can edit images directly in the platform, as opposed to using a third-party photo editor. If they don’t like one particular filter, they can use Instagram’s editing feature, to individually change the contrast, brightness, structure, warmth, saturation, sharpness, and more.

How to use Instagram for business

There are dozens of social media platforms for marketers to choose from, with each and every one offering different features, opportunities, and nuances. For marketers, it’s all about understanding where your audience lives and what platform will enable you to best reach it. 

With the growing popularity of Instagram marketing over recent years, the value is clear. If the features we listed above didn’t convince you of Instagram’s appeal, this might: the photo-sharing app recently celebrated 1 billion monthly active users. More importantly, these users are incredibly engaged, with more than 60 percent logging in every single day.

And that’s still not all. In this section, we’ll discuss the various other reasons marketers are flocking to Instagram to reach old and new audiences alike.

HOW TO DO INSTAGRAM MARKETING?

Marketing on Instagram has now become an understandable fixation of companies which, however, often find themselves unprepared for the challenge of a network that offers many possibilities, but which also requires a dedicated strategy .

It is also necessary to consider that not all companies get the desired results, for different reasons such as: scarcity of content, non-existent planning, absence of perceivable "value".

We must not forget that each platform has its target and its language, so this means that not all brands can equally exploit a presence on all available channels.

The Instagram case is no exception, quite the contrary.

Instagram was born in 2010 from an idea by Kevin Systrom and Mike Kriege, as an app to take photos and apply filters, without needing particular photographic skills.

Social was initially only available for iOS devices; only two years later when the Android version was born, we understand the real potential of the application, with a frightening increase in subscribers.

And it is at this moment that   arrives, buying Instagram to enhance its capabilities. The social network is still in full growth phase and is suitable as an excellent platform for the development of ever new strategies, thanks to the use of visual storytelling.

 

What is the Instagram Algorithm

Oh, the ever-mysterious Instagram algorithm. When Instagram first announced in 2016 that they were replacing the chronological feed with an algorithm, most people responded with a less-than-joyous reaction... And not much has changed since.So why did Instagram make the switch from chronological to algorithm?Well, it had to do with size. As Instagram grew in popularity, it became harder to keep up with all the photos and videos people share. In fact,  people missed an average of 70% of their feeds when it was chronological.In light of this, Instagram created an algorithm that re-organized people’s feeds so they would theoretically see more content that was relevant to them.

How to create your Instagram content

Now that we’ve hammered home the importance of posting valuable content, we should probably let you in on the secrets behind actually creating that content. In this section, we’ll give you some best practices for curating content that truly performs.

If you’ve developed your Instagram objectives and built out your content themes, you should have a multitude of ideas to turn to when your Instagram profile is in need of some fresh content. That said, it’s not where the hard work ends.

Instagram is a photo-sharing platform. The photo itself is key. You shouldn’t take a picture just to post one, and you certainly shouldn’t post just any picture. When you’ve determined your subject matter, be sure to keep in mind the following photography best practices. I know – it sounds like a lot of work. But I can tell you the brands that are absolutely slaying the Instagram game are taking the time to do this and seeing the results.

When selecting your subject matter, keep one thing in the front of your mind: does my audience want to see this? If the answer is no, then you don’t need to abandon the idea entirely! Just adjust and adapt until it’s a picture that your audience will be interested in. For example, check out this old-school G2 Crowd Instagram post from 2016. Let’s call this the “what not to do.” We had an employee yoga day and were excited to show it off to our Instagram followers! However, selecting a group picture probably wasn’t our best option. The majority of your Instagram audience likely doesn’t know your employees, so this picture was, well, dull.

How to write an Instagram caption

Your Instagram caption can be up to 2,200 characters in length and include up to 30 hashtags. They can also include emojis, but tread cautiously. If your caption is an essay chock full of distracting emojis and irrelevant hashtags, your audience may keep scrolling. As always, consider your audience when putting together your caption. Does this provide more context? Does it encourage interactions from your viewers? If not, you may want to go back to the drawing board.

Experiment with different variations, like asking your audience questions they can answer in the comments or encouraging them to complete a call-to-action. Engagement is key on Instagram, and the more comments and likes your picture receives, the higher in the feed Instagram’s algorithm will place it.

Do you remember those brand guidelines we mentioned It’s not just your pictures that should adhere to them. When writing your caption, you should always keep in mind the written voice of your brand. What are the typical attributes you associate it with? Whether it’s fun, authoritative, bold, whimsical, or any combination, your Instagram captions should strive to maintain your organization’s tone.As always, be sure to edit your caption. While social media can be informal, the casual environment doesn't give you an excuse to write a caption with grammatical or spelling errors!For more on how to write that perfect Instagram caption, check out our best practices guide here.Additionally, in recent months, Instagram has allowed its users to add instagram  to new and old photos.

How to measure Instagram result

As marketers, we’re all about the results. If every single one of our efforts isn’t pushing the needle on a company goal, then what’s the point?

Measuring success with your social media campaigns is especially important, as success looks different on every platform. In this section, we’ll highlight some important Instagram metrics that will help you determine whether your strategy is working toward your objectives or falling flat.

Boasting a large Instagram following can be a great indicator of your organization’s success on the platform. If that number doesn’t continue to grow, though, you may not be expanding your reach quite as much as you’d like to be.

On a similar note, most people may think that if you don’t have a lot of followers, you aren’t doing well. That may be true in some cases, but if you have a high growth rate, you could be well on your way to success. That’s why tracking growth rate is just as important (if not more so) as your actual number of followers.

Your follower growth rate is a percentage that you can calculate by dividing how many new followers you get over a period of time (let’s say a month) by how many followers you had at the beginning of that period.

Conclusion

• People who follow their favorite brands on Instagram want to have fun. They’re not looking for an endless string of sales pitches and you shouldn’t give them one. Instead, make sure that at least 80% of the content you share is designed to inform and entertain them. The more value you provide, the more value they’ll give you in return.
• Using hashtags effectively is a must. Remember that you can piggyback on your competitors’ research by looking at their hashtags. You should also keep track of trending hashtags and participate in community events like #ThrowbackThursday to engage followers.
• Mix your photographs with video content so that your feed doesn’t become monotonous. Even a short, 10-second video can make a nice change and give your followers something unexpected.
• Use Instagram Live to highlight special events or speak directly to your followers. Remember that you can send video to them so they don’t miss out if they’re not online when you’re streaming.
• Spend your advertising dollars wisely by targeting your audience using analytics. You’ll get far more bang for your buck if you pay attention to who your ideal customers are and find ways to reach out to them with your Instagram ad or promoted post.
• Above all, remember that Instagram is meant to be social. You can’t just release a stream of content and then ignore your followers. Encourage them to participate, tag them in posts, and make sure they know that you value and appreciate their support.

If you’re just getting started using Instagram, remember to have fun. Of course you want your marketing efforts to be successful. But sharing photos online is meant to be fun. Show a bit of personality and your fans will appreciate it.

The more you use Instagram to promote your business, the more benefit you’ll get from it. It may take a while to grow your following organically, but just a bit of effort and consistency can do the trick.

Good luck!