Is your business utilising social media to get new clients?
When did you first hear about Instagram?
Compared to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, Instagram has 15 times higher interaction. A photo-sharing software that started out modestly is now a powerful marketing tool.
This post will show you how to use Instagram to expand your consumer base and raise brand awareness.
Build a Strong User Base
More than half of the top 100 firms in the world are active on Instagram, and 13% of all Internet users have an account. You will most likely find some of your clients (or potential customers) there.
Here are a few suggestions for reaching out to new audiences and expanding your fan base.
Use Hashtags Tailored to Your Audience
Hashtags can be used to categorise and discuss related topics. They facilitate the discovery of like-minded individuals who share an interest in a particular issue.
Including relevant hashtags in your posts is a great way to get the attention of those who might be interested in your products. The idea is to make use of popular, often searched hashtags that are also relevant to your photographs and brand.
Using a free online service like Iconosquare or Websta, you may discover the best hashtags to utilise in your posts. You can use these tools to generate a list of trending hashtags from a given set of keywords.
Create a note on your phone with the top 10–20 hashtags related to your company, brand, and products using the aforementioned resources. That manner, you can easily make reference to them from any location.
Use Appropriate Filters
Most Instagram users don’t give much thought to which filter will get the most likes before choosing one. It turns out that the lens through which you view interaction can make a difference.
The Mayfair filter, no filter, and the Inkwell filter all resulted in more likes and comments, according to a study recently published by TrackMaven.
Naturally, everyone has a slightly different target audience. You can use an Instagram management app to test out different filters and see which ones get the most likes from your audience.
Make Updates During High-Traffic Hours
Knowing when your community is most active might help you pick the best time to publish on any social network. If you sign up for IconoSquare, you’ll get access to an optimisation report that will tell you when you should post in order to get the most attention and shares.
The report displays both your current publishing schedule (represented by black circles) and the engagement (represented by white circles) for each of your posts. The times of day when your followers are most likely to interact with your posts are depicted by the largest, lightest grey circles.
The aforementioned screenshot was stolen from Shopify’s official Instagram. It turns out that Friday night at 9 p.m. and Monday morning at 9 a.m. are the optimum times to post this particular content.
Communicate With Your Rivals’ Fans
You should reach out to anyone who follows the Instagram account of your rival. Obviously, you want them to know about your (superior) website, product, or service.
By following your competitor’s account, those users have implicitly expressed an interest in your goods. The more you can find and engage with these people, the more followers you’ll gain and the more leads you’ll generate.
There are a number of resources available to help you discover who follows your competitors. If you want to see who is following your competitors on Instagram, you may do a name search using JustUnfollow. Get to know your new potential consumers by following them and liking or commenting on one of their images once you have that list.
Collaborate with Famous Instagram Users
Requesting a prominent figure in your industry to showcase your product is a great method to increase your Instagram following. This strategy, unlike the others, typically requires an investment in advertising (in the form of payment or the provision of products in exchange for reviews), but it can provide impressive results.
Turn Your Fans Into Buyers
Instagram has one of the highest engagement rates of any social media platform. Because of its emphasis on visuals, it is well suited for advertising and promoting goods.
Once you’ve built up a sizable, dedicated following and earned their trust and loyalty, it’s time to turn them from casual browsers into paying customers. Here are three places to begin.
Stress Limited Supply
The laws of supply and demand dictate that scarcity increases demand. Businesses frequently use this principle by implying that sales or other promotions are time-limited.
Fox & Fawn, a vintage clothing store in New York City, employs the scarcity approach ingeniously to boost interaction and sales.
Promote Recently Released Items
Promote your new products and increase brand awareness using your Instagram account.
Packer Shoes has amassed 54,000 Instagram followers and uses the platform often to promote new and exclusive products in an effort to increase sales.
I was wondering how well this strategy has worked for Packer Shoes. Michael Packer, the business owner, claims, “We can literally put something up on Instagram and not two seconds later, the phone is ringing off the hook.”
Emphasise Peer Approval
When people see the acts of others and draw the conclusion that they should act in the same way, this psychological phenomena is known as social proof. You’re more inclined to buy something if your friends and family use it and like it.
Social evidence, such as product ratings and reviews, influences nearly 63% of shoppers to make a purchase on a website. Consumers place 12 times more stock in reviews than they do in manufacturers’ descriptions.
BlackMilk, an e-commerce site, does a fantastic job at generating social proof by having its customers share images on Instagram with branded hashtags. BlackMilk incorporates these images into their website to show buyers how well-liked a product is.