With over eight-hundred and fifty million active users and boasting unparalleled engagement rates, Instagram has grown to become not only one of the most significant social media channels. But also a widely used marketing tool for business. In actuality, at least twenty-five million companies globally rely on this digital channel to generate awareness for their offerings and establish brand recognition online. With its high user participation and loyal audiences, it isn’t hard to see why more and more organizations are hiring experts like New Orleans social media specialists to leverage the platform and utilize it to enhance their visibility on the World Wide Web.
However, just because Instagram has built a conducive environment for companies to encourage engagement and cultivate mutually beneficial relationships with their target consumers, it doesn’t mean that it’s easy to achieve the desired results. After all, there’s bound to be other businesses vying for attention from the same audience. In this introductory guide, we’ll discuss a few strategies and practices you can use to keep up, if not get ahead of the competition.
1. Create a business account
To boost your marketing campaign using Instagram, you must first start by creating an account. If you’re signing up for the first time, make sure you choose to create a business account. This will give you access to features that a regular account wouldn’t have otherwise. Setting everything up is neither as complicated nor tricky as it sounds. Simply visit the website on your computer or download the application if you’re using your mobile device, choose the sign-up option, and follow all the instructions.
2. Determine the target audience
After the business account has been created, the next step is to decide the type of content to upload on the platform. To do this successfully, you must first determine your brand’s intended audience. While it’s good to know that the majority of Instagram users are people under thirty-five, you’ll need to go beyond this specific demographic to define the market for your brand.
- Check your existing consumer base.
- Make use of analytical tools to determine users that follow the company on other social media channels.
- Conduct extensive competitive analysis.
- Establish clear values for the brand.
Once the target customers have been determined, it’ll be easier to find out what kind of content will elicit engagement from them. This can be achieved not only by checking their content and their interactions with similar businesses.
3. Establish objectives and goals
The first step in establishing an effective digital marketing strategy for Instagram is to know what you’re looking to accomplish. Not only will understanding your objectives and goals keep you focused. But it will also encourage you to persevere. It’s as essential in an online advertising campaign as an experienced New Orleans social media agency. To make sure that you put the right goals in place, they need to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.
As your brand’s presence in the platform continues to grow, you’ll likely include objectives that include followers, likes, and comments. But before these come into play, it’s critical to focus on ensuring that any goal you strive for remains relevant to the performance of the business.
4. Analyze the performance metrics
Depending on the business, the metrics used to track its performance on Instagram will vary. That said, you must continue to analyze and focus on the key metrics that align with the company’s objectives and the customers’ journeys.
- Awareness. Metrics associated with awareness must include brand exposure, the rate of growth for followers, and upload and post reach.
- Conversion. Apart from the rate of conversion, the metrics covered in this area should have abandonment rate and CTR or click-through rate. If paid ads are part of the campaign, CPM and cost-per-click should be included.
- Engagement. As its name suggests, these metrics must involve how the intended audience interacts with the brand’s content and the rate of amplification for the posts.
- Consumer. These metrics should revolve around customer actions such as writing testimonials and recommendations.
5. Commit to consistency
As your Instagram account grows, users will expect you to regularly upload content, and if you want to maintain engagement with your existing following and attract new faces, you’ll need to commit to the consistency of your posting. While there are best times for businesses to post content and interact with their target audience, this varies depending on factors such as field and industry. But the key is to follow a steady and uniform schedule to ensure that you’re able to meet expectations.
6. Profile optimization is key
It may sound strange to spend time optimizing the profile of your Instagram account profile. However, doing so can have a positive impact and will help you reach out to target consumers much better than you would have otherwise, and to get started, begin by tweaking your bio. With only one-hundred and fifty characters in length, it may not be enough to tell the entire story of the business. But by conveying the brand’s personality, prioritizing relevant information, using hashtags and emojis when possible, you’ll be able to appeal to users without compromising the identity of the brand.
Aside from the bio, you’ll also need to work on the profile picture, and for a business, this usually means using a high-quality picture of the company’s logo for users to immediately identify with the brand. However, keep in mind that the platform tends to store the profile image at a specific resolution, and if you don’t want the quality to get ruined, you’ll need to upload it at the same resolution.
Marketing through social media platforms like Instagram requires a commitment of time and effort. It’s unlikely that you’ll achieve success overnight. However, with the help of a New Orleans social media firm and the strategies listed in this guide, you’ll be able to start your Instagram campaign on the right foot and give your brand a lot more opportunities to succeed in this digital channel and generate the kind of exposure it needs to increase sales.
