Since being founded, Instagram has steadily grown to become one of the most important social media sites. It is a powerful marketing tool that businesses that want to expand their online presence can use with great results. And although there are companies like followers.io that help you to grow your instant views and audience, getting started with Instagram does not cost a dime. You may not understand the true value of Instagram as a marketing tool, which is why you have not jumped onto the bandwagon. In this article, we tell you the reasons why Instagram is an indispensable marketing tool.
Visual Content is the Trend
If you want the type of content that is most engaging, nothing can beat photos. If anything, visual content produces 650% greater engagement compared to text-only content. This makes Instagram a great platform to engage with your fans. You can even use Instagram to gauge what resonates best with your audience visually. This will enable you to develop your brand across all your marketing channels, for example, your email newsletters and blogs.
Instagram Marketing Allows you to Reach Millions of People
At the moment, Instagram boasts more than 800 million people per month. This gives businesses a massive potential audience. Using the right hashtag, Instagram lets you get your posts in front of the right target audience. You only need to ensure that the hashtags you use are relevant to those that your target audiences are searching for. Instagram even lets you create targeted ads that enable you to reach even more targeted users. You just need to be willing to put in more time and chip in with a little extra money.
Instagram is focused on storytelling
Who doesn’t love stories? We all grew up listening to fascinating fairies and happy ever after tales. Today, we are glued to the internet following the stories of celebrities as they break out. We are drawn like a magnet to recounting funny events or dramas. In short, storytelling is a crucial part of the human fabric. And from a business standpoint, sharing interesting stories with your followers is the perfect way to create a deep connection with your users.
Visual contents are perfect for informing your audience about your company and building a strong relationship with current and future customers. Seasoned marketers advocate for a customer-centric approach instead of product-oriented marketing. Knowing this, you want to avoid the temptation of posting a feed that pitches for your products. Instead, focus on the feelings of your customers. Instagram offers massive potential that you can take advantage of to encourage users to respond emotionally to your brand. It will lead to positive impacts on the overall success of your business and near instant views.
Instagram gives you the Perfect Chance to interact with your Community
Of all the main social platforms, Instagram boasts the highest engagement rate on average. It beats Twitter and Facebook even. If anything, Instagram’s brand engagement rate is even higher. This implies that the Instagram audience is more willing to embrace branded content compared to their willingness on other channels, advised Sarah Mae Ives, a Facebook ads expert, helping her clients create a social media strategy to scale their businesses. Sarah`s clients has been featured in publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneurs as well as The Today Show.
One proven way to get engagement on Instagram is following people that talk about your products or brand and commenting on their video or photo posts. Another way to start a conversation is to use your hashtags and ask your followers to join. But engaging your followers goes a long way than simply publishing videos and photos of your products. It’s important that you actually connect with your users! The idea of using bots to like other posts and comments to increase your followers and likes is tempting but automating your engagement has many flaws. The most important thing that you want to focus on is real engagement. That’s because real engagement is the only way to get more loyal customers and increase sales.
Instagram is a hotbed of useful insights and feedback.
Being the smart marketer that you are, you are probably keeping a tight lid on your mentions on different forums, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. But are you aware of what people say about your products or services on Instagram?
Irrespective of whether your brand is available on Instagram or not, people will still use it to discuss your offerings, the same way they do on other platforms. Chances are that your users are probably posting videos and photos of products they purchase from you and commenting about your brand amongst themselves. This is vital feedback that you can only ignore at your own peril. Understanding how your customers perceive your brand is essential, and so is identifying brand advocates. The Instagram platform is an important source of useful feedback about your customers, which is why you want to utilize it.
Instagram lets you be on top of the competition
Even if you have not yet jumped onto the Instagram bandwagon for marketing your offerings, chances are that your competitors are. The platform is great for keeping tabs on the competition’s activities and seeing how they are interacting with their community. It enables you to see the type of content they post, how often, when, and the way they engage with their followers. Are they currently using an Instagram contest? Through looking at these insights, you will be able to discover certain best practices in the industry and also come up with a creative strategy that works.
Conclusion
Instagram offers massive potential for businesses that want to widen their reach online. Boasting an impressive 800 million users per month, there is no denying that Instagram has great opportunities for businesses. If you haven’t already started using the platform to market your business, you are missing out on a crucial tool.
The best part is that getting started with Instagram is cheap, if not free. By investing in a specialist company like followers.io, you have a great chance of growing your audience quickly and tapping into the huge potential that it offers. It will into be long before you start seeing instant views on your brand.