So who’s using Instagram? We’re happy you asked.
Well, over an eighth of the 7.7 billion people on the planet (and counting). Let’s look at some Instagram user statistics to keep close to your marketing cuff. (Sourced: Hoot Suit)
1 billion people use Instagram every month – furthermore, of Instagram’s 1 billion monthly active users, more than 500 million of them use the platform every day.
So here our some of our tips on how to market your business better on Instagram
Your Instagram Bio 📝
Your Instagram bio allows you 150 characters of text and one external link for you to work with. Although this may not seem like much room to play with, considering everything your bio should accomplish, it assists in keeping it short and sweet. Here are the basics on what you should include in your bio:
- You want people to know who and what your business is straight away. It’s important to highlight essential information about your business. Include your brand name, category, etc. (you can change this in your profile settings). You don’t want people having to guess who or what you do.
- Think about how you want to represent your brand. The text tone, styling and selected imagery will have to be consistent across all your platforms, showcase your brand and personality, fun or corporate.
- Establish your Unique Selling Point (USP). This ensures that your target audience will understand what makes your brand valuable to them.
- Opportunity for sharing or viewing content, signing up for your event, or following through to your website to make a purchase (via your website or link in bio).
- Call to action. Give them a reason to keep scrolling or to interact. Some larger stores have used things such as:
Be direct: “Click our bio link to shop our latest products.”
Encourage users to share: “Tag #insertyourhashtag to be featured”
Promote a limited time offer: “Shop our EOFY sale”
Highlight a contest: “Share your favourite flavour for a chance to win!👇”
(sourced from www.shopify.com.au)
Ensure you are aware of the different settings and options for Instagram Business. Utilise the call, text and message features, as well as the shop button feature (if applicable). There are lots of sites online that will walk you through the different things you can use instagram for as an online business.
Your Profile Image 📸
Brand identity is key. Your goal is to get people to associate your colours and logo with your business. Think about how everyone knows the golden arches of McDonald’s, or can recognise Cadbury for its trademarked purple. Ensure your profile images are consistent across your social platforms to create continuity.
Instagram Stories & Creating highlights for your profile 🔎
Instagram Stories are a quick, engaging format perfectly suited for mobile experiences. Top brands have taken notice of this and Instagram’s data showing that a third of the most viewed stories on the platform were created by businesses. (sourced from https://business.instagram.com)
Our suggestion with Instagram highlights is to be purposeful with these, having too many can be overwhelming. For example, on our Bang Media Instagram page we have 5: BTS (Behind the Scenes), Web, Video, Design, & Photo. This helps people clearly see some of the main services we provide. Cover images create brand continuity and help establish your style and vibe. You can have a graphic designer create these for you, or create your own through apps like Canva.
Advertising 📊
We all know Social Media advertising is key to promoting businesses. It creates improved brand awareness, it’s cost effective and allows you to engage with your customers. In turn, leading to increased traffic, better SEO, improve brand loyalty, healthier customer satisfaction and much more. The earlier you start, the faster you see the growth in your business. Instagram business has lots of articles and examples on different ways you can make Instagram advertising work for your business. Knowledge is power so get reading!
Copy ✏️
This is something I know a lot of people might struggle with, while others not so much. There’s only so many ways you can describe your product right? It’s hard to find the balance between showing your continuity and being repetitive, putting people to sleep with the same creative and copy. There’s no harm it grabbing inspiration from other brands in your niche, have a look at how similar businesses market similar products, their word structure and posts.
Create emotion, this can be humour, shock, surprise. Give them something to be engaged with.
HOWEVER, it really does relate to knowing your customers. Once you know this, you can target your content to them. It’s important to remember that the people that are following you are just ‘people’ like you. Put yourself in your customers shoes, what content do you engage with? Implement that into your business page.
See what posts perform well and try to identify what made them perform well. Was it the time of the day? the #relatable moment you gave them, or was the product or the copy simply just on the money with what your clients want?
Images are crucial. I’m sure you’ve all stumbled across an Instagram business page that’s a little bit cringy. It’s the poorly screenshot images, or very obvious stock photos. Product Images are crucial, it represents the value you hold for your product. Not everyone has the budget to hire a professional photographer to take product shots. However, it really does reflect on the quality of your business if your imagery and products look unprofessional. If you are taking the photos yourself make sure you are using good lighting, giving them some love. Look into other stores, find what you like and what you think validates a business online, in your eyes.
We believe that your pictures tell a thousand words. Get in touch with one of our friendly team today to see how we can help you put your best digital foot forward.
