Instagram Marketing Strategies for Small Business (Infographic)

From yummy breakfasts to late night parties, Instagram has become a constant companion in the social media world. Whether it is an aesthetic click of a dilapidated cottage or a fancy shot of a brand product, Instagram provides a new angle to everyday life.

Being a visual app, Instagram mostly depends on pictures for its popularity amongst the audiences, and this opportunity can be exploited by local businesses to promote their brands and offerings amongst their target audience. A dominating majority of the app’s users are of teenagers, which goes above 70%.

Along with offering a great engagement oriented experience for its users, Instagram opens up new horizons for small businesses who are new to online marketing and want a platform to engage with their audiences!

All you need is the right steps and actions to make your online presence a reality. Wondering how? Read on to find out what you can to maximize Instagram to grow your business online!

#1 Create an account

To promote your brand, make sure to create a profile that’s quirky without being too much in-your-face or salesy. The first step is to come up with a username that is closest to your brand name. You can include symbols such as periods, underscores, and numbers in the username as well. But you should make sure that your brand name can be recognized right away. Field. If you have no idea how good your content is, again go back to the big pages in your niche and check their content and follow their step in posting content.

The next objective is your bio. The bio is an important part in determining the nature of a business. You can write a short and interesting bio that not only summarises your brand and objective, but also hooks the visitor. You can also add the link to your official website and/or contact information and address.

#2 Fashion an attractive profile

Instagram runs on pictures, which means you are dependent on pictures and captions to draw an audience. With professional editing apps being introduced in mobile phones, every other person is able to create an attractive Instagram profile. The pictures posted on your profile should be high quality (preferably with editing), well lit, and engaging.

Many profiles follow a theme or pattern of pictures and colors that give them an artistic look. You too can choose a color pattern or style that fits your brand and post pictures accordingly. This gives the brand profile a uniformity that’s visually appealing and promising. An unorganized profile with poorly clicked pictures gives a negative impression of the brand.

#3 Monitor the quality of pictures

The content of a picture is a huge determinant in drawing user engagement. For business brands, the pictures usually revolve around their products and services. But strictly limiting your profile to visuals of your business can get boring. You can also post pictures of other things that express the versatility of your business while beating monotony. Moreover, posting beautiful, eye-catching images is one way to get more attention in order to gain new followers for your Instagram account.

You might promote your brand through paid advertisement on Instagram; make sure to choose the pictures that are not only catchy but also closely represent your brand.

#4. Captions, Hashtags, and Location

When posting a picture, it is necessary to add a good caption. The caption should describe your picture, and ultimately your brand. So it is wise to keep your caption witty, friendly, engaging, and short (because nobody has time to read paragraphs).

Another strategy to promote your account is the use of hashtags. Posts regarding a certain object or idea can be segregated by hashtags. Whenever you post a picture, make sure to include related hashtags in the comments section so as to widen the reach of your post. It is advisable to create a hashtag exclusively for your brand, which will help to figure out your reach and growth.

As a local business mentioning the location of your business is necessary when you post any content on your Instagram page. Since Instagram has released a new feature that you are able to follow a specific hashtag or location, your pictures can be shown in the Instagram location page of your area. Hence, it gives you a higher chance to be known and seen in your neighborhood. 

#5 Stay active and interact!

Engage with your followers with the help of Instagram stories. You can also like and reply to the comments, which leaves a good impression of your business being reliable and customer-friendly. You can also engage your followers and increase the popularity of your brand by holding online contests.

Many businesses do frequent giveaways that promote their brands and products. Another method is to post pictures of your customers who use your brand’s hashtag. This will draw an audience wanting to get featured on your page.

Collaborating with influencers in your city is one of the most effective ways for brand awareness, gaining followers, bringing new leads to your landing page. Although it might be costly, but the result you get is much better than promoting your business in your local newspaper. Influencers marketing has been one of the most effective marketing strategies in recent years. Many big companies putting a huge budget into the influencers marketing every year since it’s been proven way to increase your sales and a quick method to achieve the predicted ROI goals.

Keeping these simple points in mind, a small business can establish its identity on Instagram and increase its audience. Instagram is equipped with a stats feature that measures the online popularity and reach of your business. But one should also note that while Instagram accounts advertise and sell products, they mainly focus on brand promotion. With that understood, Instagram can prove to be a very efficient platform for business marketing.

Check out this Infographic, Instagram Marketing for Local Businesses from Socialtradia.com

Photo by Katka Pavlickova on Unsplash