How to Promote Your Business on Instagram
Rashed Ahmed
SEO Expert| Proven Expertise in Boost Google Rankings & Drive Organic Traffic | On-Page & Technical SEO | Local SEO Strategist |
Instagram isn’t just a platform for sharing photos and videos that will make your friends envious of your fabulous life. It’s also a powerful marketing tool for businesses.
More than one billion people use Instagram every month, and roughly 90% of them follow at least one business. This means that, in 2021, using Instagram for business is a no-brainer.
To reach your audience, you'll want to get in front of users where they're already spending a lot of their time - social media. One of the most popular social media channels is Instagram, which has over a billion active monthly users. There, people come to get inspired, discover new content and learn about new businesses and brands like yours.
In this Instagram marketing guide, we'll discuss all the ways you can use the channel to meet your marketing goals, including setting up an optimized Instagram business account, creating solid content pillars, knowing the best times to post, partnering with influencers and more.
How to use Instagram for business: 6 steps
01. Create an Instagram business account
Instagram offers two types of user accounts: personal accounts and business accounts.
“The secret of getting ahead [on Instagram] is getting started,” said Mark Twain.
If you don't have one yet, the first thing you need to do is to create an Instagram account through the mobile app or website. Once your account is set up, you'll need to convert your profile to a professional account. This will grant you access to premium features such as advertising, analytics, and shopping posts.
Here is how to get a professional Instagram account:
02 Create a Develop Instagram Strategy
Define your target audience
A good social media strategy starts with a sound understanding of your audience.
Research Instagram’s audience demographics to get a sense of who uses the platform. For example, 25-34-year-olds represent the largest ad audience on the site. Identify the key segments that overlap with your customer base, or hone in on active niches.
Since defining your target market is one of the most important parts of your marketing strategy for any marketing tool, we’ve created a step-by-step guide that explains all the details. Here’s the short version:
Knowing who’s in your audience puts you in a better position to create content. Look at the type of content your customer's post and engage with, and use these insights to inform your creative strategy.
Set goals and objectives
Your Instagram strategy should establish what you hope to achieve on the platform.
Start with your business objectives and identify how Instagram can help you accomplish them. We recommend applying the SMART framework to ensure your goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.
Track the right performance metrics
With your goals defined, it’s easier to identify important social media metrics to monitor.
These vary for each business, but in broad terms, plan to focus on metrics related to the social funnel.
Align your goals to one of the four stages in the customer journey:
Create a content calendar
With your audience and goals defined, you can plan to publish on Instagram with purpose. A well-planned social media content calendar ensures you don’t miss important dates and allows you to allot enough time for creative production.
Start by plotting out and researching important events. This may include periods such as holiday planning or Black History Month, back to school or tax season, or specific days like Giving Tuesday or International Hug Your Cat Day. Look at sales data to see when your customers start planning for specific occasions.
Look for opportunities to develop themes or regular installments that you can build into a series. “Content buckets,” as some people call them, allow you to check certain boxes without having to overthink creation. The more planning you do upfront, the better you’ll be able to produce regular content and respond to last-minute or unplanned events.
Plan to publish when your followers are online. Because newsfeed algorithms consider “recency” an important ranking signal, posting when people are active is one of the best ways to improve organic reach.
With an Instagram business account, you can check the days and hours that are most popular for your audience:
1. From your profile, tap Insights.
2. Beside Your Audience, tap See All.
3. Scroll down to Most Active Times.
4. Toggle between hours and days to see if a specific time stands out.
03. Strategically Use all of Instagram’s Formats
Instagram is far from being a one-trick pony. Starting with only still images, the app now offers a handful of formats and Instagram features such as Stories, IGTV, Instagram Live, Shopping, and its newest Instagram Reels format.
Being captivating isn't the only benefit of using more than one Instagram format. The algorithm has been said to reward accounts that use many of Instagram's different products. Let's explore each format type and how you can leverage it for your business.
Standard image
Standard image posts are still photographs that live on your feed. Since Instagram is such a visual place, many businesses upload high-resolution, gorgeous "Instagramable" pictures. It is good practice to alternate between the types of content you publish, which we will discuss later on as we dive into content pillars.
Carousel
While real-life carousels rotate in circles for amusement, Instagram Carousel posts rotate horizontally across our feed for engagement. This type of post can include up to 10 images and videos, all of which are presented in a single post with a horizontal scrolling feature.
In the image below, you can see how fashion designer Zimmermann perfectly used the Carousel format to showcase a dress from the front, the back, and, lastly, in motion through a short runway video. Talk about a 360-degree experience of a product.
Showing products might not be the only benefit of the Carousel format. It’s been said that the algorithm prioritizes content that gets a lot of engagement time. Naturally, scrolling through multiple images rather than one takes longer and can help your post’s performance.
Videos
In the past, TV commercials used to be the primary way to reach consumers with video content. Today, instead of spending thousands of dollars on TV, businesses can use Instagram videos to tell their brand story, show products, and new releases. Instagram has seen a lot of success with the video format and reported an 80% Increase in time spent watching videos on Instagram.
To help create a powerful video, you can use Wix’s Video Maker for video editing, sound insertion, and overlaying text.
Stories
The idea that something interesting can go away at any moment is quite a nail-biter. This is a feeling Instagram Stories thrive on and has compelled 500M people to interact with stories every day. After 24 short hours, the content shown in the shapes of circles at the top of your screen disappears. Although 15 seconds seems like a short-lasting post, this format is a powerful Instagram marketing strategy, as 50% of people surveyed say they have visited a website to buy a product or service as a result of seeing it in Stories.
Unlike other Instagram formats, Stories show a raw, authentic side of your brand. Instead of a picture-perfect feed photo, you post about the business's day-to-day, the company culture, and behind the scenes. With Ascend Social Posts or apps like inventory and Ash, you have custom templates and layouts that help you create quick and engaging visual stories.
You can keep users lingering longer on each post by not just showing product images and promotions but including informative text, videos, and engaging stickers. When it comes to stickers, there are many ways brands used them effectively for their Instagram marketing approach:
Polls
Polls let viewers vote between two customizable options. Use this feature in your Story to let users choose between their favorite product or image to engage in a gamified way.
Countdown and product launch stickers
Countdown stickers allow you to set an end date and time for any upcoming milestone for your business, such as a giveaway, new line release, or sale. Users have the option to get alerted once the timeline has finished remembering to come back to your account and take action.
See how Summers Snugglies used a countdown sticker for an upcoming product launch.
Question stickers
Who doesn't like being asked their opinion? Question stickers do just that. They can let you have an interactive Q&A with viewers. You can even take it a step further and use Question stickers for market research.
Quiz stickers
Quiz stickers are multiple-choice questions that, after clicking one, reveal the correct answer. Come up with some witty trivia questions about your industry, product or service.
GIFs
GIFs are moving images that can help bring your Story to life and show your brand personality. There is a search bar on Instagram Stories that lets you find GIFs based on keywords.
In addition to using stickers to make your stories more engaging, you can use "new post" GIFs to promote new content on your feed.
Location stickers
No surprise here, location stickers show your location. You can use it to tell customers your business's physical location, make it easier for them to find you, or highlight an event or special venue you're currently attending. But they're not just informational; according to Omnicore, posts with a location get 79% more engagement.
Hashtags
Use the hashtag sticker to highlight words related to what you're posting about or your brand. Doing so can help your Story get discovered by people who are interested in the given topic.
Clickable link stickers
Link stickers are a valuable Instagram tool available for accounts with over 10,000 followers. This clickable button added to a Story sends customers directly to any landing page you choose, such as your website, an affiliate link, or your Instagram Shop.
In the following image, you can see how printmaker, illustrator, and designer Lili Arnold Studios used this feature to send viewers to buy her book.
Mention stickers
Mention stickers allow you to tag accounts in a Story, who are then notified and given the option to share it on their own Stories. You can mention your customers, your employees or even other brands.
Shopping stickers
Use Shopping stickers to tag merchandise in your Story and direct people to your Instagram Shop. In addition to promoting your store, it's also a great way to help identify the items shown in the photo. For instance, H&M used a shoppable sticker to highlight their activewear jacket.
Story Highlights
Some Instagram stories are just too good to disappear forever. Instead of letting them expire after 24 hours, you can save past stories into a permanent location called Story Highlights. These saved stories live below your bio and are viewable by any visitor. While consumers use them to highlight big events like weddings or vacations, brands leverage them to introduce themselves, their products, and their offerings.
For example, the wheelchair cover maker Izzy Wheels uses Story Highlights to help visitors easily find different collections such as their Hello Kitty, Barbie, and Wedding wheel covers. All-Story Highlight cover photos can be customized with images to represent their categories.
To create Story covers, upload an image from your camera roll or choose from a previously published Story. Alternatively, you can use a Story Highlight Cover Maker app or buy them from Etsy designers.
IGTV
Clips between 1min - 60min in length are perfect for the IGTV format that lets you publish vertical video content. These videos can be used for product reviews, interviews or show the behind-the-scenes of product creation. If you have video content from other channels, you can easily convert your video content to Instagram TV. It can be worth creating such content for exposure since Instagram states that IGTV videos appear 4X larger than photos on Explore.
Same as with feed posts and Reels, you can drive people to watch your IGTV content by sharing the video to your Story.
For example, Vivi et Margot, a traditional French homeware shop owner, has a robust IGTV channel with behind-the-scenes shopping videos, home design inspiration and table decorating tips.
04. Build robust content pillars
As beautiful as your product photos are, you cannot only rely on them for your full Instagram marketing strategy. To truly be successful, you should also include material that educates, informs, inspires, or entertains. We recommend building content pillars that fall into these different categories:
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User-generated content (UGC) includes images, videos or text that have been made and posted by your users online. This type of content is not only a big timer saver because you don’t have to create it, but also an extremely trustworthy and valuable asset.
Social Media Today reports user-generated content has a 4.5% higher conversion rate. To tap into this content potential, encourage customers to tag you on their photos and reviews and share them regularly on your Story or feed.
Behind every successful brand, there is a lot of heavy lifting to keep the business afloat. Let users see what it takes to maintain a company like yours, whether it's photoshoots, packaging, or making the product. You will connect with users as it shows a more personal, real, and exciting side of you.
Quotes don't only work well because they allow for a fresh voice to be heard on your page, but also because quotes can often be moving and inspiring. A recommended practice is to try and keep your quotes related to your audience and field. For instance, we shared a quote by Adele Goldberg, a computer scientist, which fits our web-building audience.
A company is only as good as its employees. Show the world the talent your company is made of by featuring yourself and your staff in your posts. Employee photos can also help with putting a face to the brand. According to a study by Backlinko, Instagram posts that include faces receive 38% more likes than those without faces.
83% of users say Instagram has helped them discover new products and services, so it's a no-brainer that one of your content pillars will revolve around marketing your offerings.
As long as you balance promotions with your other posts, they won’t come across too aggressively. You can feature new releases (teaser campaigns), best sellers or promotions. For instance, see how Marc Jacobs features one of their limited edition fragrances in one of their posts.
You don't know what you don't know. Allowing visitors to learn about the purpose or problem you solve can help them better understand what's in it for them. As a result of creating informational content, users can get educated, gain value and trust your business.
You can see how natural candle company Fontana Candle Co. created a post that breaks down all the ingredients in their product in the image below. Their caption elaborates on the difference between using a clean candle from natural ingredients versus one filled with toxins.
Whether it's a seasonal holiday, national celebration, or social movement happening, tap into the moment's timeliness and post relevant content around it. Take a look at how waffle company Bubblewrap used World Nutella Day to display their mouth-watering snacks.
Nothing creates FOMO (fear of missing out) more than a hot event you’re hosting or attending. Let your followers know what you’ve been up to by showing sneak peeks from your A-List events.
No matter how good your slogan or elevator pitch is, it will always sound better coming from your customer's mouth. By embedding customer testimonials into your posts, you will help your brand's image and let true stories sell themselves.
You've been mentioned in the news and gotten some publicity. Now it's time to "humbly" brag about it. After all, did it really happen if no one knows about it? For example, Brown Girl Jane was featured in Elle magazine and brilliantly posted the article's snippet.
Are there any cliches or trending jokes circulating in popular culture at the moment? It could be a good idea to jump on the wagon and create a related post or meme to help show your brand's quirky side.
After your content pillars are strong and sturdy, it will be time to focus on growing your account.
05. Instagram Marketing Tips
While there are hundreds of tips and tricks to marketing on Instagram, we’ve narrowed it down to the top 10 most essential growth strategies:
Understand the Instagram algorithm
Instagram's use of artificial intelligence and machine learning for its algorithm is still a mystery in many ways. However, some creators found patterns in the algorithm that they used in their favor and, as a result, saw a lot of Instagram marketing success.
The first thing you need to keep in mind is that, rather than being in chronological order, the feed displays posts depending on the type of content Instagram thinks users would be most interested in and will spend more time viewing.
To use the algorithm to your advantage, you must prove to Instagram that people find your content interesting in a short amount of time after posting. Here are some ways to get the algorithm interested in your posts - and boost them as a result:
Write compelling captions
Captions are a powerful way to make your brand's voice heard and get the post's message across. While you have 2,200 characters available, after 125 characters your text gets truncated, so the first two lines are key
In addition to crafting informational and entertaining text, it's important to include a call to action (CTA) in some of your captions. Instagram reports there is an 89% chance that campaigns that emphasize the CTA will outperform those that do not.
Some of the most common CTAs ask users to comment on something specific in your post. Other popular CTAs encourage users to check out the link in your bio. See how designer Abby Leighton announced the launch of the Wix online store and directed her followers to "check out the link in my bio."
If you need some inspiration for witty lines, use the caption generator from CapGenius or Preview. Don’t forget to use some emojis and hashtags, as more than half of Instagram captions and comments contain emojis. Pay attention to how Abby Leighton used the heart emoji to thank her followers for their support.
Use hashtags deliberately
Time has changed, and the pound sign (#) is no longer just a button you press when speaking to an automated phone machine. Social media channels use hashtags now as a vital tool for discoverability, increasing followers, and relevant engagement. It’s been reported that posts with at least one hashtag average 12.6% more engagement.
It is crucial that you choose Instagram hashtags that describe your business, are specific to your niche, audience, region, and purpose of the account. Let’s take a look at some of the best practices to follow for your Instagram hashtag strategy.
Include different size hashtags
You can use up to 30 hashtags in each post. While this number might seem large, it's still important to be strategic with your choices.
Use a mix of big, medium, and small hashtags in each post. Hashtags with over a million posts (such as #fitnessmotivation) and niche tags with only a few hundred thousand (such as #fitnessclothes) are equally important. They are excellent for helping your posts show up in relevant feeds and getting found when people are searching for those categories. You don't want to use just huge ones as they're more competitive than niche hashtags. Smaller hashtags help you get discovered, as your post will appear for a longer period of time in the recent post section.
Rotate and change your hashtags
Even if you think the hashtags you've used on the last few posts worked like magic, make sure you rotate them not to miss your chances to reach other audiences that follow slightly different tags. To keep track, make a list of 6 -10 distinct groups of 30 hashtags to copy and paste. Then, all you’ll need to do is alternate between them
Create a branded hashtag
The difference between a regular and a branded hashtag is that the latter is crafted around your business. It can include your company name in the hashtag like #ShareACoke or mention a product like Disneyland’s #ShareYourEars.
The goal of a branded hashtag is to build buzz around your brand and also to gather user-generated content. To help kick off your branded hashtag, let your followers know about it and encourage them to use it for a chance to be featured.
Follow relevant hashtags
To help you stay up to date with your industry and target audience, follow specific hashtags. Instagram will then show you the top posts each week in your feed for the tags you followed. By following hashtags, you can also more easily engage with your community as the posts come to you.
To assist you with these hashtags tips, you can use tools like the Hashtag Expert and Hashtagify that automate the above steps.
Engage with current and potential customers
There is both a science and an art to marketing on Instagram. You can be creative with your content and captions, but there is also a scientific approach to engagement. The more you engage with other people's posts, the more likely they are to go back to your profile, engage with you, follow you or maybe even come to your website to convert into a loyal customer. Apparently, 2 in 3 people surveyed say Instagram enables interaction with brands.
Here are some practical ways to interact with your audience:
Sometimes it takes more than a like or comment to get someone's attention, which is why you can also offer a contest or giveaway as part of your Instagram marketing tactics.
Run a contest or giveaway
You'd be surprised just how much people are willing to do for free gifts. Okay, we don't mean selling a kidney, but many people are eager to follow, share, tag friends and heavily promote another Instagram account for the chance of winning an appealing prize.
The ideal outcome is that the cost of the giveaway will be worth the price you want to pay for more followers, reach, and customers. Depending on your budget and audience, the reward can be an expensive gadget, a discount sale, or your own product giveaway.
Make sure the contest period is somewhere between 2-5 days, and announce the winner afterward. To help you choose a winner, you can use a comment picker or giveaway picker.
For example, Coal and Canary Candle Company ran a successful giveaway that yielded over 4,000 comments. All the people tagged in the post due to the contest were exposed to the company.
Partner with an influencer
Influencers are people with a lot of followers who can influence purchasing decisions. While some influencers are more like Instagram celebrities, some brands also work with micro-influencers who have a smaller following but still can be valuable brand advocates.
People have become more desensitized to traditional advertising, which is why working with influencers to promote your business is a great way to achieve credibility among your customers. In fact, 55% of shoppers have purchased a fashion item after seeing a creator promote it, and 89% say ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels.
How to partner with an influencer
Follow these steps to get started with influencer marketing:
Serve sponsored ads with Instagram Advertising
Ads on Instagram come in the form of promoted stories or posts that reach your selected target audience's feeds that don't currently follow you. Advertising can be of interest to you, considering 50% are more interested in a brand when they see ads for it on Instagram.
To make the most of your promotional budget, read our guide on how to advertise on Instagram. Here's a quick look at some of the steps to follow:
Know the best time to post on Instagram
To build a strong presence, you need to be consistent and know the best time to post on Instagram. Ideally, you want to post 1-2 times a day on your feed and publish 10+ Stories a day.
What time should you post? Hootsuite analyzed over 200,000 posts that yielded performance metrics by industry. It turns out the best times and days to post for the travel industry are Friday at 9:00 AM and 1:00 PM. Fridays are also a good day to post for the food industry, especially around noon on that day. It makes sense noon is an excellent time to post, as people are on their lunch breaks and can scroll through Instagram guilt-free.
Others see several performance peaks over the week. For instance, in the retail industry, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at noon are all good days. Another sector that sees success over multiple days a week is the professional services that peak on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:00 AM. Trends indicate that businesses should use their most strategic posts on weekdays.
Track and optimize performance
Unlike TV and magazine marketing, digital marketing is much easier to track, measure and optimize. With the help of the many Instagram analytics tools and the built-in Instagram Insights, you can get information on the following areas:
Use all your data to help you make informed and educated decisions on which type of content to prioritize or replicate moving forward.
Share and promote your Instagram
You’ve done the hard work of learning how to market on Instagram. Now comes the fun part: letting the world see it. First, include Instagram as one of your social media icon buttons on your site to encourage your loyal customers and visitors to stay up to date and follow you.
Then, wow your website visitors by adding your Instagram images to your site with the Instagram Feed tool. This way, your website will automatically sync and show your most recent Instagram posts.
By Rashed Ahmed
Digital Marketing Expert and Writer