Using Instagram for business might actually be better than using other social media platforms.

With one billion active users, Instagram has hit new records as far as social media platforms go. Not only is it the popular new kid on the block, but it’s also a great platform for social media marketing.

Speaking of social media marketing, your social media strategy should be based on achievable objectives and goals. So how does using Instagram for business come into play here?

A primarily visual app, Instagram has been a growing favorite among young people.

As an individual, Instagram is a great app that allows users to share snippets of their day-to-day lives with their friends and family.

Using Instagram for Business

As a business owner, why would using Instagram for business benefit you? Turns out, creating an account for your business could be a huge step towards fulfilling your marketing objectives.

Instagram has become so important to any social media campaign that it’s not just an option anymore, it’s a necessity.

If your target audience is among a young demographic or if you’re selling a product that needs to showcase quality visual presentation, Instagram is definitely the app for you!

Make your business’ Instagram presence known and build up your likes and follower count.

In this article, you’ll learn how to use Instagram for business, but to start off, out of all social media platforms, why use Instagram for business?

About Instagram

Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and launched on October 2010. Nowadays, with one billion active users, it shows no signs of slowing down.

Accessible on all digital devices, the popular social media platform allows you to post photos and videos to your account, while keeping up-to-date with your friends and family. You can also feel like a part of a whole community by following celebrities, influencers, and brands.

Instagram’s easy-to-use, built-in-app, photo editing features has made it a favorite among young people.

Facebook saw Instagram’s vast business potential and acquired it in 2012 for one billion US dollars.

“We believe these are different experiences that complement each other. But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram’s strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook. That’s why we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently.” Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement at the time.

As a huge business investment in itself, it only makes sense to use Instagram for business.

Browsing Instagram

Demographics:

  • 2 billion+ monthly active users globally: Instagram continues its steady growth, offering ample reach for businesses.
  • 70% under 34 years old: Gen Z and Millennials dominate the platform, making it crucial to tailor content accordingly.
  • Nearly 50% male and 50% female: A balanced gender distribution, providing opportunities for businesses targeting diverse audiences.
  • India leads with 326.6 million users: Followed by the US (168.6 million) and Brazil (132.6 million). Consider focusing on these high-engagement markets.

Usage:

  • 12 hours/month average global usage: Users are heavily engaged, presenting a valuable window for brand interaction.
  • Reels dominating engagement: Utilize Reels strategically to reach wider audiences and boost discovery.
  • Live video gaining traction: Incorporate live sessions for product launches, Q&As, and behind-the-scenes glimpses.
  • Shoppable posts driving e-commerce: Leverage shoppable features to seamlessly connect browsing with buying.

Key Features:

  • Meta integrations: Connect your Facebook and Instagram accounts for cross-platform marketing and analytics.
  • Branded content opportunities: Partner with relevant influencers to reach targeted audiences and build brand trust.
  • IGTV evolving into longer-form videos: Utilize IGTV for in-depth tutorials, product demonstrations, and storytelling.
  • Messaging focus: Prioritize direct messaging for engaging with customers, offering support, and building personalized relationships.

IGTV

In June 2018, Instagram introduced IGTV, a standalone video application. It’s thought to be the new Youtube.

Unlike Instagram which only allows 60 seconds for videos, IGTV users can upload videos that are up to 60 minutes in length. Users can watch videos exactly how they use their phone; full-screened and vertical, making it a comfortable experience for users.

You can also access IGTV videos from inside the Instagram app so everyone can watch IGTV videos without having to download the IGTV application.

IGTV’s most unique feature, however, is that users can use it exactly how they would use a TV. Swiping up would reveal “For You”, “Following”, “Popular”, and “Continue Watching” categories.

Using Instagram for Business

Launching an Instagram campaign takes time and effort, but it may be the best ROI (Return on Investment) you’ll get.

Garnering followers and likes is the first step to becoming “Instagram Famous”. To achieve that, your social media strategy should be strong and ready.

Instagram’s culture is unique and very visual. If you understand how it works and what you can do to attract followers, it’ll be an easy road to success.

So how should you start using Instagram for business?

Create a Business Instagram Account

First things first, using Instagram for business starts with one very important step; converting your account into a business one, especially if you have a physical location your customers can visit.

Upon downloading the app and signing up, convert your Instagram account into a business account.

Start the process by going to Settings and selecting the Switch to Business Profile option.

On a business account, you can include a phone number and you’ll have access to analytics and other features made specifically for business use.

Make sure to match your username with all your business’ other social media accounts’ usernames. You don’t want to confuse your customers by having different usernames on different platforms.

Next, upload a profile picture and write up your bio.

The only place you can post a clickable link to something is in your bio, so that would be your only option for including your website’s URL.

Write up a short and catchy bio about your brand. Make it suitable for your target audience and the Instagram culture. Let your brand personality shine in your bio.

Mastering Instagram Stories | Instagram | Instagram Marketing | Shorts

Start Posting

Since Instagram is primarily a visual app, use it to post all the photos and videos showcasing the products/services that you offer.

Remember, this account isn’t for personal use, so don’t manage it like you would your personal account. Only upload content related to your business.

Besides posting normal pictures and videos on your profile, you can also use Instagram for:

Stories:

Instagram stories are photos or videos that disappear after 24 hours.

The fun thing about Instagram stories is that now you can add them to your ‘Highlights’ and have them remain on your profile without disappearing.

You can add everything on you stories, ranging from normal pictures and videos, to Boomerangs (GIFs that play on a loop), videos filmed backwards (Rewind), text, and music. You can also add a location, polls, questions, different stickers and GIFs, and mention other users in your story before uploading it.

They also appear at the very top of users’ feeds, avoiding Instagram’s updated algorithm. Stories give customers a chance to see content they might not see while scrolling through their feeds.

Livestream:

Like Instagram Stories, a live video disappears after 24 hours.

Live videos give businesses a chance to give their customers a behind-the-scenes look, answer questions live as they come through your comments, and show off your products.

Advertising:

Like other social media platforms, advertising on Instagram can take multiple forms…

Photo ads: Regular photo posts that include a Sponsored label at the top of the post and a clickable “Learn more” at the bottom of it.

Carousel ads: Multiple photo ads for the same brand that users can swipe through.

Videos Ads: Similar to photo ads, video ads are regular video posts with a Sponsored label.

These ads appear on users’ feeds and are targeted based on interests and geographical factors.

Interact with Users:

Instagram allows you to comment, like posts, and react to stories.

You can use the ‘@’ symbol to mention other Instagram users and you can also tag people in photos or videos.

You also have the option to send direct messages (DMs) to users. These DMs could be simple messages or even photos and videos.

Just tap on the arrow at the top right corner of your homepage and search for users by clicking on the ‘+’ sign.

Comment on other users’ posts and reply to comments on your posts. People appreciate interactivity and responses.

Build a relationship with your audience by starting the conversation.

Instagram Feed

Follow People

Make sure you know exactly who your target audience is and start following the right people!

Look for influencers, established or potential customers, and people who are relevant to your brand and what you offer.

Search through hashtags and join in the discussion by commenting on posts.

Be Creative

Since Instagram is a visual app, what do you think people expect from it?

Posting creative and aesthetically pleasing content that is not only unique, but also attractive is the way to any Instagram user’s heart.

Display your products using appealing techniques.

Here are some tips to get you started:

  • Delete that overused “Buy Now!” caption you’ve been thinking of writing. Don’t be too pushy. Let your product speak for itself!
  • Take professional pictures of your product, or if it’s a service, show it off using high quality photos.
  • Mind the presentation. Instagram is young people’s special place for creative expression. You want the way you present your content to match that atmosphere.

Promotions and Giveaways

Encourage your customers to share pictures of themselves with your products using a branded hashtag.

Give out discounts, promotions, and giveaways as an incentive for the best picture or the picture with the most likes. Name the winner and tag them on your Instagram story.

Announce new special promotions or products in a visually stylish way to attract your customers’ eyes and hearts.

You’ll find that your customers are promoting your business for you with a minimum amount of spending on your part.

Build Anticipation

Keep the mystery alive and keep your customers guessing by posting teaser photos and videos for new products or services.

Whenever you launch a new product or have an event coming up, involve your followers beforehand and offer them exclusivity.

Make them feel special!

Influencer Marketing

Influencers are Instagram users who have a large number of followers.

Influencers hold a huge level of credibility since they’re seen as role-models in the eyes of their followers. They start a trend and people follow it.

People usually hate advertisements so marketing via an Influencer is the perfect way to reach the right audience in a natural way.

Search for the Influencers in your industry and use them to promote your brand for you in a way that appeals to your target audience.

Some Influencers accept free products as payment while others prefer getting paid.

Coordinate Your Social Media Campaign

Don’t send one message through your Facebook and send another message through your Twitter and then a completely different message on your Instagram!

Think of your social media platforms as pieces of one big puzzle. They all get together to form one big picture!

You can’t form one picture with pieces from different puzzles.

The image you put on your Instagram has to match your image on your other social media pages.

Think of the Perfect Caption

While a beautiful visual might hold your audience’s attention for a few seconds, a catchy caption makes them stay and look through your posts, maybe even follow you.

You can use up to 2,200 characters (that’s about 400 words) on each post so use that space wisely!

Instagram users spend a lot of time thinking of just the perfect caption to accompany their post. They certainly expect the same from you.

Remember that links don’t work in Instagram captions as you can only include links in your bio, therefore, make sure that your caption is interesting enough to get your audience to swipe through the rest of your content.

Understand Your Target Audience

This is a huge step towards gaining more followers.

Every audience is different. If you’re a fashion brand, your target audience is not the same as a traveling agency’s audience.

Determine your target audience’s demographics and psycho-graphics, as well as media habits and likes and dislikes.

Find out what kind of posts interest your audience and give it more attention on your Instagram page.

If you can understand your audience and give them what they want, your engagement rates will rise and your audience will connect with your content.

Lifestyle Photos

Lifestyle photos are life-inspired backgrounds, models, and scenes.

Build your brand by presenting content that is normal enough for your customers to relate to.

Let your customers imagine what they would look like sporting those sneakers out in the woods or drinking that hot chocolate in that warm cozy part of the library.

Lifestyle Photos

Comedy Sells

It is a well-known fact that comedy sells, especially in the age of memes and funny videos.

If humor has a place and relates to your brand and your target audience, don’t be afraid to use it.

Analyze and Measure Your Success

Always consistently measure your follower count.

Analyze what you did that worked and got your more followers and what you did that doesn’t and lost you some.

Find out what time of the day is better for posting and which days of the week will get your more engagement.

Analysis is a huge part of any marketing campaign. Find out what you did wrong, so you can improve it on your next try.

Instagram Statistics 2018

Still not sure if Instagram’s a favorite for young social media users and businesses alike? The numbers prove it too!

  • As of June 2018, there are now one billion active Instagram users.
  • 60% of Instagram users login on a daily basis.
  • 400 million users now use Instagram stories.
  • 90% of Instagram users are younger than 35 years old.
  • 80% of accounts follow a business on Instagram.
  • Thursdays have the highest engagement rate of the week while Sunday has the lowest.
  • 72% of Instagram users have purchased a product they saw on the app.
  • Including a face on your post will get you 38% more Likes.
  • The most popular active brands post 1.5 times per day.
  • 25% of Instagram ads are video ads.
  • Including a location on your post gets you 79% more engagement.
  • Video posts have a 38% higher engagement rate than image posts.
  • Instagram has 2 million advertisers.
  • Instagram has a 7 billion dollar mobile advertising revenue.
  • 98% of fashion brands use Instagram.

Higher Price Tags

Not only is Instagram’s high-quality visuals attracting engagement and likes, they’re also driving up sales.

This next tidbit might give you more incentive for using Instagram for business as opposed to other social media platforms.

E-commerce platform Shopify reported that Instagram’s strong visuals gives a strong boost to price tags. What sells for $65 on Instagram, would sell for $55 on Facebook and for $45 on Twitter. How’s that for a boost?

Hashtags

As with all other forms of social media, the hashtag sign “#” lets an Instagram user’s post be added to the category it belongs to.

The hashtag sign should come before a word or a series of words linked together. This system makes it easier for people to check out other similar posts by searching for that hashtag.

Using hashtags on Instagram for business can be a great way to gain more followers. According to an Instagram study, posts with hashtags have 12.6% more engagement than those without.

Hashtags are also absolutely free and easy to use. 

Purpose of Using Hashtags on Instagram

Here are a few reasons why you should always be using hashtags on Instagram for business if you want your business to get the attention it deserves:

More Likes

People will find you through the hashtags you use, so give them the chance to have access to your content. The better the hashtags you use, the easier people will find you.

Find out which hashtags get the most likes and use whichever is more relevant to your business.

More Followers

As social creatures by nature, people are always looking for others who are passionate about the same things.

If your Instagram account offers content that people are looking for and you’re tagging your posts with the relevant hashtags, you’ll be able to reach more people with exactly what they want and, therefore, they will more than likely end up following your account. 

More Sales

If the hashtags you use are specific enough for a niche audience, your sales will get a boost.

When you post pictures or videos of your product/services on your business account and use very specific, niche hashtags, users who are looking to purchase exactly what you’re selling will find you through the hashtags you used.

The better your hashtag and the more appealing your content is, the better your sales will be.

According to web.stagram, an Instagram analytical tool, here are the top 20 most popular hashtags right now:

  1. #girls
  2. #music
  3. #photooftheday
  4. #design
  5. #beauty
  6. #repost
  7. #likeforlike
  8. #vscocam
  9. #photography
  10. #style
  11. #christmas
  12. #blackandwhite
  13. #iphoneonly
  14. #instalove
  15. #blue
  16. #picoftheday
  17. #fit
  18. #work
  19. #summer
  20. #ootd

Keep in mind that while these hashtags may be popular, they still might not be relevant to your business. Only include hashtags that relate to what you’re offering.

Hashtags only work if they’re numerical characters, such as letters and numbers.

Also, hashtags are not permanent so the hashtags provided above might not always be as popular as they are now. Always keep yourself updated with the most popular hashtags. 

You also can’t use more than 30 hashtags so don’t go overboard. 11 hashtags are more than enough, so choose them wisely!

Instagram Tools

Using Instagram for business on your own with no extra help can be quite tricky, so why not make thing easier on yourself and start looking for the best tools to help you with your business venture?

Here are some tools to help you grow your business on Instagram:

Owlmetrics

Owlmetrics helps you collect, analyze, and react to data using an analytical platform. It can analyze follower growth and Instagram posts and stories’ engagement, while also determining exactly the best time of day to post your content.

HashtagsforLikes

HashtagsforLikes is a hashtag generator that is free and easy to use! It’ll help you find the perfect combination of hashtags with the highest engagement from different categories to use for any post you want. 

Look through popular hashtags or find the ones targeted towards your niche target audience.

Woobox

A tool used by the likes of Spotify, the American Airlines, the NFL, and more; it creates engaging marketing campaigns using contests, giveaways and other fun activities. 

Enlight

An app that lets you edit your pictures to aesthetically pleasing levels before posting them. It’s great for small businesses if they don’t want to spend too much money on photography.

Repost

Ever seen that little recycling symbol at the corner of some posts on Instagram? That means that image/video were originally posted by someone else and then it got reposted.

As a business owner, this app allows you to repost your customers’ pictures with your product. It’s a great way to bond with your customers!

Sprout Social

Sprout Social helps you manage multiple Instagram accounts at the same time, while monitoring your accounts to decide when the best posting times are.

It also has a scheduling feature which queues posts so you always have a new post ready for your followers without long gaps in between each post.

What to Do Now?

Using Instagram for business is a great way to get your brand started, especially if your brand is targeting a young demographic.

Remember that Instagram is a social platform. The more techniques you use to engage with your followers, the better your brand equity will be.

Your brand aesthetic is just as important as your captions. Keep your captions short and sweet and pick your hashtags wisely.

Using Instagram for business is not complicated. It does, however, need time, effort, and dedication.

Frequently asked questions business owners have about marketing on Instagram:

What types of content perform best on Instagram?

Visual-focused posts – photos, reels, stories rather than pure text status updates. Behind-the-scenes and user-generated content also very engaging.

Should I use Instagram advertising and if so, what types?

Yes, advertising extends reach and followers. Focus on traffic and conversion campaign objectives. Leverage video, carousel formats.

How much time per week should managing Instagram require?

4-5 hours weekly for content creation & community engagement for most small businesses. Outsource if more scale needed.

What competitive benchmarking should I do?

Research hashtags and influencers in your niche for content ideas. Analyze competitors’ follower count growth rates, engagement levels.

Instagram for Business Conclusion

Instagram offers immense opportunities for companies to drive brand awareness, website traffic, lead generation and sales. But organic unpaid reach is diminishing. Businesses must strategically craft consumable visual content and be willing to invest in advertising to realize Instagram’s full potential.

Maintaining brand consistency and engaging in two-way conversations rather than broadcasts separate good accounts from great ones. With regular metric assessments and refinements based on performance data, Instagram can deliver a powerful channel for customer acquisition and retention.

Want to learn more about Social Media?

Social Media Marketing Tips – Free Social Media Tools – Does Your Business Need a Social Media Policy – LinkedIn for Business

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