How to Utilize Instagram for Your Business

  • Date: 27 Nov 2019
  • reading time: 5 Minutes
  • Blogger: Karina Mojica


Social media platforms have opened multiple lines of communication to your current and potential customers like no other. Especially for businesses, having an online presence can determine whether your business succeeds or not.

Social media can help spread the word about any promotions or new products, allow your customers to interact with you and to spread the news about your products on their platforms.
 

Here are five ways you can use Instagram to benefit your business:

social media

1 - Make Use of Your Business Profile

Do not create a regular profile rather make sure your profile is a business profile and that it is public.

Include a link in your bio that directs users to your site or any other part of your site that you would like them to visit (ex. blog page if you have one).

Business profiles give you insights that are not part of a regular profile.

Insights such as – geographic content, what content has a better reach and success, what times work better for you to post to reach a much broader audience, and more.
 

2 – Create a Strategy

Know what you would like to post for your business. What is your business? You don’t need to just post pictures of your products. Developing a social media strategy will help guide your creativity and keep a balance of things.

Whether it is special events, promotions, fun activities, or even informative content. You can also post memes or inspirational messages that relate to your product and services, post informational graphics on your Instagram account, anything that can best be communicated visually or that will spice up a short block of text.

If you plan what you want to say and what images you want to use it will save you so much time and effort. Companies often have style guides that lay out guidelines for the language that they use in marketing or support documents, including what technical or marketing terms to use.

It helps to have guidelines for what kinds of images you use. What colors or types of images do you want to use in your Instagram content?

Posting on social media can not only attract new consumers but can also help with recruiting as well. Instagram is an online bulletin board that allows millions of people to see your posts. Take the time to create attractive, exciting posts that people will want to see!

social media

3 – Post Constantly

The more content you post online for your business, the better outcome you will receive and the more likely your business page will get attention. People like a regular schedule, so post regularly, even if it is just once a week, try to post at least something once a week. But keep in mind, the more you post, the more views you will get and the higher up you will appear on searches.

Use your insights to determine the time you should post to get a better reach. People don’t all view Instagram all the time every day: test metrics to see when people are looking at your post and upload new posts just before the time when people are most likely to be looking at Instagram.

Use templates and software to schedule your content ahead of time (Hootsuite and other software that allow you to schedule posts). This makes it so that you don’t have to do everything yourself. Your time can be more productively spent writing and designing posts.
 

4 – Use Instagram Stories and Features

Stories have become a great form to create content since they automatically play, and they allow to show a longer story than a single image can. Stories can be used to show off more features of a new product, or to show all the services that your company can offer or all the different ways that you have helped a client. Any time that you need more space or images to tell as story. Story mode can be a great place to tell that story.

Story posts also only last a certain amount of time, so people must look at them within that set time frame, which will make them more eager to see it before it is too late.

When you reach a large number of followers you can add a link for your audience to swipe up and directly go to that page, be that to your Instagram page, or link to your company or personal website form your Instagram account. You can also link to any product pages you want to promote.

By posting both on your profile and posting Instagram stories, you are providing more content for your audience to see.

Use hashtags and geotags to help increase your chances of others finding your page. Regardless of your industry, the more relevant you make these to be, the easier it will be for your audience to run into your page.

A perfect example is shown below from an online kitchen and bath renovator, Hausera.

hausera

Image Source
 

Using the appropriate hashtags for your business will help increase its exposure.
 

5 – Create/Post Quality Content

When posting, make sure your photos are of good quality. A low-quality photo sets the image that you don’t care about your content. With HD as the norm, people are less patient with low-quality images and will associate your business with low quality.

Avoid posting blurry photos and over-edited photos. Photos that are blurry or otherwise not clear are not attractive and don’t highlight your products and services. Overly edited photos also do not look good. They look edited and not natural, while most marketing material is, and should be edited, the best editing doesn’t call attention to itself.
 

Learn how to use Instagram to benefit your business.

Instagram can be a great tool to attract new customers and keep current ones informed of new products and promotions that you are offering, as well as build an online community around your business.

Take the time to learn when your customers check Instagram the most, what kind of content attracts the most attention and what drives visits to your site.

After a while, Instagram will become a great marketing tool for your company!

  • Blogger: Karina Mojica
  • Contributor editor at Arnett Credentials
  • Karina Mojica is a contributor editor for 365 Business Tips and a marketing expert for Arnett Credentials. From sunny Los Angeles; California State University Dominguez Hills she made her way back home to beautiful San Diego. She has a degree in Marketing, with experience in PR, and social media marketing.
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