[vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_column_text]Despite its popularity as a digital marketing platform, it is often difficult to see exactly how Instagram helps your business grow.
Instagram helps your business in many ways. From improving brand awareness to acting as a direct sales tool, Instagram provides businesses with countless opportunities. Taking advantage of these opportunities will build your business and over time, help take it to the next level.
Understanding the impact that Instagram has on your business’ growth will help you make full use of the platform’s features. In this post, we’ll break down 4 ways Instagram promotes business growth and how you can track your progress.
How Instagram helps your business grow
Increases brand awareness
It is no secret that Instagram is a popular social media platform amongst millennials. Instagram users are also highly engaged and enjoy keeping up with the latest trends. Because of this, the platform is fantastic for improving brand awareness.
Here are some tips to that help make full use of Instagram for brand awareness:
- use relevant hashtags on your posts
- post regular content
- interact with your customers directly by liking and commenting on their posts
- encourage your followers to share your content/products/services on their own page
- tag your business’ location in your posts
Running advertising campaigns that target your audience can also increase your brand awareness and followers. Advertising on Instagram is very flexible and suits various business budgets. You can run short promotional campaigns for a special event or have an ongoing ad to target new potential customers and grow your follower base.
Establishes your brand
Instagram is the perfect space to build on your branding. Instagram’s focus on images and videos allows businesses to build a visual representation of your brand for their customers. The visual content used on Instagram by a business should work in conjunction with other branding assets like your website and print materials. Using the same style and colour palette as your other marketing communications is effective in helping your customers easily recognise your brand.
Enhances brand loyalty
Consumers are more loyal to brands they have formed a relationship with. Instagram provides businesses a great opportunity to build relationships with customers. The time you invest in cultivating relationships with your audience on Instagram will result in an online community of loyal customers.
To start building a community on Instagram, businesses need to post engaging content, i.e., images and captions that the target audience is interested in and finds reason to comment and share with their friends. The more engaging the posts are, the easier it will be for the brand to start conversations with customers. Additionally, being able to get customers tagging their friends will help grow your audience further.
You can also repost customer posts that have tagged your brand in your stories. Brands usually do this as a token of thanks to customers who have taken the time to post about their products or services. Since customers can see and relate to other customers with similar interests, it helps build a stronger community that goes beyond business transactions.
These activities help your brand to connect with customers on a personal level, positioning your business as being accessible and human-centred. With these more personal connections, customers are more likely to stay loyal to your brand, and hence, this is a great example of how Instagram helps your business grow.
Generates sales
Instagram is constantly improving its “shopability” to make it easier for businesses to sell and customers to purchase products.
One of Instagram’s most popular feature for generating sales is the “shop” tag. Tagging your posts with this tag allows you to link an image of a product to the exact product page on your website. This feature leads customers directly to the next stage of their purchasing journey without the distractions in other sales channels.
Tagging your posts also allows them to appear in the “Shop” tab of Instagram’s search page. This Shop tab contains a collection of product tagged Instagram posts. These posts are personalised for each user based on the content they already interact with. As users who visit the Shop tab are actively looking for products to purchase, tagging your post increases the likelihood that your Instagram posts convert to sales.
And finally, Instagram Shops was released this year. This feature allows shoppers to buy products on the Instagram app. This cuts out the need for the customer to try and find the product on your website, making the buying process more efficient.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”20655″ img_size=”full” qode_css_animation=”” css=”.vc_custom_1602546129135{padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;}”][vc_column_text]
How can I check Instagram is helping my business?
One of the best things about marketing on Instagram is the ability to track your progress. There is plenty of data available to monitor how Instagram helps your business grow over time. With a business Instagram account, you can see a range of analytics including:
- the number of people reached
- how many times your post was shared
- the number of times your profile was visited after users saw your post
- how many people saw your post because of hashtags you used
- the number of people viewed a product you tagged in your post
And so much more!
With these metrics, you can track how well your account and content is performing and ensure you are getting return on investment.
Want to learn more about Instagram? Follow us on Instagram! At Redsteps, we are social media experts with over 10 years’ experience in marketing businesses on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Contact us today to find out more about these services.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]