Instagram Marketing
Updated: Jan 15
Why should you market on Instagram?
Any product or application has 3 phases in its lifecycle Launch, Growth, and Monetization phase. In 2010 Instagram started its journey on July 16th with its founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger who launched a photo-sharing app that soon became a selfie ground for millions. After its launch for the following few years, Instagram was in its growth phase during which it was easy to gain followers super quickly unlike today, as there was a lot of engagement. Today, Instagram is in its third phase where they are working with advertisers to monetize its user attention. This is the time when Instagram users can also benefit from engagement and user attention. Let us see how this could be possible for someone who is new on Instagram.
Types of Content on IG
Reels
Stories
Carousel
Posts
IGTV
60-sec video
How should you post content for Growth?
Post content that is not seen before
Stay consistent while posting
Content must be interesting
Create content that is user-centric, not monetization centric.
Strategies for Growth
Optimize the bio - Mentions details about what you do, and who you do it for with effective CTA. It is worthy to provide a freebie for the desired CTA.
Have a brand plan - Your plan must follow consistency, clarity, and congruence meaning all that you post and talk about should follow the same theme and not confuse the audience.
Try using feeds and stories to convey your message.
Hashtag - Make thorough research on which hashtags other influencers in your niche are using and stick to a set.
Micro-Influencer strategy - using other influencers to promote your brand or product can prove advantageous.
Leverage user-generated content - reposting or giving shout-outs can get more eyeballs to view your content.
Timing matters - post outside regular business hours and the time your audience is active on Instagram matters to gain a wider reach.
Demographic details - It matters to which age, region, profession, and generation your audience belongs. Content posted to meet this audience's interest can gain you a wider reach.
Paid promotion - not just relying on organic reach but availing the benefits of paid promotion can also increase your reach.
How to use Instagram as a marketing tool?
Have a Plan - No matter what the goal of Instagram is, be it traffic to your website, increasing your email list, or generating sales setting out a plan is mandatory.
Identify your Target market - if choosing hashtags based on your industry and target market goes wrong, then the rest of the actions be it creating content, or getting likes, and comments will all be wasted. The right target audience can be identified by age, gender, marital status, annual income, education, hobbies, and personality traits.
Creating Strategic Content - Personalized content brings higher conversion.
Right people to our feed - locate and engage with your target market regularly, go to the accounts that your target market is following, like and engage there.
Encourage meaningful activity - post shares, DM's, click the link in the bio, like, know and increase your trust factor.
How important are hashtags?
Hashtags have been a major part of social media platforms since their origin. Though they are used across all platforms, their importance is significant on Instagram and Twitter. During its early days, Instagram relied mostly on hashtags to classify posts. People used multiple hashtags to widen their reach. It would not be wrong to say that hashtags were the only mode through which users could reach a larger audience. This did not deny the fact that irrelevant hashtags could also be used to increase the reach.
Lately, Instagram has improved its SEO mechanism and it does not only rely on hashtags for classifying the posts. In most places, Instagram asks users to use 3-5 relevant hashtags which does not mean you cannot use more. This only implies that the SEO algorithm is so robust that it can do with 3 hashtags. There are scenarios when the posts rank higher even without hashtags, depending on the keywords present in the caption, or with the relevancy of the content alone. Normally the 3 important hashtags could relate to industry-specific, niche specific, and post-specific. If required one could use more than 3 hashtags. In case the hashtags used are irrelevant then the chances of Instagram posing a penalty by weakening the reach is also possible.
How to monetize on Instagram?
Monetizing on IG is similar to that on other social platforms.
Promote a brand or a product
Do Sponsored Posts
Do Affiliate Marketing
Sell products of your own
Promotion and Sponsored posts may require you to collaborate with brands and engage in barter or paid promotions. You may reach out to brands by sending them direct emails or sharing your media kit for them to decide. "Media Kit" is similar to a resume for brands to know the details of your engagement across social media platforms. While sponsored posts may include a contract including details about content, exclusivity, wording, money, and other details of importance. If the posts are in video format, then you may perform a dedicated video or an integrated video as per your choice. While integrated videos are a better option to stay relevant to your brand over time. Integrated videos are videos that are not dedicated to the brand or product you are promoting, instead as a user you are making a mention for your audience to take note of.
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