Instagram Marketing: 10 Reasons to Have Your Business on Instagram

If you have your own business in this day and age, you really should be thinking about its online presence. 

Brick-and-mortar companies can only expand so far. Plus, customers generally want the convenience of checking out an organization before they approach it. If you have the right amount of engagement and presence online, you are more likely to increase your sales volume, enhance your brand identity, and capture a higher market share.

When we speak of online presence, no discussion can be complete without delving into Instagram’s platform. There are more 1 billion people on Instagram right now, with about 70 million images being shared every single day. These numbers peak every season, meaning that every niche has an audience on it. It’s, hence, no surprise that Instagram is the must-have platform for every company that wants to grow and stay relevant.

In fact, Instagram Marketing is giving opportunities to businesses everywhere. If you are still not convinced, here are a few more reasons why your business should be up and active on Instagram right away:

1. Gain Attention

Everyone in the world now spends an insane amount of time online. However, there are still only a limited number of waking hours that any individual has at their disposal. At the same time, there are several ways for people to focus their attention on. With the limited attention span of the average internet user, just having a company blog and website is not enough anymore. You need an Instagram profile to snap up the attention and get people to your landing pages.

Instagram is easily one of the most popular social media platforms right now. What’s more, this is the platform that caters more toward the younger generation. It’s more popular with millennials than a platform like Facebook, for instance. Since millennials are the generation that stands to hold the majority of disposable income in the near future, you would better start grabbing their attention right now!

2. Drive Up Sales

Whether you are providing a product or a service, the main goal of any for-profit company is to make as many sales as possible while turning a decent profit. The more sales, the more revenue and the more profit there would be. Instagram is among the best platforms for this since it brings the customer directly to the vendor.

The rate of conversions for Instagram is higher than other potential selling platform such as Polyvore or even Pinterest. This is no mean statistic since it is backed by the fact that the average visitor to a company account would spend $65 every time!

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The sales conversion rates on Instagram are mostly due to the decluttered, no-nonsense interface that Instagram presents. It consists mostly of images, hashtags, and perhaps a few captions mixed in between. Basically, your product or service would speak for itself. In addition to this, your satisfied customers could upload images of themselves enjoying your wares and give you free advertising!

3. Visuals Speak

A well-made video or gorgeous picture says a lot more in a fraction of a second than a written text that would take several seconds to read. Even an avid reader of books would find themselves gripped by a stunning video or image and only skim through written posts.

As we mentioned above, you need to grab the very limited attention span of the average Instagram user. It is much easier to do this with visual content, and Instagram provides several opportunities for doing just that. It is, hence, among the best tools a modern company could have for marketing their business and optimizing their presence on social media.

4. A Pre-Engaged Audience

Audience engagement means the interaction you have with your target audience. For instance, you might be posting every single day but not get any likes, comments, shares, reposts, or whatever kind of attention you are craving for. It is this engagement that ultimately leads to sales. Even complaints are welcome since they give you an idea of where improvement and effort are needed.

On Instagram, though, users are much more prepared to share and engage on posts than Facebook. The latter may still be the highest in popularity when it comes to social media platforms, but Instagram’s audience is much more receptive to marketing tactics. Hence, you can expect any one of your posts to be easily liked, shared, or otherwise engaged with on Instagram than anywhere else.

5. Allows for Creativity

The platform of Instagram gives businesses an opportunity to do much more than just post and wait for engagement. It gives the option of telling stories about your brand, holding competitions, getting in on trends, and generally creating a whole identity for your brand. You can really unleash your creative potential while marketing your business at the same time!

One point to keep in mind here is that the creativity must be consistent. You shouldn’t hesitate to experiment, but let the experimentation be aware of the current trends and political correctness as well. Don’t forget the backlash that many companies have had with insensitive advertising. One example that comes to mind is the Dove ad that showed a brown woman changing her soap and becoming white.

6. Utilizing User-Generated Content

If you are selling some tangible items, utilizing what your customers post is an excellent marketing strategy. Instagram users are always looking for products with actual experiences, not just the items themselves.

When selling jewelry, for instance, you should focus on packing it in an interesting, beautiful, or quirky manner. This way, your product could become part of an unboxing video. Such videos are quite popular on social media these days. If you encourage your customers to share such videos and pictures of themselves enjoying your product, you can get a lot of content completely free of charge!

You can also try to generate user content for yourself by holding certain promotions or competitions. For example, you can contact a social media influencer and give them free samples of your product. You can then ask them to post about their experience and use your hashtag to promote your business. For the masses, you may want to hold a competition so that several people would be positing about your brand every single day.

7. Interact Casually

Gone are the days when businesses were huge, inapproachable corporations. Many customers now prefer to buy from local businesses that would actually humanize themselves for their audience. To this end, you may find a lot of benefit in showing your customers some backstage scenes where the magic happens.

For instance, if you make cakes, you can give them a video of how you manage to make one of your creations from scratch. This doesn’t mean giving away any of your secrets, but it could get customers to place more trust in you and feel a personal connection with your offerings.

Even if your work is a little less colorful and creative, you can give a tour of your office, get interviews from employees, and generally do what it takes to connect with your customers. This would make them more likely to choose you for their products and services the next time.

The casual interaction could also be something as simple as replying to comments, sharing user content, or having a platform for customers to speak freely. Even a little personal engagement, especially when it is a follow-up on a complaint, could raise you in the eyes of many influential customers.

8. For All Kinds of Vendors

It’s true that Instagram is a very visual-rich platform. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t market your service there. There’s always plenty of opportunity to take a picture since millennials are on the lookout for documenting experience rather than material stuff.

You may be providing a writing service, for example. Taking a picture of your laptop with your snacks, a mug of tea, and some other strategic accessories could help remind people of that every day. You may also include some screenshots of positive feedback from your clients, an event or workshop you attended with fellow writers, or just post some quotes that inspire you. In this manner, you could have quite a huge online presence without showcasing any tangible products.

In short, Instagram provides a way for any business to showcase its wares no matter what they might be. You may collect for a charity, provide a specialized home service, or just have some nice crafts to sell. There are several other platforms where you may conduct such business, but nothing would give you the level of engagement that Instagram does.

9. Networking

Building the right connections is just as important in business as increasing the volume of sales. Instagram can again come to the rescue here since even a novice at business would be able to see who the main competitors are.

Competitors don’t necessarily have to be enemies, though. You may be providing customized bedsheets, while someone else is providing generic ones in bulk. While your product may technically be the same, the experiences they provide are poles apart.

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Hence, you can easily use Instagram to meet all sorts of people who are in the same boat as you. If you develop positive connections with them, they can lead you to new audiences and social media influencers and give you some valuable tips on your current market.

Needless to say, connections in any kind of business are immensely valuable. The more you collaborate with those in your field, the more you stand to learn and grow as a result. You would get invited to all the latest events and even get to know a few new marketing tactics or trends that would have remain unknown to you had you remained isolated. While physical stores may have their advantages, they do tend to reduce the level of connection between vendors.

10. Get with the Trends

Speaking of trends, it’s also much easier to stay updated when you are on Instagram. You would have to keep an eye on the hashtags and see which ones are most in use. This would help you figure out which tags to use when posting new content in order to get the most relevant audience noticing your brand. The trendier your posts are, the more attention you are likely to get.

The most common trends are, of course, the holiday season or certain sports seasons. When the Super Bowl is just around the corner, you simply don’t want to pass up the chance to tote your product or service as a must-have for enjoying the games to the utmost. This would also be your chance to throw in relevant promotions so that you stay visible and noticed, even if your business has nothing to do with sports at all.

You may also use Instagram to raise support or interest in certain causes that your company’s affiliated with. A few well-time, well-chosen images or videos could do wonders in whipping up a crowd for things like this. You would again have to know about the current trends in order to pull this off properly.

Conclusion

Over a third of all internet users are now on Instagram, so any business that is not using this platform is harming itself. Many established companies may not think of it as a serious buying and selling place, but it has certainly morphed into something that marketers take seriously. If you are a startup, your Instagram presence is even more necessary in order to start building a base and get yourself off the ground. You can use Instagram tools to grow your following.

You now have a wonderful opportunity to reach your audiences through a fun and creative medium. Don’t waste it; start building up your Instagram strategy today!

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