As a small business owner, your focus is generally directed at optimizing every available resource to expand your market reach. Social media marketing can prove to be a powerful tool, that allows you to engage with your target audience on a one-to-one level. Using social media platforms, you can build greater brand awareness, connect to more potential customers and promote brand loyalty among your existing client base.
Instagram is a social media application that lets you take and share pictures and videos using your mobile device. It is one of the most popular social media platforms today, and it is the sixth most visited online site. According to Hootsuite, 81% of Instagram users go there to research products and services. These figures represent the exponential growth opportunities offered by this platform to any business owner interested in creating and operating their business profile on Instagram.
Instagram Marketing for Small Businesses: Where to Begin?
Instagram has an advertising audience of more than 1 billion people, so it’s an excellent platform for expanding your reach. According to Hootsuite, about 90% of the site’s audience follows at least one business. It’s also a practical option for marketers targeting B2B buyers.
You can begin by creating an Instagram business account that tells your company’s story and allows you to connect with your followers. This way, you can create an ideal environment that promotes trust and lasting relationships between you and your customers.
Choose What You Share on Instagram
Many small businesses find Instagram perfect for visual storytelling through the use of photos and videos. As a business owner, you understand every big and small detail of your company. Instagram is the perfect tool to visually develop your brand. It makes it easy to capture and convey some inspiring, authentic content that can be shared on your Instagram feed every day. Remember to add a personal touch to make your business story more relatable. You can also use photos to showcase your core values and personality, nurturing customer loyalty.
Grow Your Instagram Following
As with all social media platforms, you need to be active on Instagram and publish compelling stories that your followers will want to share with their friends. You can grow your Instagram following in ways such as:
- Promoting your Instagram account on other social media channels, including Facebook and Twitter
- Including your Instagram username in your email newsletters
- Displaying an Instagram badge on your business website
Link Your Instagram Profile to Your Facebook Business Page
Your social media following can grow much faster with your Instagram profile and Facebook page connected. Integration also boosts engagement for the content shared on either platform. To integrate these two, sign in to your Instagram business profile, go to the Account Setting, and choose the Share Setting to connect your accounts.
With the accounts connected, you can easily share your Instagram visual stories on Facebook. Similarly, users following you on Facebook can conveniently connect with you on Instagram.
Track Engagement to Create Compelling Content
You can run multiple campaigns with different objectives on Instagram, such as to grow your following, increase brand awareness, generate leads or even boost sales via the mobile app. Having a business profile on Instagram allows you to access the analytics data such as the demographics of your followers and other important stats. For example, Iconosquare is an analytics app that lets you extract Instagram insights. You can use it to track photos with the most engagements and analyze comments, likes, and much more. This way, you can better understand your target audience and create more engaging content for them.
Keep in mind that the effectiveness of any social media marketing strategy ultimately depends on the level of engagement achieved.
Are you looking for guidance to grow your business using social media and other cost-effective strategies? Contact us at the Economic Development Collaborative. Conveniently located in Camarillo, California, we’re here to assist you and have a webpage devoted to resources and information to help propel your enterprise to greater success even during the pandemic.
