Using Instagram To Grow Your Business

There are many reasons why you should be using Instagram to grow your business. Instagram was created back in 2010 and over the years has grown to become one of many popular social media uses for many people all over the world. It is believed to have over 800 million users each month and over 500 million users on a daily basis. When it first started many people used Instagram to share photos within their everyday life but over time businesses caught the Instagram bug and now use it to promote their businesses.

The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg began to notice the potential the platform had in terms of growth. Mark Zuckerberg purchased the company within the first two years of its inception and the social media site has continued to grow over the years.

Over the years Businesses started to join Instagram and it has become the social media platform of choice by many users online. By sharing photos of their business or running competitions via their Instagram page promotes their company and reinforces their brand in the public eye.  

Instagram is still growing each day. With new app updates being created and rolled out to the millions of users. How do you promote your business on Instagram?

Here at The Business Fairy we have put together our top ten tips to help you to promote your business on Instagram:

Purchasing Products on Instagram

The top word in businesses is: Sales. All businesses are on the platform to receive sales. The more sales the better the company does allowing for better profits and continuous business expansion. For your business to work you need to know that the time that you invest in Instagram will help make you a profit.

Research shows that more than one-third of Instagram users have purchased from a company after viewing the company’s Instagram page. Instagram allows you to advertise your posts, and with 75% of users viewing a website after they see a sponsored post, you can see why it’s a popular option for businesses. Whether or not a user purchases anything on their first click, that first click still counts to the business as it allows the business to resend new instagram adverts for the users to view.

Instagram Advertising

As it is owned by Facebook, Instagram has become similar to some of the features of Facebook. Facebook is a well advanced social media platform. There is many ways to advertise to the audience you wish to attract. Keep these key factors is mind while advertising on Instagram:

• The age group of your Instagram followers.
• Location of your Instagram followers.

Using this information to target your audience gives an likely increase to promote sales to the right people.

Facebook and Instagram use the same methods to target customers, by resharing posts from businesses to people based on location, age or interests that users have shared or have liked similar pages help to promote sales on different business pages. Even though Instagram is still a relatively new platform of social media it has a lot more ways to target customers compared to older social media sites, making it an ideal place to advertise your brand.  

Track your sales via instagram Adverts

The ads Manager platform that Instagram uses has the same ability to track as Facebook does. These Adverts allow you to view a range of items from conversions to clicked links. It also allows you to view any cost and results regarding to the campaign.  From these results the business is able to figure out who their target audience is from age, gender, location etc. From results like this it allows the company to work out where they can promote more sales and profits for the company. Using tracking metrics is an very important tool of Instagram as from its results we are able to see what adverts attract users more on the site.

Know the Differences between Personal and Business Profiles on Instagram

A personal account and a business account have different uses. A business account has a lot of hidden extras in a different zone of the site to help promote your business that a personal page simply doesn’t have. Some of these extras includes such as having a review on the account regarding visitors and views to your page, and an ability to pay money to boost your posts on the main Instagram site. By paying to promote your business, you are giving your page an extra opportunity to be seen and shared between users.

The layout of a business page is also different to a personal one. It shows users a clear view of the page they are viewing belongs to a company. By changing your instagram personal page to a business page you open up a whole new world of benefits to help you succeed in Business.

Reaching your customer base.

As a business you need to be sure you are reaching your full customer base. With so many users on Instagram, businesses that sign up to Instagram accounts will majorly boost their chance of sales and profits.

Build the correct audience for your business

Even though Instagram and Facebook are similar, Instagram has the added benefit that Facebook doesn’t have – Organic functionality.  What this means is that if you want to grow your business’s audience instead of paying for followers like you would with Facebook adverts, Instagram allows people to view and like your page without using paid adverts. Getting followers allows your page to grow. If your page is interesting, then followers will share and tell others about your business therefore resulting in growing followers on your business page and potential sales.

Build a strong relationship with your followers and Customers

When you post a post on Instagram you are allowing followers to comment on the post and share thoughts regarding to item.  It allows for the followers to tag friends in posts that therefore may bring someone to your page and a new follower. Followers are believed to be more likely to interact via Instagram than other social media sites such as Pinterest, Twitter or Facebook. Just over four billion posts have been recorded to be liked on Instagram daily. These numbers of active users on Instagram means your business has a stronger chance of developing for free. Followers liking or even commenting on your posts shows that your followers are interested in your product. Interact with potential clients when they comment on your post is essential.

Companies who are active on Instagram build a stronger rapport with its customers than those who don’t. Having a good relationship with your customers makes it more likely that they will come to you for their needs instead of going elsewhere. Responding quickly and efficiently to customers will also benefit your business as people will get answers to queries quickly and is less likely to look elsewhere.

Find Your Customers Likes And Dislikes

What do you know about your client base? Do you know what they like and dislike? No matter how long you been advertising your business on Social Media sites, you can always find there is something new to learn about your customers. Your customers are real everyday people, they aren’t just figures on a graph. As a business you need to keep your ideas fresh to keep your customers interested. Use Instagram to find out what your followers like and dislike therefore allowing you develop your business to current trends.

Realise Instagram is an Image Based Platform

Unlike other social media platforms Instagram allows the pictures to do the talking. Compared to other platforms where there may be a big written description of the product, Instagram allows you to share pictures and videos with or without text.  This can be very beneficial as many people remember items they have seen rather than what they have read.

Having a photo and video platform makes your business and brand more memorable to followers. By seeing an image or video followers are more inclined to interact whether by liking or commenting compared to just reading a full post.

Use Instagram To Share To Other Platforms.

Not only will the information you put on your Instagram account be used for your Instagram page. It will also allow you to use same information on other social media sites that you may use for your business such as Facebook, Google and so many more. By having the share button to other sites linked to your business helps to promote more business and followers.

Using more than one platform allows you to find new followers who may be on Facebook but not Instagram. The more ways your followers have to connect with your company the more chance of sales for your company.

So there you have it, The Business Fairies top ten tips for using Instagram to grow your business. Even though starting out and creating a new platform may consist of a lot of work and time, in the long run the benefits to the company with sales and profits will make it worth the while. Follow these tips closely and soon enough you’ll see your business grow. For more ideas as to what your Instagram page looks like, you can find us here, or if you have any queries regarding training your business to use Instagram email us at info@thebusinessfairy.ie.