Nowadays, due to the great possibility of lockdown and other threats in the offline presence of the companies, many businesses have come to the conclusion that investment in online tools is very profitable, and can take the company to a relatively comfortable safe side. Instagram is the leading social network for e-commerce, so companies are trying their best to get more and more active followers and make communication with the Instagram audience transactional. There are a lot of changes in the main rules on Instagram, and everyone planning to grow the business there should be aware of them. It’s obvious when the number of followers on the page is fake. That’s why those extremely “advantageous” offers to bring you 5000 followers in two clicks are not only unproductive but also will bring a lot of negative consequences for your blog. The other thing, which one of the recent positive changes in the Instagram algorithm is that if you plan a sponsored advertising campaign, now it’s easier to get close to your audience. The social network exactly knows whom to offer your product or services based on their likes, searches, and even direct messages. So, there is less risk in the marketing process on Instagram now. Let’s take a look at the strategies to grow business on Instagram that are proven to be effective:
1) Take it seriously
If before you were thinking about Instagram as more a messenger than a marketing tool, it’s time to change your mind. So, the first thing you need is to think about a productive strategy to grow your audience, engage them in your posts, and make their interest transactional. So, the first step to building up a good strategy is to define who you want to make the page for, who are your future clients and what are their habits on Instagram. By habits, we mostly mean the time they are usually active on Instagram, when they visit their page and how many hours they spend online during a day. If you focus on housewives with children, you should take into account that at some specific hours they might be busy cooking or doing the household activities, so this is a dead time for posting. Also, study the main trends in the industry and find out the frequency your competitors post new content with. Be active, but make sure you are not too annoying because too frequent posts can turn you into a spammer.
2) Work on your bio
Your bio is more than a short description of who you are and what you offer, there should be a story behind it. Instagram bio link is another point you should definitely concentrate on. The description should not be very long, use short direct information. You can also add a small searchable nickname to your Instagram name, as far as it will help you to get to the possible options when your audience search for what you offer. Though Instagram allows you to post only one link there, you can always choose services like www.linkpeak.io to organize the multiple access to all your URLs via the Instagram page. So, this is the starting point to boost reachability and the engagement of the audience.
3) Use correct hashtags
Except for branded hashtags that are vital to be applied to your posts, make a deep analysis of the most relevant ones in your industry. Hashtags help your posts become more visible and easily noticed by potential clients. Though there is a possibility to use 30 hashtags under every post, that doesn’t mean you must use that many. But think about the relevant and direct ones, and don’t forget to apply them.
4) Permanently check the analytics
Among great Instagram tools, you should always use is “view insights” for your posts. It gives a piece of priceless information on how effective and engaging the post is, and also about the people who have viewed it. It’s very useful marketing information, as you can easily check your general reach, and get the information about the number of non-followers who get interested in the content you post based on hashtags you have added. And of course, analytics shows who’s clicked on the link in bio.
5) Cooperate with other users
Here, it’s good to mention two effective strategies, such as cooperating with influencers and guest posting. Nowadays, influencers’ collaboration is not something unaffordable anymore. There are a lot of active and relevant pages with good audience involvement that are potentially interested in your products or services. Some of the nano influencers can provide advertising posts mentioning you in live stories or their feed even for free or in exchange for the products you give them for free. Others that are interested in pre-paid cooperation might offer very good prices you can be surprised with. Guest posting is good for your business as it can easily turn you into an expert in your industry if you prepare a highly engaging informative content for the popular blogger or Instagram magazine. A single mention of you and a link to your page can make a wonder.
6) Don’t forget about Live stories
Thought stories disappear after 24 hours, there is great news for all the Instagram users. Now you can integrate the live stories to your bio part, which is highly effective. Besides, stories are short, people often prefer them to long informational posts in the feed. You can post short videos about the production line, corporate culture, and the working routine of your employers. It’s really effective for boosting brand awareness. On the other hand, streaming lives you can easily test the effectiveness of some new topics before you post the content to the feed. There are a lot of widgets you can add to the stories you post to provoke interest and stimulate audience feedback, such as polls, ask-me ideas, and other interesting tools. And of course, they will make your page less static and unemotional.