5 Ways to Make the Most of Instagram for Your Business

With so many social media platforms available for your brand to advertise on, it can be hard to know what works best on each channel and how you should be interacting with your audiences. Here are five quick tips on how to make the most of Instagram for your business.

Integrate the Product into their Daily Lives

Instagram is a platform built to capture elements of our lives in a visually captivating way. It gives both consumers and brands a way to share a story without any words and leaves much up to the imagination. One way to play to your consumers’ imaginations is to photograph your product in such a way that a user can visualize how it would integrate into their daily lives. While a simple stylized product shot may fit into the flow of Instagram’s feed, a lifestyle shot featuring one or more products in action is more likely to stop a user in their scrolling tracks and get them to engage. We’ve experienced this at Ignite while working with high-end furniture brand, Erdos at Home. By changing the content we were sharing on their Instagram page from product focused to lifestyle focused, we were able to lower both cost-per-click and cost-per-engagement.

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Capitalize on ‘Buy Now’ and ‘Learn More’ Buttons

Similar to both Facebook and Pinterest, Instagram now has the capability to add ‘Buy Now,’ ‘Shop Now,’ and ‘Learn More’ buttons onto their ad units. These buttons allow your audience to take their engagement with your brand one step further by clicking off-site to your website or app. This in turn means they are spending more time interacting with your brand and increases the likelihood of conversions.

Hashtags, Hashtags, Hashtags

While using product or brand specific hashtags on your Instagram posts may seem like a great way to get your name and message out into the world, it is important to also include hashtags that your audience is already using. By implementing highly searched and used hashtags that relate back to your post, your content becomes easier to find which, in turn, increases the likelihood of more eyes and therefore more engagement. Another good rule of thumb when using hashtags is to post them all in the first comment of your post. This ensures that the messaging in your post copy does not get lost while still increasing the visibility of your content. A great example of this can be seen in how we post content to our client, ConAgra Foods’, Instagram page. Using a combination of branded and searchable hashtags as well as employing the best practice of putting them in the comments section of the post allows our content to perform well and reach beyond our audience.

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Create Easily Identifiable Visual Cues

Due to Instagram’s visual nature as a channel it is important to create a consistent brand identity across the channel. There are a number of ways to achieve this. One of the easiest is to incorporate your brands color palette into every image in order to ensure that your brand content is not only easily recognizable but also that it stands out in the feed. Another way to accomplish a consistent brand identity is to capitalize on the use of white space in a positive way. An additional visual cue to employ is the use of thoughtfully placed text. While it is not suggested that text be used on all Instagram images, carefully placed text with a succinct, informative and empowering message can cause positive reactions in your audience. One brand we work with who does this well is Samsung Home Appliances. Working with both a consistent color palette and thoughtfully placed text during various campaigns has allowed their Instagram channel to perform well and to grow.

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Experiment with Various Ad Units

Finally, don’t be afraid to experiment with various ad units. Currently Instagram allows photo, video and carousel ads to run on their channel. These ads can be used to achieve a variety of objectives including, but not limited to, clicks to website, video views, reach and frequency, and mass awareness. It is important in this case to test and learn in order to discover what your audience responds to best. One brand may have an audience that loves video content while another brand may have an audience that prefers carousel ads so that they can see a full range of available product. In either case, researching what performs best and then tactically employing that on your channel is sure to garner higher awareness, engagement and conversions.

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The most important takeaway here is to have fun and to be creative. The more fun you have expressing your brand’s personality on Instagram, the more your audience will have fun engaging and getting to know you.

To learn even more, feel free to contact us, we would love to hear from you!



Ignite Social Media