Instagram has quickly grown into a massive social network with both a mobile and web presence. It shows no signs of slowing down, yet only 28% of Instagram marketers are using it for business.
- 60 millions photos are uploaded to Instagram every day.
- 1,6 billion likes happen per day on Instagram.
- 50 million users have signed up to Instagram in the last 6 months.
- 57% of users access the site every day.
- Engagement rates on Instagram are 15 times higher than Facebook and 20 higher than Twitter.
- The most popular hashtag on Instagram is #love.
- Today, 86% of top brands have an Instagram account that’s up from 71% from last year.
- 73% of brands post at least one photo or video per week on Instagram.
- Brands on Instagram with over 100K followers have grow by 163% in 3 years
- Engagement with brand post on Instagram are growing at a greater rate than brands are adopting the network.
The power of visual content is becoming increasingly important for marketers. Studies show that the visual appeal matters in 93% of cases when people go to make a purchase. Visual content is not only easier and faster for the human brain to process, it is a great way to generate more attention and leads. Photos can make or break your marketing strategy and should be considered highly important.
- Visual data is processed 60 000 times faster by the brain than text.
- 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text.
- 65% of your audience are visual learners.
- On Facebook, photos perform best for likes, comments and shares as compared to text, video, and links.
Part four – How Brands Should Use Instagram
If a brand is searching for ambassadors, or to a collaborattion with influencers, they must know the techniques in my previous post on how to spot a fake Instagram influencer
After verifying on HypeAuditor if the influencers are real, they can choose with confidence, which influencers they should work with.
But is it really worth the extra hassle? In our opinion, yes, yes and YES! An active Instagram presence can help your brand increase exposure, generate new leads and drive sales growth, making it an important part of your social media marketing and sales funnel. While the current Facebook algorithm sees many limitations for brands when it comes to reaching their followers, Instagram (at the moment anyway) is great for organic reach and impressions if you use the platform strategically, following our guide.
Tell your story:
What is your brand all about, how was it founded, what are your morals and values and who are the people behind the brand – these are the things that encourage consumers to build a personal relationship with your brand and ultimately become lifetime customers. Instagram is all about sharing visual stories, so jump on board and let your new and potential future customers get to know you better.
Build a community:
While Instagram is a marketing channel and it’s also part of your sales funnel, it’s not all about hard selling. Create a community around your product and niche, whether that’s living a healthy lifestyle or following the latest trends, build a community and share information on the topic you all have in common.
Think like a (real) influencer:
Follow the lead of influencers in your industry and run your account by following in their footsteps. Get ideas from influencers about content, captions and engagement, and then go out and do it on your brands account. Be inspired by influencers and how they work and grow their profile, but never copy.
Collaborate:
Collaboration is the key to growth on Instagram because it is a great way for new followers to discover and start following your account. Collaborate with local businesses in your area to promote each other, host a joined giveaway or leverage influencer marketing to reach more of your followers. Collaborating with other Instagram users will help more visitors land on your page, join your community and eventually, they’ll become a customer.
Engage, engage and engage!
You’ll only see success on Instagram if you spend time and resources engaging with the community you’ve built, and the one you are building too. Always double tap if you generally like something, and don’t be afraid to leave a comment if you have something nice or valuable to say. When you put good things out into the Insta-world, good things will come back to you.
You can also invest in Instagram advertising:
Instagram offers five ad formats: photos, videos, carousels, canvas Story ads, and Story ads. All are seamlessly incorporated into Feeds and Stories for a smooth user experience. You can create simple promotions within Instagram. If you have a post that’s performing well and getting lots of engagement, promoting it within the app is a quick, easy method to reach even more users. To run an Instagram ad within the app, click the Promote button beneath the post you’d like to boost. You may be prompted to log in to your Facebook account for authentication.
From there, select your goal: do you want to drive more users to your website, or maximize the number of users who see your post?
You can also choose to add a call-to-action button, like Shop Now or Sign Up. If selected, this will appear below the image or video in your post.
Instagram can choose a default audience for your ad, or you can create a special audience for the post by selecting targeted interests, location, and demographics.
Finally, choose your budget and ad duration and hit Create Promotion.
That’s it! You can monitor the results of these in-app promotions in your Facebook Ads Manager, along with all your other Instagram advertising.
Also, Targeting is an important step for working with the right influencers, if the brand niche is food then they should choose influencers who post food pictures… everything depends of the targeting market but also don’t forget that it is still considered as an advertising, so brands must pay or send free products to the influencers they want to work with.
There are some strange local collaborations where an influencers target audience is unlikey to purchase the product they are promoting, or in other cases, the influencer is not suited to the product they have to push. These errors from the brand are not a great reflection and don’t help the influencer maintain credibility either.
Also, when you are asking an influencer to promote your brand or products, it’s better to use the shared revenue model, ie, give a promotional code (-20% on all products with a personalized promo code) so then you can see if followers buy products with the code.
