Today, Instagram boasts a community of over two billion monthly active users, and presents enormous potential for marketing. This social network is also the most downloaded application in the world! Simply put, Instagram can bring more visibility and conversions for your brand.
However, you’re probably wondering how to make the most of it. Here are a few tips on how to optimize your Instagram account.
But first, a few figures on Instagram’s performance
- The social platform is the fourth most widely used in the world.
- 90% of all Instagram users follow a brand. It’s the first platform where consumers connect with businesses.
- By 2023, 35% of users will make a purchase on the platform.
7 tips from Click & Mortar to boost your Instagram marketing
1 – The story, a tool not to be underestimated
Stories are a very powerful tool for reaching your audience and getting organic traffic. Even though trends on social networks change at a dizzying pace, one thing remains constant: people want to interact with your brand in a personal way. Instagram stories are among the best tools for this kind of interaction, as they allow you to show what makes your brand authentic and accessible.
These represent an opportunity to engage your audience with your content, tell a story and capture your customer base, multiply interactions using swipe up links and calls to action without forgetting to be consistent in your messages.
2 – The Instagram feed: which strategy to prioritize?
The feed for your Instagram account represents your brand image and must be consistent with the image conveyed through your website and various social media channels. The content must be unique and of good quality to ensure your credibility with your consumers.
Your brand’s style must be reflected both visually and editorially. Often overlooked, the first two lines of the description of your publications are the most important and should contain the essential information. In addition to being visually appealing, your publications need to tell a story and share a message with your audience. For example, you can publish internal company news to create a more intimate bond with your consumers, or external news for knowledge-sharing purposes. You can also share content created by your users, as this is always authentic and well-received.
Bixi is a good example :
3– What day and time to publish? An audience has its habits!
There are better times than others to maximize engagement with your publications. One study has shown that the most effective days to post are Friday, Saturday and Sunday, yet this can easily vary from industry to industry.
So it’s hard to know where to start, and you need to test your audience by posting on different days. Once you have a sufficiently large sample of publications, you’ll be able to determine which days are most relevant to your audience. When it comes to publication times, the same principle applies. However, it’s still more effective to post around 5 p.m., or as a general rule around 9 a.m. or 6 p.m.
4– How can I tap into an influencer’s audience ?
There’s another opportunity when you’re a brand on Instagram: you can collaborate with influencers to increase your reach and expose your brand to a new audience to swell up your following. Influencers also play an important role in your brand’s reputation and shouldn’t be chosen lightly! It’s important that their audience is close enough to your target customers and that they share your values. Also, more and more consumers are persuaded by influencers to make a purchase. Influencers therefore play a strategic role in customer acquisition.
Then, you can use different strategies like giving them access to your Instagram account for a certain period of time like a weekend or simply sharing their posts and stories that mention your brand. Depending on the agreement you’ve reached with the influencer, through a product exchange or monetary exchange, you can offer the influencers who resonate most with you to become ambassadors for your brand.
5- Ads on Instagram
Another way to increase your audience and sales on Instagram involves advertising on Instagram. The Meta platform now offers the option of linking your Facebook and Instagram accounts to make it easier to manage advertising on both platforms and optimize their reach. For both stories and regular posts, advertising across multiple social networks is a great way to go.
The essential parameters to configure for your ads are: the location of your ads, your target’s centers of interest and demographics. Analysis of your advertising efforts will enable you to refine your targeting and improve your performance.
6 – The Instagram bio, a golden gateway to your website
The only durable clickable link you can insert into your Instagram account is in the biography area. Stories also allow you to add an ephemeral redirect via a “Learn more” button. It’s therefore essential to include a link to your website to direct your organic social traffic to your online sales platform.
Note that to highlight some of your products, you can use a Linkthree link to direct your subscribers directly to different pages on your website, if there are several you deem relevant.
7 – Instagram Shopping : a direct path to purchase
An Instagram store makes it easier for users unfamiliar with your brand to discover your products – over 130 million of whom already consult this type of publication on a monthly basis. Instagram Shopping, only available for business accounts, is therefore an excellent way to sell products directly on the platform from a simple click on your publications and stories. Very easy to use, product tags are a great opportunity to showcase your items and can even be used in ads.
Instagram and you
Instagram is constantly evolving, and it’s important to keep your marketing strategy up to date to take full advantage of the platform’s benefits. Once you’ve defined your goals and identified your target audience, you can start creating an editorial calendar to build your long-term content strategy and apply the tips offered above.
