Fahad Manzur
In the last year 2020, Instagram dethroned Facebook as the undisputed king of social media. Instagram is one amazing platform to brand your business and reach out to millions of people instantly. Want to learn how to use Instagram for marketing?. This post will help you out a long way to promote your business.
If you are looking to grow your Instagram account and use it for marketing your business without paying money, follow these steps.
1. Optimize Your Instagram Account.
The leading brand accounts on Instagram have a persuasive bio, attractive profile picture, and are linked with the homepage of their websites. It is the first step in setting up your account as well as this is the first thing visitor notices when they arrive on your Instagram profile. Your bio must be descriptive, convincing, and don’t hesitate to use emojis.
2. Keep An Eye On Relevant Accounts Of Yours Industry.
Search brands, media companies, or people of your niche who are using Instagram. Follow them interact with them by liking their posts and commenting on them. In return, few will follow you. This will give you your initial audience.
3. Search Popular Hashtags In Your Niche.
“Many people on Instagram use hashtags as a way of finding new photos and new people to follow,” said Jason Quey.
Thousands of hashtags are shared daily on Instagram. Jason offered some great advice on the topic: “Look through the pictures posted by influencers in your niche. What hashtags do they use? Write these down as potential hashtags to use.”
4. Get Shout Outs From Others.
All big brands use hire influencers to grow their account on Instagram. This is effectively done by making relations with big names and brands. This relationship is on mutual branding on each other’s pages.
Make a spreadsheet to collect data about the popular accounts you want to reach out to, find out how many followers they have them give you a shoutout on their profile.
5. Keep Sharing Regularly.
Make sure you want to post often enough, keep your brand identity relevant. The last thing you would want is people unfollowing you because you have been overkilling your posts every single day. Moderate is the right word, do not overdo it. Let people consume your content gradually and at the same time, keep them in search of your new post every single day.
By following one time for posting on Instagram, your followers wait for your content.
6. Often Use Hashtags In The Comment Section.
One of the most overlooked tricks in the Instagram market is the use of hashtags in the comments.
Instead of bombarding your posts with so many hashtags and giving the perception of desperation – hashtags in comments works as well as in Captions after pressing share. Your caption doesn’t look bad too.
7. Consider Running Instagram Contests.
Running a contest can prove to be one of the best strategies for getting new followers and engage your content. Instagram lets you run your contests on your feed, it is very easy to set up and by asking participants’ involvement, you grow your account.
8. Request Followers To Like Your Content.
You probably have seen Instagram posts urging to double tab on the picture. It is an amazing tip. Don’t ask don’t get is the notion here. Request your followers to like your posts.
9. Relationship With Other Influencers.
One of the fastest ways to grow your brand is by engaging brands that have a large following than yours and asking them to promote your brand. If you have good content, you might not have to pay influencers. A quality relationship with an influencer might get you huge traffic through organic shouts outs.
10. Keep Commenting on Other Accounts.
Neil Patel shares. “I thought it would be enough just to like other people’s pictures in order for them to follow me and like my photos. As it turned out, I got way more interaction when I commented on other users’ photos then when I merely liked them.”
11. Use Instagram Stories Regularly.
Instagram Stories is another great way to promote your brand. It’s a section on which you share small video clips and they disappear after 24hrs. All the followers can see these videos and press like and comment on it. This is a direct offshoot of Snapchat Stories.
While making Instagram stories, mix static content with the content happening in present. You can also do strategic partnerships with other accounts to reach more audiences.
12. Use Both Images & Video Content.
Keep a mixed bag for your posts. Sometimes share images and sometimes share short videos and IGTV videos. Instagram allows you to post short videos on your profile that are up to one minute or less. IGTV is the extended version of videos that are over one minute long.
13. Run Instagram Ads.
Nothing beats advertisements. The above 12 points focus on organic outreach but it is not a bad idea to put money on Instagram ads. Remember, if you connect your Instagram profile to your Facebook page (make sure it is set to business as the personal profile can not advertise), you can market one ad on both platforms and grow your brand.
