Instagram has slowly taken the world by storm and by recent surveys, it has been shown that the number of active Instagram users have exceeded the population of the United States! It is one thing to be on Instagram and quite another to explore the potential of Instagram and how you can effectively market your products or services on it. An advantage Instagram has over all the other social media platforms is that it boasts of more than 10 times more engagement on its platform. Let us look at the 5 best ways that you can grow your business using Instagram.
Post things in real-time
A great feature about Instagram is that you can post things in real-time. As a brand, this is something you should take serious advantage of. Show your followers about what’s ‘cooking’ at the moment by posting about it. It should be relevant to what you do and be using specific hashtags can create a buzz around your product. Another reason why you should do this is that Instagram is about peeking into people’s lives. You as a brand, are an individual identity and people are just as curious, if not more, to know what you are up to. In addition to this, it also creates less of a divide between you and your followers.
Involve your followers in your growth
Engagement is one of the primary reasons Instagram is so popular. As a brand, it is important that you keep that engagement flowing with your followers. You cannot create a product or build on your product in isolation. Your audience’s opinion matters and it is important to put that across. By engaging with them in the decision-making process or taking recommendations from them, they feel like they are participating in your growth and at the same time, building a relationship with your brand personality. From a business standpoint, it gives you insight into what your customers are thinking and how you should build on your product.
Engage in the spirit of collaboration
This is the age of collaboration and Instagram is the messiah sent to promote this message. Cross-promoting your brand is only going to give it an additional edge. For instance, if you are in the fashion space and find an influencer who can talk about your brand, it would be a great idea for the both of you to promote each other’s product. The idea is about getting more people to talk about your product and promoting your product this way, will only create more opportunity to do so.
Share with your community
When you are involving others and taking their feedback on your product, it is also important to engage with them in the other way. This means that it is important to give back to the community that is engaging with you. Doing this through contests and regular giveaways is a great way of doing this. You must understand to do this not in a gimmicky way but instead be creative in your approach. When you are doing this, there must be an incentive for them to participate and a gift or some form of gratification, to invite even more participation the next time around.
Gently poach other brands’ followers
People might question the ethics on this one but hey, everything is fair on Instagram. You might find a lot of brands in your own market and a pretty good strategy for getting more followers, is looking at their pages and trying to reach out to their followers. At the end of the day, everyone wants followers and if you are not doing it to them, they’re probably going to do it to you.
When you identify a follower or a group of followers, you can like their comment or picture, post on their feed and then leave a comment on their page. This has proven to be an extremely effective strategy in getting more followers and has also known to create a bigger database for many brands.
In all, if you were to follow some of these strategies, you are most likely to gain a greater follower base, giving you an opportunity to regularly engage with an audience and create products and services that can have a huge impact.