Soon after its launch, Instagram is one platform that has shown tremendous growth and potential not only for the individuals but also for the business owners. In fact, according to research, Instagram is found to have an extended community of over 400 million users who are active in a month this past year.
However, in spite of its impressive reach, there are several business owners who are still unaware of its huge marketing potential. As a result, they are deprived of getting:
- High level of engagement
- Creating better brand awareness and even
- Gaining more profit on the table.
They are even unaware that the free Instagram templates also have the potential to increase the level engagement with the followers and can extensively help a business to elevate their online presence without having to buy real Instagram likes.
You may tend to think why are these businesses so ignorant and happy to leave a major portion of their customer count as well as business profit behind on the table, ready to pick up. Well, that is their part of the story and reasoning. As for you, if you want to enjoy the benefits offered by Instagram, the most popular and extensively used photo and video sharing app, here is what you should do to create better brand awareness and build your business.
Build strategic partnerships
Without a large number of followers on Instagram, it will not prove beneficial for a business if they want to use it as their marketing channel. One of the biggest issues that most of the business marketers face is that they do not know how exactly they can build a following. However, this is not at all a complicated thing as it may seem to you.
There’s one tactic, in particular, that will help you to grow your Instagram following quickly from 0 to 10,000 in just a matter of weeks: This is by partnering with other Instagram accounts. The first and perhaps the most significant thing to do to create better brand awareness and build a business is to build a strategic partnership. This will help you to grow your Instagram following just as the way you desire.
To start with:
- Make a list of a few popular Instagram accounts but make sure that they reach out to your target audience
- Once you have found a few, partner with them with “shout-outs.”
Typically shout-outs can be of two types, paid and unpaid and both have significant features that make one different from the other. Here is what you should know:
- Unpaid shout-outs are also called “share for share.” That means you share the content of one another and in the process both encourage the followers to follow the other Instagram account. Both get access to each other’s audiences and therefore both sides benefit from such unpaid shout-outs.
- Paid shout-outs, on the other hand, is the process to follow if you want to extend your reach to those accounts that have bigger pools of Instagram followers, provided you have a fair bit of budget for social media. This is a great way to add thousands of followers and that too very fast. With paid shout-outs, you only have to aim at accounts that have a high count of followers as well as a very strong level of engagement.
Make sure that you ask for a call to action in the shout-out to attract the followers. Later on, you can drive them to your site and engage with your brand to subscribe to your email list.
Build an email list
As email plays a crucial role in business marketing you should focus next on building your email list by converting your followers into subscribers. This will help your business thrive as the customers purchase your products and services. Instagram has always been a hot favorite for business marketers to drive more email subscribers. Depending on your promotions you can gain names anywhere from ten to thirty thousand followers in a short amount of time. However, for this you will need:
- To know about the limitations of Instagram since it does not allow putting links in photo descriptions
- To create a good and compelling bio and include the link of your site in it
- To ensure that you do not overload your bio with junk but keep it useful, short, and packed with intention and
- To use a very specific and compelling call to action along with a short and memorable URL.
This will take the followers directly to your site where they can come to more about your product and make a buying decision eventually.
Create a compelling content
Thirdly, you will need to create an informative and compelling content that is not only interesting but is also worthy for sharing by and with others. This is an essential Instagram strategy but make sure it is beautiful, meaningful, and easily digestible and raises the interest in the readers to interact.
The magic formula to create such content is to focus on the two basic elements such as engaging text and beautiful imagery. Make sure that you choose images that are:
- Bold and relevant
- Tells a story
- Elicits emotion
- Compelling and interesting.
As for the text, it should be easy to understand, written in lucid language, powerful, meaningful and motivational. This will maximize your reach for sure.
Foster a community
Last but not least, you should find out the highly engaged followers and create and nurture a community within. The best way to foster a community is to post your content when your followers will actually see it. This will raise the potential of your posts. Also make sure that your content is fresh and new, of course with a few exceptional and situational cases.
Since Instagram is simply a feed, the newer the content higher up will it be in the feeds of your followers? You can schedule automated updates to be posted for that matter knowing the behavior of your followers.
And you thought Instagramming was not easy! Well, think again!
Author Bio
Ali Hasnain is a social media manager and has immense knowledge about email marketing and Instagram promotion. He delights his clients by helping them. He loves to travel, write and play baseball.