Instagram Marketing is the talk of the town and has become a hub of contemporary marketing, such as Influencer Marketing. Your business should have a strong presence on Instagram to get the much-needed exposure. This blog explores industry-tested tips to optimize your Instagram Business Account.
Table Of Contents
- Does Instagram Influence Buyer Intent?
- Why Should You Switch from a Personal Account to a Business Account?
- How to Switch from a Personal to a Business Account?
- How to Set Up Instagram Shopping
- What Does Instagram’s Product Detail Comprise Of?
- How to Use Instagram’s Product Tags and Stickers
- How Many Tags Can Be Added Per Instagram’s Post?
- Why Is It Important to Boost Engagement on Your Instagram?
- What Type of Hashtags Is Best to Target the Right Audience on Instagram?
- How to Maintain a More Consistent Identity on Instagram?
- Why Is It Important to Run Ads on Instagram for Wider Reach?
- How to promote your page or product through Instagram ads?
- Is It Important to Create a Connection on Instagram and Not Just About Selling the Product?
Not more than 5 years ago, only a very few people knew about Instagram let alone thinking about selling on Instagram. However, a lot has changed in the past 10 years. Instagram has not only evolved with its features for a layman but also has become an essential marketing tool for all kinds of businesses.
It has given rise to newer marketing trends like Influencer Marketing etc. It has grown to become an epicenter for brand marketing activities all around the globe. So, there is no denying that this exponential grown is not going to stop in near future.
Does Instagram Influence Buyer Intent?
If you compare, how many times have you preferred buying from Instagram rather than trusting an unknown online source? It’s not like being on Instagram gives surety for a business to not be a scam but you would still rather go for an Instagram purchase over purchase from an unknown site almost every time.
That is because of the authority and visibility Instagram has garnered over the years. Moreover, Instagram Marketing Agencies have also seen a steady rise in clients and customers in recent years and the future looks even brighter. Due to the emphasis on visual communication by Instagram and the simple user interface, Instagram is on its way to becoming a fully featured E-commerce platform.
According to a survey, around 72 percent of Instagram's one billion users agreed that they have bought particular stuff after seeing it on Instagram. It has actually become a go-to app for browsing and researching products and services.
Instagram has been rolling out updates to make the purchase process easier for its users. They are working on launching an update that lets you make a purchase without even leaving the app but for now, you can feature your products on Instagram Shopping and the interested people can buy them off your website.
You just have to set a catalog up and then tag them accordingly. Setting up your catalog is the hard or tricky part; it gets easier from there. Tagging your products helps to drive engagement on related posts so that it reaches the right audience.
Instagram launched a new feature for its growing business and creator community in the US, to guide the new and upcoming businesses on how to set up a business account and to give them basic know-how of its procedures.
This blog focuses on some of the tips and tricks that are tested and proposed by industry experts and can be implemented to grow your business on Instagram.
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1. Switching from a Personal Account to a Business Account
Even if you are not planning to use Instagram Shopping to promote your product but are planning on promoting or marketing your goods or services that you provide, you have to make sure that you have switched to a business account.
Switching to a business account not only lets you use features like Instagram Shopping to promote your product but also gives you access to important information like performance insights, helps you run ads, and also lets you include your contact and call to action buttons in your bio.
How to Switch from a Personal to a Business Account?
Switching to an Instagram business account is very easy. You just have to enter the hamburger menu in the Instagram app. There you tap on settings. You will see an option of account setting there. Click on it and switch to a professional profile.
2. Setting up Instagram Shopping
If you are an illustrator or a designer who sells his products via the online store, you can promote your work in stories and posts once you have switched to a business account.
How to set up Instagram Shopping?
To set up Instagram Shopping, first of all, you have to create a product catalog in Facebook Catalogue Manager. Now you must be wondering what a Facebook Catalogue Manager is? It is basically a feature in the Business Manager of Facebook which manages ad accounts and pages for influencers and businesses.
After creating the catalog, you enable product tagging. This step gets easier if you have an online store with one of Facebook's e-commerce partners like Shopify or Big Commerce. You can still do it but it's going to take a lot more time and effort since you will have to enter all the product details manually.
However, according to a lot of business owners, it really gives it a boost, a different look. It shows the hard work of the creator when the description is put manually.
What does the product detail comprise of?
With each item, there is a product description, its price, a link to your website page where this product can be ordered along with at least one good picture. Although, experts recommend putting sufficient images to cover the product details from every angle and in different situations.
Then after doing all the work, you finally submit your account for review. The review can take a couple of days.
3. Using Product Tags and Stickers
Now that you have set up Instagram Shopping, it's time to start using the features it offers. You can tag products in as many posts and stories as you like.
How to Tag Products in Posts and Stories?
It is really easy to tog products in posts and stories. All you have to do is tap ‘Tag Products’ while creating a post.
How Many Tags Can Be Added per Post?
You can add around 5 product tags per image, 20 tags per carousel, and 1 product sticker per story.
When the viewer will click on the 'View Products', the product's name and the price will appear on the screen and upon clicking that popup tag, he will be taken to the product detail page. From there, they can go to your website and make a purchase there. You can easily identify a shoppable post as it will have a small shopping bag icon in the upper right corner.
4. Boost Engagement for Greater Exposure
Once you have set up Instagram Shopping, you will want to make sure it has a wide range of reach and is being seen by potential customers. How are you going to do that, you might wonder? Your post’s reach can be increased by boosting engagement. Although Instagram is a visual platform, hashtags and mentions play a very important role in expanding the reach of a product. It helps in engaging the audience in your product by showing posts to users with hashtags and mentions of their interest.
What Type of Hashtags is Best to Target the Right Audience?
It is best to use a combination of both general hashtags with high posting volume and more specific hashtags that have lower volume. The general hashtags provide a higher exposure whereas the more specific hashtags receive fewer searches but help to target the most appropriate audience that is more likely to make a purchase.
5. Maintaining a More Consistent Identity
It is a general rule of marketing to make your product look aesthetic and attractive to gain the attention of potential buyers. The same is the case with online marketing. It is really important to pay attention to how posts with product tags blend into your feed. It is really important to make sure that the backgrounds, color pallets, texture and style of the photography, and the overall editing create a visual cohesion and consistent personality.
Having an appealing and consistent identity not only creates trust in the product but also helps attract more traffic to the post.
6. Running Ads for Wider Reach
Boosting engagement is an effective way to attract relevant traffic to your shoppable posts but that can only get you so far. To get a wider range with a more effective target approach you will need to run ads for your product.
Like Facebook, Instagram has dedicated a generous space to paid posts which makes it hard for the organic content to rise without any aid.
You don’t have to invest in ads right away. Once your business is up and running, with a solid identity, only then you should think about experimenting with paid campaigns to get a wider reach. It is not as expensive as it might sound. If you are targeting the right audience, a small budget will do the task.
How to Promote Your Page or Product Through Ads?
You can promote your page by either promoting posts directly on Instagram or by using Facebook Ad Manager. It gets easier and effective with Facebook Ad Manager as it offers a wider range of campaign types and greater customization to target audience having specific interests. It will not only help you avoid wasting your budget on the wrong demographics but also assist you in editing preferences so that the target platform can be selected.
When you are using product tags in your ads, anyone clicking through to your website is a strong prospect because they have already seen your product and price. You can also use shoppable post promotions to reach prospective buyers via the shopping channel in Instagram's Explore Tab. The expert advice avoiding the holiday season as the market is already saturated. It will bear results but not as fruitful as it should have. They advise planning a calendar with three or four activations.
7. Make It About Creating a Connection, Not Only About Selling the Product
No matter how much Instagram evolves or how big it gets, it started off as a social network and will always be a source of it. Experts say that to keep followers engaged long-term, it is really important to remain active in the “social” part of the community. It is crucial to have a good mix of pictures and not only the relevant product pictures. It has been noted that the audience is more likely to be interested if there is a personality on your page or feed
To sum it all up, having good business traffic on Instagram isn't only about time and money. It depends on how you manage to convince the audience that you have the best product and services by reflecting it through your page or social media platform. Hopefully, these tips will help you get a better experience doing business on Instagram.
This is going to be all for today’s blog. Please feel free to leave your feedback or queries and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Don’t forget to share the blog with your friends so that they can benefit as well. Thank you!
About The Author: Lovetto Nazareth
Lovetto Nazareth is a digital marketing consultant and agency owner of Prism Digital. He has been in the advertising and digital marketing business for the last 2 decades and has managed thousands of campaigns and generated millions of dollars of new leads. He is an avid adventure sports enthusiast and a singer-songwriter. Follow him on social media on @Lovetto Nazareth