Instagram can help you push your business and brand to the top. There is no doubt that it's a social network that can really help you in your business but like everything worthwhile, it takes planning and good execution.
Before getting into the marketing strategy on Instagram, let me first highlight some of the main virtues of this social network.
Instagram steps and strategy:
Instagram is a platform that has a significant growth, more than 1000 million users (thats a Billion!) who share their photos every day. Faced with this data, the next logical question is: how can my business start posting on Instagram?
Before starting to publish random photos, the most important thing is to reflect on the main aspects of the business:
Who is your target audience? How do you behave on Instagram?
What does Instagram give you that other social networks don't?
How would you like your business to be reflected on Instagram?
How are you going to integrate Instagram with the rest of the marketing strategy?
Do you have quality visual content for your publications?
Advantages of Instagram when carrying out a marketing strategy
You don't need any more followers. You need people interested in your products or services. Closing sales or getting potential clients does not depend only on the number of followers, there are small communities that sell more than some huge accounts filled with empty follows and little engagement.
Focus always on interaction, quality content and taking care of your followers above all the other different qualities you should show depending on your niche or sector.
So, let go over the basics, grab a pen and paper or just hire BausLabs Agency 🙂 (Or both, we love informed clients).
Brand creation
Through Instagram we can help define brand values with our publications. People are more drawn to images and videos. Companies should take advantage of this to tell their trajectory, experience, the day to day of their business and if it helps the business, the struggles and experiences of running the business.
Broad dissemination
Instagram allows the possibility of synchronizing the profile together with other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. This will make it easier to spread our content on other social profiles and reach a greater number of users.
Also, thanks to the new incumbent, Instagram stories can now be reposted on TikTok if they are videos that for now allows you to have a bigger organic reach. Pinterest and YouTube shots are two other short video social media channels you could use. But we'll leave that for another article.
Interaction and feedback with our target audience.
Talk to your followers! because Instagram is a social network that allows companies to interact with users in a fast, direct and simple way. Hashtags are a good way to start connecting, commenting and interacting. In addition, you will be able to get to know your customers better, an added value for any business.
Goals for your business on Instagram
Create a brand image
Show your products and services
Increase sales
Increase engagement: Increase interactions with our target audience.
Promote the most relevant products of your business.
Increase awareness of your website.
Connect with influencers.
Share the news and milestones of your company.
These objectives will guide you in the creation of your strategy, as you progress through the process, you will be able to categorize them into primary and secondary objectives and prioritize your strategy by those that provide you with the most value.
Bear in mind that an Instagram Strategy is just a template that will allow us to keep our eye on the ball down the line, be able to create content in advance and monitor the key performance indicators constantly and see if our goals are being met.
Developing a content strategy
Content is king. A lot of companies use Instagram to publicize their products or services, others as a reflection of their identity and philosophy or to communicate with their current and potential customers.
Depending on what we want to publish on Instagram, we will focus our content in one way or another. But there is a constant and yes, the constant is that Content is king.
To do this, we recommend that you make a list with possible topics to communicate and determine possible images or videos for these topics.
When the communication line is already defined, it is important to make a protocol or style guide, according to the philosophy of our business. Not everything goes on Instagram!
The last stop for completing the protocol or style guide for your Instagram is to think and decide the following:
Esthetic: How do I want my page to be viewed? Use of backgrounds, templates, image size, colors, filters. Look for consistency for all your content, a clean aesthetic and tasteful page is always appreciated.
Hashtags: Monitor the most relevant hashtags for your brand and group them according to content. In this way, it will be much easier for you to make each publication.
Original Content Vs Shared Content: You have to be very careful with the content that is shared and its frequency. The key is to find balance.
Photography Vs Videos: Normally, it is more difficult for us to make a video and in most of the profiles, photographs predominate due to their immediacy and simplicity but like I said before, this is rapidly changing.
And, after this, when we already have our objectives, content and style guide, it's time to post or schedule the posts. For small and medium businesses and brands, we highly recommend using Postoplan and not waste money on other expensive tools that are meant for agencies and big companies with marketing departments. - You're welcome!
Instagram Ads
Advertising on Instagram has proven to be a fundamental investment in the social paid strategy of many companies. So much so that, together with Facebook (obviously), it has positioned itself as the industry leader in average spending on advertising campaigns.
At BausLabs we attach great importance to this channel, especially because of the brand recognition and the reach it provides, it allows us to obtain results with reduced costs compared to other means.
To correctly propose a good strategy with which to achieve the goal and the objectives set, we need a good methodology. From our partners in SEO, at BausLabs we use the LASER methodology (Learn, Analyze, Strategize, Execute, Repeat) that has proven to be extremely successful for every one of our clients.
Some Instagram Marketing tips
Geolocate your photos: This way, your business will appear on the photo map and more users will discover your content.
Follow accounts related to your business, potential clients and potential influencers.
Optimize your bio and link: The biography is limited to 120 characters. Remember to add your website link to drive traffic to your page.
Monitor the hashtags: This will allow you to know what Instagram users and your customers say about you. A practical example, if your organization is holding an event with a certain hashtag, it is interesting to know what the attendees are saying about it.
Use Instagram Stories: Showing the day-to-day running of your business can be of interest to your followers and will allow you to obtain greater engagement and contact with your customers. In addition, it is a way to humanize your brand.
Use Facebook to boost Instagram: Most companies used to have a higher number of followers on Facebook, some still do, take advantage of it and add your Instagram profile to your Facebook account to get more visibility.
Get the right partner for Instagram Marketing
On this blog post we tried to go over the basics of an Instagram Marketing Strategy, the structure and some useful tips. But if your planning to use Instagram or Social Media Marketing in a consistent and high level way, consider having a partner that can guide you and work with your team in achieving the goals.
Creating and managing a Social Media Marketing Strategy, payed or organic, should include conversion tracking, constant optimization, correct attribution and a dedicated people that will walks with you all the way.
At BausLabs we proud ourselves in becoming part of your team, by understanding your business, your team, structure and objectives, we can provide the best services that will get you where you want to go from Barcelona, Tel Aviv and Zurich to the world.
Get in touch! We'll audit your social media and advice you for free on a zoom call.
Have a great day,
Cheers!