Instagram is one of the most popular social media apps with more than 1 billion active users on a monthly basis. A fantastic reach and tools make this app great for marketing. But like every social media it has its ways and options. Explore them to understand it better and make the most out of it.
What is Instagram?
There are very low chances that you haven’t heard about it and probably are one of its users. It was launched in 2010, however it has changed a lot since then, developing along its users’ preferences. Images in a square format are shared among users on the platform, along with shorter videos (up to 60s). There is also an option to share longer videos, up to 10 minutes, for some even up to one hour, called IGTV. Instagram stories, similar to those seen on Snapchat because they last for 24h, also exist, and are very loved among its users. More than 500 million share Instagram stories daily.
Business account
Business accounts are a quite new option on Instagram, but there are already more that 25 million of them. Advantage of this account type is that you can get insight in the stats of your profile. Gender, age, location of your audience helps run business accounts, for better audience targeting. Apart from seeing how many people liked and commented on your posts you can also see the reach that it had, as well as the engagement and how many people visited your account after seeing that post. This gives you an idea what posts are liked by your current and potential audience,but also to spot what kind of posts were a total flop. To turn your account into business one, just go to the Settings and click on Switch to Professional Account written in blue .
Sponsored posts
Instagram did not stop after making business accounts, but took it a step further. This is the way that ads work on Instagram. You can promote your posts and stories. This is, contrary to FaceBook Ads, very cheap. Your post can be promoted for the price starting at just 1$ a day up to 1000$, and it can be done for one, up to 30 days in a row. More money, more people will be reached. For just 10$ you can reach from 2300 to 6100 people. Your posts appear in their feed, or among their stories with a small ‘sponsored’ written below your username. You can choose whether the sponsored post will send them to your profile, website or your direct messages (DMs), but for dropshipping going directly to the website might be the best solution. For better results you can target your audience setting their location, age and interests.
Reviews
Instagram is a place where you can go beyond just promoting your brand, but also gain some social proof. Posting reviews on Instagram is a great way to convince your audience that your product is worth the purchase. If you are struggling to gather reviews from your customers or even struggling to sell because of lack of testimonials, try Reviify, AliExpress reviews importer for Shopify. To style your reviews on Instagram better you can use apps like Canva. Share reviews as posts, or as stories. If you choose to use stories do not forget to make Highlights for reviews, so that they are visible on your profile even after those 24 hours pass. Additionally, if you have Highlights your potential customers will find them more easily.
Links
Unlike TikTok, Instagram paid a lot of attention to links. You can add a clickable link to your profile bio, preferably leading to your store. Also, after reaching 10 thousand followers you get the Swipe Up option, where your followers can get directly to your store from Stories. Unfortunately, clickable links are not available in the posts themselves, but you can always leave them in your bio.
Influencers and Brand Ambassadors
This is one of the popular choices for marketing on Instagram. It is especially effective for boosting social proof. Influencers are individuals on Instagram that have a great number of followers, but more importantly a great engagement. Engagement is reflected in the number of likes, comments, saves and engagement rate itself. Brand ambassadors are cheaper to hire, because unlike influencers they do not have an army of followers on Instagram, but they can still bring conversion to your shop. No matter who from these two categories do you hire, they should be sent samples of your product that they can use for posts and stories on their profile.
Content
All of this cannot help you much if you do not create valuable content. Your instagram account needs attention and a lot of nurturing to grow and bring leads to your shop. Create visually appealing posts, because they are very important on Instagram, but also try to share something entertaining or useful. Apart from just promoting your brand, you can call your users to action to make the engagement with your account greater, for the love of Instagram algorithm and your users.
