Roughly 4.9 million people use social media, and almost half of them are monthly active Instagram users. Instagram is a hub of influencers, artists, entertainers, Gen Z, and millennials who just might be the perfect target audience for your book. It’s no wonder that so many social media marketers highly prize Instagram as one of their main platforms.
The question is how to best market on Instagram, as opposed to platforms like Twitter or Facebook. Here are our tips:
#1 – Make Use of #Hashtags
Like Twitter, Instagram utilizes hashtags as its most effective search tool. Users can click on a hashtag that relates to one of their interests and find all of the posts that use that hashtag, usually ranked by engagement or time posted. As a marketer, you can use hashtags to ensure that your posts appear in relevant searches to your audience.
Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags. Do some research on the hashtags that your audience uses most frequently, and use as many relevant tags as you can when you create a post. This increases your chance of putting your posts in front of the right people.
#2 – Don’t Forget the Alt Text
When you are finishing up your Instagram post, creating a caption and adding hashtags, you will also see a menu further down the screen that says “accessibility.” When you click on this, it gives you a number of options that will make your post more accessible to all eyes and ears. Alt text is great for those who are blind or vision-impaired. It describes the image so that text-to-speech software can read the description.
Providing alt text — rather than using Instagram’s limited auto-generated alt-text descriptions — shows that you make an effort for your brand to be as accessible as possible. It also helps to boost your SEO, making your Instagram posts easier to find.
#3 – Use Instagram Ads
Like its sister platform, Facebook, Instagram allows you to post ads that can raise engagement with your content and your brand. There are a couple of different ways to do this. One is to boost your post. When you create an Instagram post, you can select an option to “boost post” for a fee. When you do so, Instagram puts that post in front of users who have engaged with similar posts and may be likely to interact with you.
You can also go to your Meta Business profile and choose “create ad.” The Meta Business suite gives you several goals to choose from, allows you to define your audience, and set your budget. Once you’re finished, Instagram creates the ad, and you wait for the engagement to roll in.
#4 – Focus on High-Quality Visuals
Instagram is, first and foremost, a visual platform. Users are drawn to pretty pictures. It’s why many Instagram users post images of their products surrounded by flowers or framed around other aesthetically pleasing backgrounds. You can also use a graphic design platform like Canva or Adobe Photoshop to enhance your images.
Consider creating an Instagram theme by posting your photos in a particular order or with a coordinated lighting and color scheme. This will also help to enhance the aesthetics of your brand.
#5 – Engage With Those Who Engage With You
If someone orders your products and posts an Instagram story or post sharing that they received it, share those posts on your story. Hype up customer-generated content, even if it doesn’t flow with your brand aesthetic in general. Reply to the users who reply to your posts. This kind of engagement helps to build your relationship with your customers. It makes your brand more approachable, more personable.
#6 – Work With Influencers
Influencers make a living “influencing” their followers by encouraging them to try out certain products or services. When you sponsor or team up with influencers, they can promote your brand to their audience. And with over 64 million influencer accounts, Instagram is certainly a great place to connect with them. It’s important to find an influencer who is relevant to your brand. For instance, if you have a line of beauty products, it might not be intuitive to reach out to a pro wrestling account. Instead, look for influencers who often try out beauty products or give fashion advice. You can send them a free sample of your product in exchange for a review, sponsor them in exchange for an ad spot, or even ask them to take over your Instagram stories for a day. All of this can be used to grow your audience by introducing the influencer’s audience to your brand.
