13 great Instagram marketing ideas that everyone should try. See all of them below:
1. Use Instagram’s video ad options to your advantage.
After being affected by a post, 75% of cheap instagram likes say they take activities “including visiting sites, searching, or alerting a friend,” thus knowing the platform’s variety of ad forms is critical. While photo advertisements are still a mainstay of the network, Instagram video formats are becoming increasingly useful for targeting a specific audience.
To create Instagram ads, the platform provides a few key video formats: single video ads allow for up to 60-second commercials, carousels allow for more message real estate by allowing followers to swipe across for additional images or videos, and Instagram Stories provide a vertical full-screen format where images and videos can be spliced together to create visually arresting ads.
Use this step-by-step guide to learn how to market your business on Instagram with video ads.
2. Give GIFs a chance to shine.
Because research shows that viewers are more likely to watch videos that are 15 seconds or less until the end, understanding how to produce and share a GIF should be a requirement for marketing teams.
The GIF format, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2017, is more appealing than images – GIFs are shared more than either JPEG or PNG formats – and is less expensive and time-consuming than creating films.
It’s also the media that led Instagram to create its own take on the GIF, the Boomerang, which records a short series of stills before combining and looping them back and forth, ready to upload to Instagram.
These videos are undoubtedly a gif that keeps on giffing, with over 1 billion gifs in existence today.
3. Increase website traffic by utilizing Instagram traffic.
Because Instagram allows just a single clickable link in your bio, it can assist drive visitors to your website.
To encourage followers to click through, maximize the potential of your link with special offers and promotions. Strong calls to action should be combined with your URL in a text overlay on any images or videos.
If you have more than 10,000 Instagram followers, you can use a link with a “Swipe Up” CTA in your stories.
Remember that all of Instagram’s ad formats include a call-to-action button that will direct your followers to your website.
Work with influencers to promote your URL in their own material if you’ve collaborated with them.
Finally, use analytics software to gain insights into which Instagram post is bringing visitors to your website so you can fine-tune your strategy.
4. To ‘win’ Instagram, use SEO.
Instagram and SEO may not seem like natural bedfellows, but on the increasingly competitive platform, having an SEO plan for your Instagram account is essential.
Your account handle and account name are the two most important factors that effect SEO. The first is the ‘@’ name you register, which should match the industry in which your company operates. Keep it brief, pleasant, and memorable.
Then there’s your account name, which appears beneath your profile photo and should correspond to your account handle and industry. Instagram will check queries against your account name when people search for words or emojis on Instagram.
To get the most out of this feature, enter your industry or a term linked to your firm in the name area. The trick is to think of words that users might type into Instagram’s search bar.
The relationship between social media and SEO is reciprocal. Not only should you optimize your profile for channel searchers, but you should also keep in mind that social signals (likes, shares, and comments) may influence your SEO ranks.
While Google hasn’t confirmed that social signals play a role in their ranking algorithm, studies have found a strong link between social involvement and Google rankings.
5. Create brand legitimacy by collaborating with micro-influencers.
Instagram influencer marketing has grown in popularity, allowing brands to collaborate with major thought leaders in their industry and reach a larger audience.
Because influencers are perceived as ‘independent,’ associating your company with their authoritative voice can give your messaging actual validity.
However, deciding on the correct influencer can be difficult. Marketers often get caught up in the glamour of working with a celebrity rather than concentrating on the value that the influencer can bring to the table.
Marketers must first grasp what an influencer is and then design an influencer strategy that includes a brief trial campaign period to determine how receptive the influencer’s network of followers is to your brand.
We all remember the anger Pepsi had when they tried to capitalize on social causes like Black Lives Matter with their Kendall Jenner commercial. While a celebrity like Jenner has a huge following, she wasn’t the proper influencer to lead a campaign that was already being criticized for being inauthentic and co-opting the Black Lives Matter movement.
Consumers are growing increasingly jaded to traditional advertising, are acutely aware of social issues, and have finely calibrated BS-filters, making brand authenticity a must-have.
Rather than splurging on well-known brands, partnering with micro-influencers can be the key to building a real brand.
Micro-influencers are often less expensive, have a closer relationship with their followers, and are viewed as more genuine. In fact, compared to the average 1.7 percent of macro-influencers, micro-influencers regularly have greater engagement rates of roughly 2-3 percent.
Sand Cloud is a great illustration of how micro-influencers may help you create a genuine brand. Micro-influencers and ordinary customers serve as brand ambassadors for the beach towel company, which gets nearly all of its material from its followers. The tactic appears to have worked, as the brand now has 775k Instagram followers and over $20 million in sales.
Remember to provide your influencer with the tools, resources, and direction they require to effectively carry out their position and collaborate on the campaign with you as true partners.
6. Run an Instagram competition
On Instagram, contests are a tremendous engagement tactic, getting significantly more engagement than ordinary posts.
The giveaway is a particularly popular contest type on Instagram. Users enter the contest by following your account, liking the post, and tagging their friends in your post, which entails giving away a product or service. If the giveaway is done correctly, it may be a very effective approach to increase engagement and brand exposure.
From partnering with another company to enhance reach and determining contest rules and goals – such as ‘enter to win,’ ‘like to win,’ or ‘follow to win’ – to the production of an attention-grabbing contest post, how to run an Instagram contest necessitates forethought.
Once you’re ready to go, plan out how you’ll promote the contest, including email blasts, website banners, social media plugs, and more.
It’s also crucial to keep an eye on the contest after it’s up and running. To track the success of your contest, use hashtags, Google Alerts, and social media management services. Once it’s finished, share the results on social media.
7. Increase the number of Instagram followers who sign up for email newsletters.
For truly deep consumer relationships, email remains the de facto method.
It’s for this reason that marketers aim to convert Instagram followers into email subscribers by following three simple steps to generate effective Instagram email marketing.
First, depending on your target audience, build a clickable incentive in your Instagram postings. Consider offering a prize, free content, or a discount, for example.
Second, make sure the landing page has a compelling call to action that leads to an email submission form once the audience has clicked through.
Third, make a mailing list to organize your new email subscribers so you can start building more meaningful interactions with them.
8. Make Instagram Stories a part of your life
With 500 million daily users, Instagram stories has become the most popular feature on the network. There’s even talk that Instagram stories will take over as the primary feature, possibly even displacing the main feed.
You can use Stories to create a collage of photos and images in a single post that will be deleted after 24 hours. However, their advantages can last considerably longer in terms of your reach and engagement rates, increasing your chances of being included in the Explore area and gaining new followers in the process.
Using tales may help your brand appear more genuine and personable, as well as creating a sense of urgency that encourages users to interact with you again and again.
Pre-recorded tales are good for in-depth coverage of your items, one-time quickfire marketing, or sharing narratives, whereas live stories are ideal for drawing people in because they happen in the moment.
Some of the best tales take use of the “FOMO” effect by providing sneak peaks, or by including interactive components and imaginative storytelling to keep viewers engaged.
Keep in mind that 60% of Instagram stories are seen with sound on, so make sure to invest in a strong audio experience for your audience.
9. Include a link to Instagram Stories in your post.
Links in stories, which were previously exclusively available to verified Instagram account users, are now available to everyone.
To include a link, simply publish your photo or video to Instagram as usual. Then, at the top of the screen, hit the link icon. Fill in the link, run a brief preview to ensure everything is in order, then click ‘done.’ Remember to include a call to action (CTA) in your tale so that users understand what they’re swiping up for.
That may appear to be an easy solution, but it’s critical for increasing Instagram traffic to your website.
10. Make good use of emojis
Emojis, especially on Instagram, have the power of images over words. With thousands (and growing) of emoticons to choose from, it’s critical to develop an emoji strategy that captures your identity without appearing too casual.
Emojis, when used correctly, may help you inject personality and fun into your business, as well as assist you create a stronger emotional connection with your audience. Emojis are so common among Millenials and Gen Z that they see texts without them as “cold.”
First, examine whether emojis are fit for your business — for example, if you provide financial aid, are they appropriate?
Second, double-check that you understand their significance to verify that you’re using them appropriately, and decide how many and how often you should use them to boost Instagram engagement.
Finally, keep in mind that emojis cut both ways, reflecting what your followers think about your postings, so keep an eye out for emojis to use as sentiment indicators in the comments section.
Read our Emojis and Emotions report to learn all a marketer needs to know about emojis.
11. Use other social media channels to promote your Instagram channel.
Make as many people aware of your Instagram channel as possible. Make an announcement on Facebook, for example, promoting your Instagram account with a clickable link to your Instagram profile.
Instagram’s auto-posting and cross-promotional technologies can also be used. The cross-promotional features allow you to post directly from Instagram to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and other social media platforms, bringing followers from all of your accounts together.
Keep in mind that if you cross-promote all of your Instagram posts to other social media platforms, you risk ‘cannibalizing’ your material and eliminating the need for followers to visit your Instagram channel in the first place.
12. Include call-to-actions (CTAs) across the site.
Your Instagram advertising may have a lot of likes, but make sure that all of that love is leading someplace by implementing a strong Instagram call to action.
While CTAs can be incorporated into your profile, photographs, or caption language, using the official CTA buttons that Instagram makes available to businesses is the most direct approach to enhance interaction rates and drive followers in a certain direction.
These show below your article and are great for sending short, punchy CTAs like ‘Learn More’ and ‘Call Now’ that grab the attention of your followers. Go here to see the greatest Instagram call to action examples and learn how to make them.
13. Keep track of your best-performing Instagram content and learn from it.
Learn the content “formula” that will increase your Instagram engagement rates and apply it to your Instagram marketing strategy. There are a variety of methods for doing so, including finding the most effective hashtags and graphic styles, as well as learning when the ideal times to publish are.
You can build best practices for your own brand by monitoring it in this way. Consider using a social media management tool like Brandwatch. Social listening and analytics will aid in the refinement of your marketing plan and the growth of Instagram engagement.
