This article reveals some business tips how to promote your profile or brand in Instagram. If you want to make your brand popular, check the text below.
Business Tips: How to Promote Goods in Instagram
Massive following and liking cause only irritation among Instagram users. Every day, Instagram users around the world publish on average about 70 million posts and put 2.5 billion likes. Among them, there is a lot of advertising. However, not all bloggers and startups understand how to behave in social networks, attract and retain the audience. Content writing services might be helpful in social media marketing (SMM) too, for they do not only answer students’ “Who can write my essay”.
Social Network as a Platform for Business
Every user of Instagram probably at least once noticed new subscribers with the names of online stores. They were the first to promote Instagram-accounts with the methods tested on other social networks such as mass-following or mass-liking. In the first case, they massively send requests to become friends, in the second – they “like” their photos. In both cases, marketers rely on the response of people. For a while, these methods worked, but now the situation has changed. Mass-following was stopped by the social network: now the account is blocked for a period of one to ten days if the number of friend requests was higher than the established limit. The mass-liking came to naught: users began to perceive the likes of companies as “white noise” and stopped responding to them. SMM specialists highlight some ways to attract the audience that really work in Instagram.
Discounts
You may offer your subscribers a nice bonus for placing photos in their accounts. This can be a fixed discount (3.5 or 10% off from the purchase price) or discount for the number of likes (for example, 1 like = 10 cents). Thus, the user receives a discount equal to the number of likes from his/her friends by placing a photo with the required hashtag. Sometimes marketers are afraid that in this case, subscribers will receive too much discount. However, if the discount is 10$ and the cost of the goods is 12$, this means that your profile was seen by 100 people, most of whom probably did not know about the existence of your account at all before.
Competitions
All people love gifts, especially when the gift is presented by the brand and when nothing special needs to be done to receive it. Ask your subscribers to publish a photo of your product in their accounts with proper hashtags. The user who gets more likes receives the present.
In another case, your subscribers may take a photo with your product, and the best photo you will place on your account page. In order to stimulate subscribers, promise a small gift to the winner.
Help of the Stars
Nowadays, there are two types of “stars” in Instagram: people known outside the social network (for example, singers, actors, politicians, TV hosts), and bloggers. It is possible to offer them to tell about the goods.
Promotion of goods in a popular Instagram-accounts can be expensive. However, as a payment, you can try to offer your products to the blogger. For example, if you sew dresses, then give one of them. In the case of very popular accounts, barter will not work: the publication will cost money. The main task, in this case, is to choose the right place where the targeted audience is concentrated.
In the case of the media personality, it is desirable to avoid direct advertising. It is better when the top blogger posts a photo with the signature “A friend gave it to me, and I am very grateful. And also thanks to the manufacturer, here is a link.” Then the subscribers of the blogger’s channel, following the leader of opinions, are very likely to buy the same goods.
You can either do everything independently or give this task to outsourcing exchanges that sell promotion places in Instagram and provide a list of top bloggers with which they cooperate. Placement through the exchange can cost from 50$ to 1000$. Of course, if the budget is limited, it is better to negotiate with local bloggers and stars directly.
Helpful Tips
- Add hashtags of interests to your posts. Determine which of these is most often targeted by your audience. For example, if you are doing something about the style or fashion, then your hashtags are “fashionkilla” or “girlythings.”
- Mark the places. Geotargeting allows you to accurately target advertising materials to the audience on a regional basis. Only a few people know that even if a person does not put a geolocation, the photograph is still attached to the place of “its birth.” Therefore, it remains only to set up the campaign in such a way as to show the advertising materials to users within the selected geographical area: region, country, city, or several cities.
- Create personal accounts. Try using mascots – accounts that are maintained on behalf of the character. With this approach, people want to subscribe to an account and show it to friends.
- More beautiful photos. Even if you sell visually unattractive goods, such as paint cans, this does not mean that the path to Instagram is closed. Think wider: post not the goods, but what you can do with it. Let it be door painted with your paint or floor covered with your laminate.
- Open backstage. Show followers not only the official photos of your products but also how the work process goes. If you sew clothes, photograph yourself at work, if you sell electronics, demonstrate how the warehouse looks.
- Always react to the mention of a brand, work with a reputation. In this case, you can turn even negative users into your subscribers.
- Do not distance the account in Instagram from other social networks. After posting the photo, after a while share it, for example, on Facebook, adding some text support. In this case, users will know that you are present in many social networks, and will choose the most convenient way of communication.
Instagram is a perspective platform to start and promote your own brand. So, we hope that the tips above will come in handy and you will do your best to reach the success.