With over 800 million monthly users, Instagram is a force to be reckoned with. There are thousands of brands and a number of high profile B2B organizations using Instagram to increase brand awareness, engage with the audience and ultimately attract new customers.
We’ve compiled actionable tips to help you take your business to the next level on Instagram.
1. Use authentic, real-time user-generated content
Forget stock photography and stage promotional pictures. Your potential customers on Instagram want authentic content that offers a personal look at your company’s culture and product offers.
Real-time content such as live video/live streaming is unfiltered and entirely yours. In this way, you can establish a real connection with your audience and potential customers. Highly professional-looking content can often feel cold. Your customers want to know that there are real people and real stories behind your brand.
2. Be fast and versatile
Instagram makes it incredibly easy to post photos or videos directly on your phone via the app. Just launch the app, press the add button and select the photo or video you want to upload – it’s that simple.
The advantage of this is that you don’t have to spend a lot of time creating content. You can upload a variety of content anywhere, anytime, without much advance planning or editing. Different types of content not only attract different members of your audience, but also showcase different aspects of your business.
3. Engage
Just like any other social media channel, it’s important that you not only post content but also engage more. Don’t just post pictures and videos, reply to your community when they leave a response. Take time to check other Instagram profiles, leave a friendly comment on some content.
If you take the time to interact with others, your audience is more likely to take the time to interact with you.
4. Bio link is best
While Instagram doesn’t allow you to link to websites within the titles of posts, you can add one to your bio. Instagram bio can contain 150 characters – link included. You can add a link to your bio for the latest blog post or offers. You can also use tools like Linktree to create a custom link with a page with more links. Linktree let you share up to five links and get the most out of your bio links!
Alternatively, Instagram stories are a great way to include links in your content. Not only the 24-hour streaming of stories limitation, it’s also a great tool to provide real-time offers and value.
5. Tell a story with each post
Businesses that tell the most interesting stories on Instagram make up the biggest viewers. If you want to engage people and interact them with you, you need consistent visual storytelling that cuts all the noise on Instagram.
Don’t limit your focus to general photo and video posts. The Instagram story feature allows you to create a slideshow, photo or video. Tell a story with your co-listed posts and provide a more personalized experience to your audience.
6. Stay away from flashy measurements
While the increase in clicks and likes can be helpful, it doesn’t tell you if the right people are really interested in your content. Instead, look for real engagement indicators like people commenting on your posts and new followers in your niche. These two metrics better show how well you are performing and how much your business is actually doing.
You can read our Social Media Marketing for Business post to learn how to create a social media strategy for your business.
