Why and How You Should Use Instagram for Your Business
Why use Instagram for your business?
Instagram continues to grow as one of the most popular social media platforms. The statistics tell us that it’s not going to change anytime soon.
Continue reading to learn about 10 important reasons why and how you should use Instagram for your business.
10 Important Reasons Why You Should Use Instagram to Grow Your Business
1. Instagram is The Fastest Growing Social Media Platform
Instagram reached 1 billion active users as of June 2018 and is the fastest growing social media platform. Since June 2013 it’s grown 10 times (Statista, 2019).
Engagement on Instagram is 10 times higher than Facebook which makes a great opportunity to promote your business (Lyfemarketing, 2018)
Also there are more and more older generations hopping to Instagram. And these people have a better financial capacity than let say TikToks users that are more teenagers.
If you have been ignoring your business’s Instagram account it’s definitely the right time to build your community and improve your engagement.
2. People are Spending Much Time on Instagram
People spend almost as much time on Instagram as they spend on Facebook. Facebook users spend on average 58 minutes on the platform every day compared to Instagram users 53 minutes per day (Recode, 2019).
The time spent on Instagram is important. The more time people spend on the platform, the more advertisements they see, and the more chance they have to be aware of your brand.
Instagram also revealed that introducing the Instagram Story feature and IGTV increased the number of time people were spending on the platform.
3. Any Type of Business Can Succeed on Instagram
Instagram is becoming more popular for businesses. An estimated 71% of US businesses are using Instagram to promote their brand. Furthermore, 80% of businesses are considering Instagram engagement as the most important metric (Mention, 2018).
With all of those users on Instagram, the sky is the limit to what a business can achieve. That goes for big, well-known companies as well as smaller businesses.
Of course, even for the largest companies, success will not come overnight. If a business wants to get their organization on the map, they can do so by keeping an active engagement and maintaining consistency of at least one post per day.
Companies have a great opportunity to market their products on Instagram. Firstly there’s a huge market, but secondly, there’s also an engaged and interested audience that you can reach without spending large amounts of money.
4. Your Business Can Make Money Directly From Instagram with Shoppable Posts
83% of Instagram users say they discover new products or services on Instagram and 80% says Instagram helps them to decide whether to buy a product or service (Facebook, 2019). In other words, they are using Instagram as a platform to become inspired. The same study also shows that by just having an Instagram account, brands can make a positive impression on potential customers.
Instagram has introduced a new feature called shoppable posts which makes it easier for businesses to make money through Instagram. This means that businesses can add tags to the products in their photos with links that include a product description, price and the ability to “shop now,”. This feature will lead the customer to your online store and it has become easier for businesses to attract paying customers to their site. With the majority of Instagram users, 72 percent, have purchased products through the platform, this potential is hard to ignore (Businessinsider, 2017)
5. Use Instagram Stories to Build Trust
Instagram is a great way to show potential customers that you are more than just a boring company. This can be done through many of the app’s features, but you can really make an impression with live posts and stories.
Instagram launched Instagram Stories in 2016 (Instagram 2016). This cool feature allows users to share photos or videos which disappear after 24-hours.
The best way to use Stories is to show behind-the-scenes insights into your company and the people who work there. For example, videos that show how products are made, videos of office employees interacting with each other, and live Q&A sessions.
Instagram Stories are also a great way to build trust and credibility with your audience, as well as showing that there’s a personal side to your business. Above all, it’s a way to make them trust more in your brand.
6. Instagram Highlights Can Be Used to Attract More Attention
Instagram Highlights are displayed on your Instagram profile page above the photo feed. They consist of previously posted Instagram Stories but last for as long as you keep that Highlight on your profile. Furthermore, they are displayed as named groupings.
Use the Highlights to call out things like new products, services, blog posts, podcasts, call to actions, promotions, testimonials, fun facts, employees and behind the scenes look into your business and more.
Businesses can place Highlight Covers strategically to their named Highlight groups to attract more attention to them. Check out our Instagram Highlight Icons to make your Instagram profile look more professional and generate more leads.
7. Instagram Engagement is High
Instagram engagement is on the rise for brands. Brands can generate over 4x more interactions on Instagram compared to Facebook (Socialbakers, 2018) Instagram engagement is the number of actions that your audience show toward your Instagram content. This could be likes, comments or shares.
Instagram is a visual content-based platform which is the reason why it has such high engagement. It offers different types of content such as photos, videos, live videos, stories, and IGTV. This gives you a great variety of content types to choose from which attracts more engagement. You can get more engagement by taking high-quality photos, using local hashtags and partnering with other brands. People love to make their opinions known, especially if they like something. The more likes and comments you get, the more visible your company becomes.
If you’re a brand or business, you should certainly take advantage of Instagram’s potential for engagement and increase interactions.
8. Influencers Can Promote Your Business on Instagram
Influencers are people who will influence and promote a brand or product and take it into the mainstream.
An influencer can bring your sales to a whole other level with a high return on investment and access to customers that you wouldn’t normally reach. Hence if you use influencers with many followers, they can promote your company or product to millions of followers with just a few posts.
In 2019, 80% of marketers find influencer marketing effective and nearly two-thirds plan to increase their spend (Mediakix, 2019)
9. Hashtags are Increasing Your Visibility
Hashtags are a combination of letters, numbers, and emoji preceded by the # symbol. This means if you click on a hashtag or search for it you will see a page with all the posts tagged with it.
If you incorporate the right hashtags on your Instagram posts, you will see higher engagement and visibility than you would if you didn’t have any. Hashtags are essentially keywords that tell what your content in the post is about. Even more, you can also create a brand hashtag for a specific campaign or to just promote your company culture, products, or services (Hootsuite, 2019).
10. Access To The Most Advanced Social Media Advertising
Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO, bought Instagram a few years back. Due to this, Instagram’s capabilities broadened to start matching Facebook’s capabilities. Facebook is the most targeted form of advertising. You can advertise to people by age, interests, behavior, and location on Facebook. This means you can now do the same on Instagram (LyfeMarketing, 2018)
Conclusion
Instagram is a powerful marketing tool for businesses that would like to increase their visibility and reach. In conclusion, if your brand is not including Instagram to your social media marketing, you’re missing out a huge opportunity.