Marketer’s Guide to Instagram Stories – As the only photo-sharing app on the market, Instagram has an exclusive grip on various user groups. With more than 500 million users logging into the platform daily, Instagram’s popularity is indisputable.
Table of Contents
Marketer’s Guide to Instagram Stories – What is Instagram Marketing?
Instagram marketing refers to the process by which brands leverage the power of Instagram to reach their target spectators to build brand awareness and share products. The platform offers marketers or businesses a variety of ways to connect with the audiences they want, including paid and free options.
Why Should Marketers Care About Instagram?
The platform is home to 32 per cent of 25-34-year-olds, while the photo-sharing app is home to spectators of all ages, with 18 per cent of 35-44-year-olds and 11 per cent of 45-44-year-olds. At the age of 54, she is actively using the Instagram platform.
These numbers reveal that despite false audience perception, your target audience is likely to log into Instagram, and you should greet them with content when they log in.
In addition to the large volume and diversity of users, 90 per cent of Instagram users follow businesses, and two out of three business profile visits are from non-followers.
This organic interaction with companies is excellent when compared to other social platforms. Let’s take Facebook, for example. A study on social media engagement found that brands saw an average engagement rate of 0.09 per cent per Facebook post. At the same time, Instagram had an average engagement rate of 1.60 per cent per Instagram post.
That’s a big difference, shifting the pendulum in favour of Instagram. Beyond these metrics, Instagram is a marketer’s dream for various reasons. We break down the following.
Narration: While Instagram does not focus on the traditional method of written storytelling, the platform is about distributing a story through photos. Marketers are all about sharing a story through messaging. The venue is the perfect place to bring your brand story to life through aesthetically attractive posts, stories and ads.
Reach: Over 1 billion accounts use Instagram every month. Billion. The platform offers virtually unlimited reach to the masses, allowing you to expand your reach significantly.
Community engagement: We mentioned Instagram’s high engagement rates with brands. Beyond this number, Instagram offers marketers unique opportunities to connect with community members and encourage conversation and interaction.
Competitive lens: Even if you don’t currently use Instagram marketing as a strategy, your competition probably has a good chance. Leverage the platform’s visibility to evaluate what your competitors are posting, performing well, and not doing. Gather best practices for your community by learning what failed and what succeeded for your direct competitors.
Combined with usage statistics, these four benefits of Instagram marketing make being on the platform necessary.
Marketer’s Guide to Instagram Stories – How Do I Advertise My Brand on Instagram?
While this all sounds great in theory, how do you get the actual practice of marketing your brand operationally on Instagram?
The following section details everything from setting up your business account to solving the mystery of Instagram advertising analytics.
Grow a free Instagram commercial account. Setting up your free Instagram business account is relaxed.
Create an account (you can transfer your pre-existing personal account to a business account by subsequent similar steps) and then record that account as a business. Choose the expand three-bar button in the top right corner of your profile, then select the settings cog.
Once here, you can change your account from personal to Business by switching to professional performance and selecting Business.
Customize your Instagram business account
Once you’ve set up your Business, you can begin enhancing your profile for success.
Instagram suggests trading various unique features not found in personal accounts; It would be wise to take advantage of them.
Contact information: Include your physical address, email address, and phone number so groups can contact you directly. When you add this contact information, Instagram automatically creates the relevant buttons (search, get directions, email).
Category or Categories: These groups appear as circular themes under your name and are a simple way to showcase your brand’s piece.
Call-to-action buttons: Explicitly planned for your business offers, these buttons allow visitors to perform specific actions, such as making an appointment or reservation. To include these buttons in your profile, select Edit Profile, Connection Options, and then Add Action Button.
Marketer’s Guide to Instagram Stories – Create an Instagram Marketing Strategy
Whether you’re just starting or looking to improve your Instagram advertising strategy, the following four steps can help you create thoughtful and successful campaigns.
Set some goals. These will vary from Business to Business, depending on your end goal. Whether you want to acquire new principals or place your brand as an industry leader, you require clearly defined goals for your campaigns to succeed.
Keyword research is crucial to a successful digital campaign. It is no different than Instagram. Although Instagram is home to stunning images, many discoveries happen through hashtags. Keywords serve as the basis for discovery on the platform, as the platform relies heavily on hashtags to help users find relevant content.
Define your audience. We’ve already proven that the Instagram audience is vast, but that doesn’t mean your target audience is your target audience. A clearly defined audience increases your chances of reaching people more likely to take the action you want.
Research service competitors to identify best practices for your market. As you build your Instagram marketing strategy, review competitor data for an accurate view of their performance. By comparing competitor data with your own, you can get a realistic view of performance and design your strategies accordingly.
Start Publishing Content
Once you’ve established a measurable strategy and created your profile, publishing content is time.
However, it would help if you considered what you’re posting, when, and the aesthetics of your post before you decide to post.
On any social platform, your Business must convey the brand’s voice. This audio doesn’t just refer to actual written text: it includes the colour palette, post type, subject of your posts, and hashtags.
Colour
Colour psychology plays a significant role in content marketing, as specific colours trigger an emotional response in the viewer. When choosing a colour palette for your Instagram posts, select hues that capture your brand’s overall message.
Another Kind
Instagram offers marketers some post types, including standard photo posts, reels, IGTV, and more. The post type is also related to the brand of the Business.
Is the work you are promoting fun and casual or formal?
For the more casual Business, engaging and entertaining videos are a surefire way to grab viewers’ attention. Conversely, for more buttoned-up establishments, funny videos are probably a way to avoid them.
Hashtag
We have already debated how hashtags can support you grow your community. Instagram provides plenty of room for hashtags, with 30 fields per post. The general best practice here is to use around 11 labels.
Here also, your hashtags should reflect your brand’s ability to speak and individuality and enable potential community members to find your Business by researching their interests.
Engage With Followers
Everyone wants to listen in, and your Instagram followers are no different. Make sure they know you hear and raise them by liking their posts and responding to their comments. This practice builds goodwill towards your Business and encourages your followers to engage with you more.
I checked out this post from Supergoop, a sunscreen brand that responds to followers and encourages followers to tag friends in chat. This tactic improves reach and recognition.
Reach
Through reach metrics, you study how many sole accounts observed your post.
If your post received an unusually high or low reach score, you could evaluate the factors that contributed to the score. What hashtags did you use? When was it published? Was your call to action (CTA) clear?
Requesting these questions based on reach metrics can help you augment future campaigns for better presentation.
Sales
Drive people to your website by adding UTM parameters to links alongside Instagram’s shopping features.
This functionality allows you to track conversions, including how much revenue you generate on Instagram. These metrics are stored in the web analytics software of your choice and can provide concrete insights into how much traffic your Instagram marketing strategy is driving and what content is converting into actual sales.
Memorize
Instagram postings allow users to “save” posts for later by selecting “Bookmark” below the post.
By tracking savings over time, you can identify which parts of your content are saving the most and adjust your Instagram marketing strategy to reflect that.
While many other metrics that Instagram marketing strategists can examine, these three provide a clear view of what content is performing well, informing current and future strategies.
Marketer’s Guide to Instagram Stories – Conclusion
Marketer’s Guide to Instagram Stories – Diving into the world of Instagram marketing may seem confusing, but using strategies will make your job easier. As you build your profile and engage with your audience, monitor your metrics, whether from the app itself or an external platform like Google Analytics. Continuously monitor and adapt your posts with these metrics. In the world of digital advertising, things move very fast; You should be able to modify your best practices accordingly.