Instagram is not just a place where millennials go to post food pictures. There’s real money changing hands; influenced by the power of the social media platform. As a result of this, Instagram now has the ability to promote and sell products; moving closer to becoming a full ecommerce site.
So why is Instagram the secret to retail success? At VerriBerri, an Instagram business marketing agency, we reveal four ways your brand can benefit from the platform.
VISUAL PLATFORM
Statistics show that 40% of people respond better to visual information than just plain text. If you have attractive products, Instagram is the ideal platform to display them. The most important part to Instagram is ensuring your posts are visually appealing so they help to sell your products. Make sure your images are high quality and artistic to encourage your target audience to like and engage with your content.
If you are unable to showcase your services, why not invest in influencer marketing to illustrate them? That way, you can increase your brand awareness and customer perception of your business. Furthermore, get creative! We offer services rather than products and tend to post about our team, our successes, and life in the office! Your imagination is the only thing holding you back.
SHOPPABLE POSTS
Have you ever seen something online that you just had to buy? Instagram has bridged the gap between social media marketing and e-commerce with shoppable posts. By setting up shoppable Instagram posts, your retail brand will be able to successfully maximise their impact on their target audience; by shopping straight from the app.
CONTENT MARKETING
Content marketing is now the number one way to successfully promote your brand. Retail brands are now creating shorts. These are mobile-friendly stories that communicate a compelling story; relevant to their brand message. As a result of this, retail brands are able to build a relationship with their consumers and encourage buying.
The basics of Instagram.
Make sure you have a business account
When it comes to social media marketing, VerriBerri recommends transforming your profile into a business account if you haven’t already. It allows you to receive insights into your audience and your engagement rate. This will automatically improve your content as you will be able to analyse what types of posts your audience engages with most, and when. In order to receive these insights, you’re going to need to connect your Instagram account to a Facebook page which can be done in ‘settings’.
Profile optimisation.
With all social media accounts, optimising your profile is essential to attract your ideal target audience. Firstly, make sure your business account is on ‘public’, so everyone can see your posts. You’re going to need to think about your profile picture, after all, first impressions are everything.
Our team recommend using your logo or a familiar image that your audience will recognise. With regards to your bio, you’re going to want to keep it short and concise; communicating exactly who you are and what you can do.
Content.
Once your Instagram profile is set, it’s time to start thinking about the sort of content you want to post. This will become easier once you start to realise what your audience engages with. However, at the start, post content which not only represents your brands’ personality and ethics but also considers posting ‘behind the scenes’ of your employees etc. to make your company have a face and not just a name.
Gain a following.
Despite having over 500 million users, building a following on Instagram is like taking two steps forward and one back. Typically, you gain a significant number of followers after posting then they unfollow just a day later, taking you back to almost where you started.
Our Instagram business marketing agency do not condone purchasing fake followers. But it’s easy to understand why many brands and influencers choose this route when building their Instagram following.
A study by independent campaign measurement firm Campaign Deus found that 12% of UK influencers have bought fake followers in the first six months of 2018. The findings were based on an analysis of nearly 700,000 posts, identifying ‘bot-buyers’ by the low engagement rates and inexplicable jumps in follower count.
So why are influencers purchasing fake followers?
With the number of high-profile brands looking to recruit influencers for brand partnerships, Instagram users are purchasing followers for as little as a couple of hundred pounds to look ‘relevant and successful’.
However, the poor engagement rate can provide an insight into activity – telling others whether or not you have purchased fake followers. Therefore, as an influencer, it’s important to build an organic following if you want to appear as genuine. The same also goes for business who want to appear authentic on social media. No one will trust you if you are using underhand tactics.
Brands and bloggers alike want a high following on social media platforms like Instagram. However, they believe it’s important to build this following naturally with successful social media marketing strategies.
Instagram business marketing agency TOP 3 takeaways:
1. Choose a style and theme
As above, by designing a style and theme for your Instagram account, you set the tone, overall mood and feel of your account. That’s why it’s important to think about how you want your overall Instagram feed to look; dark, colourful, natural, minimalist, or vintage. This will determine the types of photos/videos you will share and decide on a colour palette.
We recommend choosing three to five colours and sticking to them – this will be your colour palette for Instagram. From here, you can start developing your unique style by using the same filter over and over again and make your feed look cohesive.
2. Using hashtags
Now, with your feed looking great, it’s time to help people find it. This is where you will need to use hashtags – which helps Instagram group your content into chosen categories. Here at VerriBerri we recommend using a mixture of hashtags: descriptive, category, expertise, brands, community and location, as these will push your posts out to the maximum amount of people.
3. Try videos, live videos and stories
While Instagram started as a photo-sharing network, it has grown beyond posting photos now. With features like videos, live videos and Instagram Stories, brands can now create many types of different content for their fans to engage with as well as grow their following.
These features allow your followers to get a behind-the-scenes look at how you run your business and how down to earth you are. When it comes to posting as a business, we find posting personal tips and tricks work best – especially when you can tie them into your business in some way. Remember – people buy from people not faceless brands.
To find out more about how our Instagram business marketing agency can grow your following, get in touch today.