Small businesses have it tougher when it comes to Instagram marketing and raising brand awareness. Those who have a big fund of resources will always be ahead. Nevertheless, it does not mean that you should forget about success with a small budget.
There are many sure-fire tactics on how to monetize Instagram and improve things even if you are unwilling to spend anything in the first place. Find it hard to believe? Well, then you should continue reading.
1. Find Your Audience
Everything starts with building an account. If you do not have enough followers and engagement, the whole thing will be in vain.
But getting random followers is also out of the question. You need to target a specific demographic which will turn into clients later.
Start by looking at your competition. Use Instagram Insights to see the stats of their followers and make it a priority to get them to join your brand as well.
The other way to increase your followers’ number is to find influencers on Instagram whose interests are the same as your product. For instance, if you own a small organic lipstick production you can find influencers who are interested in beauty or natural skincare and work with them. For that, you can use influencer marketing platforms like Humanz or Grin, to find the influencer who will be the best fit for your brand by filtering all required features.
2. Appealing Content
Sticking to nothing but promotional posts is not a good strategy. First of all, it will become boring in a matter of weeks. And as soon as your engagement starts to drop, Instagram’s algorithm will no longer be interested in your content.
You need to keep things fresh. Ask for guest posts, share inspiring quotes or interesting articles related to your niche, etc.
3. Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are a feature that has not been around for a long time is making a lot of businesses look at Instagram marketing from another perspective.
A story is active for just 24 hours, and this format is perfect to bait people into keeping a close eye on your profile. Teasing content on your stories page, such as behind-the-scenes footage or exclusive deals will keep everyone on their toes.
4. Contests
Even if you are still starting, it should not be a problem running a contest or two and giving out discount codes or free prizes.
Contests are one of the oldest techniques of social media marketing. It is easy to get a lot of engagement because everyone loves free stuff even if they do not really need it.
Just ask them to like and leave a comment to enter the contest, and you will see those numbers rising immediately.
5. Interact
Building a relationship with your followers is possible by genuinely interacting with them. Whenever you see someone asking a question, be the first to respond. You need to look more like a human, not a corporation.
Cooperating with other profiles in your industry could also improve things. You can start leaving comments, giving shoutouts, sharing their articles without them asking you. If they notice your work, it is highly likely that these businesses will also return the favor.
6. Profile
Bio is important. It shows what kind of a brand you are. There is no formula on how to correctly fill out your profile, but you can take a creative approach and include some emojis and formatting. Do avoid overdoing things since the main purpose of the bio is still to show what your business is about rather than how funny or creative you can be.
7. Hashtags
You can find a lot of tools to research hashtags on the internet. It helps when you see how many posts appear every day using certain hashtags. At first, it will be difficult to stand out using the most popular tags, so look for something different.
Once things start to pick up, consider using hashtags unique to your brand and campaigns as they make you stand out from other posts. Not to mention that it becomes easier to find your posts.
8. Only High-Quality Images
Instagram was created as a platform to share pictures. This has not changed, it is just that people have started to pump out content with the intent to make money.
Every single picture you use has to be of the highest quality. It should be a no-brainer that you need to get a camera if your smartphone is not good enough. Also, refrain from default Instagram filters and instead edit photos with software like Photoshop or Lightroom.
9. Create Accounts for Interaction
Even if some consider this cheating, Instagram itself allows you to log in to up to 5 accounts on every device.
Those who have trouble getting natural comments and likes should definitely create extra accounts and switch to them immediately after the post goes live, liking it and leaving a comment with each account.
10. Try New Things
Instagram continues to evolve and there are changes in the business side of things all the time. You need to keep up with it and not fall behind. Otherwise, your competition will overtake you, making it extremely difficult to catch up to them.
To sum everything up, these tips should do wonders if you are new to Instagram marketing and still have not grasped its most important things. Sticking to your plan and following this article is a great way to accomplish your goal of raising brand awareness on social media.
