When you run a small business, making sure that you spend your marketing budget wisely is extremely important. Instagram is a great choice if you’re looking to grow your small business. You can use it to promote your services or products and connect with more customers on a limited budget. Here are 5 top tips to market your business using Instagram’s free marketing tools and techniques.
1. Post Content Regularly
One of the most important things to do if you want your business to stand out and grow on Instagram is to post content regularly. Usually, posting two to ten times per day tends to be the most effective for brands. Remember to include a link in your bio if you want to direct followers back to your website. Similarly, offering a weekly series can help boost engagement with your profile. It’s a good way to cover different topics and share more information about your business, products and services.
2. Introduce Your Business Using Stories
Followers are more inquisitive than ever. If you really want to connect with them and be memorable, make sure that you share your story with your followers. Instagram Stories provides the ideal platform to introduce your business and the types of products or services that you offer. Through short video clips, you can quickly create much more intimate and personal content to share. Even though they only last for 24 hours, you can save Stories to your profile “highlights”. This will allow your followers to view them at other times too.
“Nowadays, people are much more interested in learning about the ethics, intentions and histories of companies and businesses,” says Freddie Edmonds, a business writer at Liahelp and OX Essays. “This is especially true if you’re just starting out or have a small, independent business. Share your journey with your followers using Stories. Tell people about your moments of struggle and share successes too. Another really popular strategy is to share behind-the-scenes content with your audience so that they can get some insight into your business and feel more connected to it.”
3. Interact With Other Users
While you may be really proud of your services or products, simply showcasing these and nothing else won’t help grow your business on Instagram. After all, it’s a social platform, so you need to create a balance between marketing content and other lifestyle content too.
Similarly, you want to ensure that followers engage with your content. This means spending some time interacting with other users regularly yourself. By taking some time to like or comment on the posts of your followers or of other brands that you admire, you help to develop your brand identity and show that you care about your followers, not just your business.
4. Create A Branded Hashtag
Hashtags are important for helping to improve your business’ brand visibility. Ideally, you should aim for three to ten hashtags per post, but these should be relevant to the content you’re posting.
“A really useful strategy is to create a branded hashtag for your business that users can follow. This will make your business easier to find, as well as help you connect with more people who share your interests and passions. Users can then use your branded hashtag to create user-generated content which you can also comment on and like, which will help to build a community for your business and brand,” says Vicky Raines, a marketing blogger at Paper Fellows and State of writing.
5. Host Q&A Sessions
Hosting a Q&A session on Instagram Live, or using the Instagram Stories Question Sticker to gather questions, is a fantastic way to interact with your followers and build a more meaningful relationship with them. Not only can you answer their questions, but you can also use it as an opportunity to shine focus on some lesser-known products or services you may offer.
Conclusion
Instagram is a great platform to use if you’re trying to market your business without spending lots of money. The key is to create and post a range of engaging and meaningful content regularly and interact with your followers. By sharing behind-the-scenes content or hosting Q&A sessions, you’ll also allow your brand’s identity to shine through and become more accessible. To get the most from Instagram as a marketing tool, make sure that you spend some time planning and scheduling great content.
Elizabeth Hines is an experienced digital marketer and content writer at UK Writings and Academized. She regularly writes articles about the latest tech and marketing trends, innovations and strategies. Elizabeth also writes for Boom Essays, as well as a range of other online magazines and blogs and enjoys sharing tips with her readers on how to improve and develop their social media marketing strategies. When not writing, Elizabeth enjoys doing street photography and going for long walks.
