We all know what Instagram is as a social media app, it is just an online platform on which you can share your own posts, engage with other posts, get followed, and also follow other people as well but do you know how you can also get sales and traffic from Instagram with growing your brand name as well?
If we compare all the other photo-sharing apps such as Snapchat which is at the top of the list after Instagram, they are still way far behind Instagram, as in 2022, Instagram has over 1.4 billion users, that’s almost the whole population of China, the country with the most people in the world.
What do I mean by Instagram marketing?
By Instagram marketing, I am referring to a process where you will be promoting your products and services and making awareness about your brand on Instagram and to its users by doing marketing on it.
Will Instagram work for you?
Some people have the wrong image of Instagram in their mind thinking that getting sales from Instagram will be hard for them just because the products they promote are not for the audience on Instagram which is totally wrong, as Instagram has audiences of all niches.
It is a reality that Instagram works better for B2C products but does not mean that promoting or marketing B2B products will be a complete failure, it just means that B2C works better than B2B on Instagram.
Also, Instagram has an audience for all niches whether it is for cosmetics or it is for hosting websites, all types of users are available on Instagram.
Not only that but Instagram has a lot of diversity in the ages of its users, it is a fact that most of its audience is between 25-34 years old but that does not mean that audience of other ages, both younger and older do not exist, in fact, 11% of Instagram users have an age between 45 and 54 years and if we calculate that, that is hundreds of millions of users who are of that age.
Why you should do Instagram marketing?
Why you should be doing Instagram marketing when you are already utilizing other social media platforms for marketing, then why you should divide your time between Instagram and other platforms?
Since there are already millions of businesses on Instagram which is marketing regularly on it, growing their sales and their brand names as well, your competitors in your niche will also be doing the same on Instagram marketing and utilizing it to defeat your brand name.
So, to tally beat your competition, you will need to utilize Instagram marketing as well as other platforms.
Competition is not the only reason you should try Instagram marketing, Instagram also provides better engagement on marketing posts than other top platforms such as Facebook, you might be surprised to know that Instagram provides a way better and many times improve engagement rate with business-related posts than Facebook.
On Facebook, the average engagement rate with business posts was about 0.1% while the same engagement rate on Instagram was much higher, as high as 1.60%.
Create your professional business account on Instagram
Just like other social media platforms, obviously, you will need an account to do market on Instagram as well, so just go ahead and create your account if you already have not done that.
You can use your Email, Facebook, or Google account to just simply create your account and after you have created your account, now it is time to that yo convert that personal account into a professional business account.
In order to do that, click on the three horizontal lines which will be appearing at the top right corner of your screen, there you will see a drop-down menu.
From the drop-down menu, click on Settings, and the icon of settings will look like a wheel of some kind.
Then you will see a new menu, and from there you will see an option which will say switch to a professional account, click on that option and then choose Business afterward, and there you go, your professional account is ready.
You are almost done making your account, but there is just one really simple thing that is still left and that is to provide contact information, your topics, and your call to action.
To add the contact information, you can just add your Mobile phone number and your email so that if anyone wants to contact you after visiting your profile, they can easily do that.
For the topic field, just add all the topics which are related to you and to your business so anyone can know what your brand is all about and they do not have any confusion lefts about your brand.
Last but not the least, it is now the time to you had your call to action.
In this field, you can just add an action that you want your visitors to take such as buying your product
Create your content strategy
After you have totally set up your profile, now you should start posting content on your profile.
But now you will be thinking that what type of content you should post on Instagram to get success with your posts and how will you decide that?
well, do not worry.
Instagram users are not very much strict about which types of posts they want to see, It has been observed that Instagram users like all kinds of posts whether they are statistics, whether that are inspirational and motivational quotes or whether the post is of some other kind, chances are that if the posts are good enough, you will end up getting a good amount of engagement rate.
But this also does not mean that you should be posting similar content again and again which will make your Instagram audience bored of you and they will start avoiding your posts in the future.
Well to know what type of posts you should be posting on your Instagram, you will need to test it out by posting the different types of content.
Neil Patel which is a very successful digital marketer said that he tested out different types of content on Instagram and the type which performed the best, then he continued with that type and he started getting engagement ad followers.
But you will also need to keep another thing in mind as well that Neil Patel also told us that with the number of his followers changing, his strategy also started changing.
So I suggest that you go and make a plan where you will be testing different types of content from video to image, from images showing stats or you may call them infographics to inspirational images, and then the type of posts which perform the best you will need to stick with it.
Even after you have found the right type of content to post on Instagram, you should keep doing tests over a period of time because you will never know that there is another type of content that can perform even better for you so in this way your content will keep improving and with your content, your engagement rate, and followers will also keep increasing.
Another thing that you will need to keep in you reminds that always post quality content, and never post content that does not provide value because if you do so, your posts will not get any engagement.
If this happens, then they will send negative signals to the Instagram algorithm which will tell The algorithm to step recommend your posts, in this way whenever you will post quality content, your posts will not get recommended so that is why you should always post content which has the highest chance of getting more and more engagement rate so that your posts can get recommended to more and more people.
Use Instagram Hashtags
Instagram Hashtags mean those words which are added after entering # in the caption of posts.
Hashtags originated from Twitter back in the day but then they started to take place on other platforms as well such as Facebook and Instagram.
Nowadays, Hashtags are one of the most important factors for Instagram marketing, especially when trying to have more reach with your posts and also get more engagement.
When you insert Hashtags on any type of post on Instagram, then it becomes a topic that users can click and then they will see all the top posts which are posted with the same hashtag in their caption.
In this way, Instagram users can control the type of content they want to see since they can just click on any Hashtags they like, and then they will see posts with that hashtag in their caption.
Even though all the hashtags on Instagram are added in the same way, still they are categorized into different groups which I will mention below.
One type of Hashtags is those Hashtags to which a huge audience can relate to and usually, there are not related to the type of niche you are marketing on Instagram since these Hashtags are usually in everyday life topics such as #ilovemyjob.
With such types of hashtags, you will be able to reach a huge audience, which means that you will have a lot of chances of bringing that audience into your brand.
But then there are also other types of Hashtags that are usually related directly to your niche, the one downside of these Hashtags is that you will not get the same amount of users to see your post as you could have had by using the hashtags which I mentioned earlier but then on the other side, the audience will see your posts will be able to engage with your posts in a better way since the hashtags will be more targetted towards them.
Other than these two types of hashtags, there are also other hashtags as well such as branded Hashtags, these branded Hashtags will consist of your brand name, or maybe even a catchphrase that represents your business, such Hashtags are really useful in making awareness of your brand to a whole new audience on Instagram which otherwise would not have been easy to do so.
Sometimes, Hashtags are not used to have more reach to the Instagram audience but just to engage with your audience in a better way and to make a relationship with them, Such Hashtags are called Entertainment Hashtags.
Such Hashtags are usually based on funny words with a #before them with the sole purpose by its name to entertain your audience so that they can connect with you in a better way.
How to use Instagram Hashtags effectively for your marketing
Now since we know what Hashtags are, what are their types, and for what purposes they are commonly used, now let’s talk about how you use them while also getting the most results as well.
In order to use Instagram Hashtags, first, you should know about various hashtags which are used commonly in your niche, for that you can use Instagram hashtags generators which can help you to find good hashtags with a huge amount of audience as well.
There are a lot of Instagram hashtag generators that you can use, but one free hashtag generator that you can use is on H-Supertools, just visit the website and then just start using the Instagram hashtag generator for your whole life for free.
You can add a lot of hashtags in your posts up to 30, but it has been found that using 30 hashtags is not the best strategy for utilizing Hashtags properly, Instead, it is considered a better strategy to use only about 10 hashtags on each Instagram post that you upload.
Also make sure that you add all types of hashtags both which have a large audience and the ones with a lower audience a well, that’s because the hashtags which have a large audience also have competition as well, so you will also need to compete with other posts as well when using more popular Hashtags, so that is why also mix up some less popular hashtags well so you can have the taste of both worlds.
If you have started getting results with Instagram Hashtags, then it is good but also keeps changing your hashtags with different posts as well, and avoid using the same hashtags over and over again continuously, that’s because for 2 reasons, other hashtags may even work better for you and using the same hashtags might seem like spam, so it is better to change Hashtags with your posts as well.
Use the Instagram analytic tool
It does not matter which platform you are using for marketing your digital business, if you are not using analytic tools to analyze your marketing and see the number of results that are being produced by your marketing, you are making a huge mistake.
Analytic tools help you to know how effective your marketing is going on the platform, how much profit you are getting from that marketing, and what mistakes you’re doing, you can even make a strategy on how t improve your marketing and the mistakes you are doing within the marketing by using analytic tools and Instagram is no different.
If you have decided to use Instagram as a marketing platform, you should also be ready to use its analytic tools that Instagram itself provides you for free, you will not need to pay any money for using it, then why not use it since it can help you a lot in your marketing journey and in making good and effective strategies.
Since the tool is provided by Instagram itself, you will also not need to worry about how correct the data you are being presented is, since it will almost be perfectly correct as Instagram can easily connect its analytic tool with its app.
By using the Analytics tool of Instagram, you will be able to see the number of impressions that your posts are getting, which can be very useful, especially in a situation where you do not know whether your posts are performing well or not or if you re thinking of whether you should change your content strategy on Instagram.
You can also make a strategy of what types of Hashtags you should be using if your posts are not getting enough impressions.
Impressions are not the only thing that you can find in the analytic tool of Instagram, you can also find engagement rates by using the analytic tools which I can say, can help you boost your Instagram growth to a high level.
However, keep in mind that Instagram analytics do not provide an engagement rate by themselves but you can find it by yourself by just doing a simple calculation just by using the data that Instagram is already providing you in the analytics.
To find the engagement rate, just divide the number of engagements that your post is getting by the total amount of reach that your post is getting, and then you will find the engagement rate. And you do not need to worry as the number of engagements as well as the total reach of your post is shown on Instagram.
If you find out that the engagement rate that you are getting is not enough and needs to be improved, then you can start doing a/b testing with your posts, where in one post you will try one thing, and in the other post, you will try something different and the post which performs better will be a part of your content strategy, in this way you can improve your Instagram marketing a lot.
Other than that, there are also various data parts that you will see on Instagram analytics as to how well your stories are performing, You will also see engagement trends as well.
Use Instagram stories
Instagram stories are the direct competition of Snapchat stories, in fact, they were derived as a concept from Snapchat.
stories are those posts on Instagram which appear like slides from the user’s perspective and they will disappear within 24 hours.
However, if you want that your stories keep showing up even after the limited 24 hours time has passed, then you can also do that by just highlighting some of your stories that you want to be shown even after 24 hours.
With Instagram stories, you can do a lot of different things that you cannot do with normal Instagram posts, for example, you can put links directly into your Instagram posts, you can directly share the content generated by your audience into your stories and you can also test different type of content in your stories as it will not affect your main content strategy and you will also learn which content can perform better than the other.
Utilize Instagram Reels
Let’s first discuss what Instagram reels are?
Instagram reels are those short videos on Instagram that can be up to 60 seconds but one key difference between them and Instagram stories is that Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours while Instagram reels stay forever unless the user who posted them deletes them
Instagram reels are often seen as a rival or more of a copy to TikTok by internet users but you can say whatever you want, Instagram reels are a thing ow which not only can be used for entertainment but for marketing purposes as well.
Already, big brands like Walmart have started using Instagram reels for their marketing purposes.
Since they are competing with Tiktok with this feature, Instagram has also provided their users with a lot of different editing features and other filters through which by using them, they can make their reels more and more engaging.
Instagram users can access reels in many different ways and each way will show them different types of reels. The most common and the most used way of reaching reels to is to just click on the reel button at the bottom of the Instagram app, and then you will start seeing Instagram reels that are trending over the other reels.
The other way of opening the reels tab on Instagram is to go on an Instagram profile and then from their profile, you can click on the Reels tab which will e appearing under their profile and it will show you the reels which have been posted by that Instagram profile.
The last way to open and see reels on Instagram is to open explore tab which will show you Reels as well as other post content.
Since Instagram has created reels for creating short engaging videos by users under 60 seconds, you should also put focus on making the videos of short length and more engaging, if you will start making videos that won’t be able to engage users, you will start losing your audience who previously used to watch your reels.
When creating Instagram reels, you have two options from which you can upload reel on Instagram, one is that you can at that exact moment use your camera, record, and then post the reel after using a lot of editing tools that Instagram provide, the other option is to choose a file from our device and then upload it.
with Instagram reels, it is also important that the video you are uploading also matches the aspect ratio for which the reels are made which is 9:6 since the reels take up the full vertical screen of the mobile Instagram users.
When you are uploading a reel after recording it by your camera, you will not need to worry about the video not being adjusted to aspect ratio as Instagram will do that by itself however if you’re uploading a clip or a video from your own device, then it can cause you problems with your user experience if the aspect ratio fo the video does do not match with reels, then it will appear in a weird way ruining user engagement rate and your reel will be quickly skipped.
Using Instagram reels for marketing purposes is very effective and it can also be done by various methods.
One of the methods for using Reels to promote your products and brands is to make videos about your product itself format, how do you do it?
You can make short engaging videos in which you can show how your product can benefit them, you can make videos on different uses of your product in a short video, other than that, you can also make videos on offers and discounts that you are offering on your products.
Making informative videos in your niche can also help you to reach a wider audience and let them be aware of your brand.
Using reels is another way of marketing your products which will take after in the article.
Instagram live
In 2022, Live streaming has become a major player both in the entertainment and in the digital marketing world.
Gamers go live on platforms like Twitch to play live in front to f their audience, some go on youtube, other than gamers influencers are regularly going live on their different platforms such as youtube, Facebook, or any other platform where their audience is waiting for them.
When live streaming is booming at this time, Instagram is also not left-back as live streaming also plays a major part in connecting with your audience and marketing to them through Instagram.
Instagram Live is not just another usual feature of Instagram rather it is the best platform to connect with your audience and make them loyal because you might be able to get a sale but you might not be able to make that customer stay with your brand for long if you do not connect with your customers and do not get their loyalty.
When you are posting in other formats of Instagram such as stories, reels, or your normal photo posts, you do not connect with your audience in a deep way, but with going I’ve on Instagram, since you’re sharing what happening with you in the real world, the audience connects with you in a much better way and with your brand as well.
To go live On Instagram first you will need to think that what you will do in our live streaming just like you made your content strategy early on what type of content you will be posting on your Instagram posts.
Generally, the best idea for beginners who have never gone live before on Instagram is to Interview other people in the same niche who already have an audience, in this way not only you will be able to engage with your audience but the audience from their platform will also come to see since they will be in your live stream with you.
Another type of Live streaming that you can and do and which will also increase your audience loyalty with you is to answer the questions of your audience which are asked to you during the live stream, in this way you will need to generate content by yourself since the questions will be asked by your audience, and you will also not need to worry about the amount of value your audience is getting from your Live stream since answering their questions is already providing them a lot of value.
You can also do live streaming on Instagram to showcase your products and their benefits as well, in this way you will be getting a new audience and promoting your product at the same time.
When you are live streaming regularly on Instagram, make sure that you live stream at the same time every day you stream or every once in a while, make a pattern like if you live stream once a week, then lives stream on a specific day every time on a specific hour so your audience knows that you are going to be live streaming and they can prepare themself for you.
Post at the right time
On Instagram, a factor that you may not have thought could be affecting your marketing strategy is the time when you are posting content on Instagram.
There are certain days on which if you post, you will get more engagement and more reach with your posts than if you had posted on other days and similarly, there are certain days that you should avoid posting on because if you post on those days, you will get less engagement than usual.
But how will you know on which days you should be posting? will ou could use the available data according to which Monday is a great day to post on but this does not mean that it will also surely for you as well as it can warry depending on the type of audience you have and from which country the majority of your audience comes from?
to know what will work best for you, you will again need to take the help of Instagram insights which will also provide the data on at which time your audience is most active and then you should post at that time.
Do not over post
Posting regular content which can provide value to your audience is a great way to take your Instagram marketing journey to the next level but it does not mean that you should try to post as fast as you can.
If you overpost, not only will your posts become more and more common for your audience which will let them ignore your posts more often but also when you will be posting more often, you will be sacrificing the quality of your Instagram posts as well, so make a schedule on posting content regularly but with balance and prefer quality over quantity.
If you post too much, your audience wills tart unfollowing you.
Partner with other Influencers.
When you will be starting out on Instagram, you will most probably not have a big audience, forever the audience that you will have will not have a very deep and loyal relationship to your brand which can become a hurdle in converting them into customers for the long term.
This problem can be solved by partnering with Influencers who already have thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands of followers who can buy products just if the influencer recommends them to.
On Instagram, It is a common thing for the users to buy products that are being promoted by the influencers that they follow and you can also take advantage of this as well.
All you will need to do is to partner p with an influencer and then ask the influencer to promote your brand and its products and you will see the results coming in.
But you cannot just go and partner with an influencer, you will need to first find the influencers who have an audience related to your niche and who can easily relate to the products that your brand offers.
After you have done that, you can just partner up with them by contacting with them and making a deal, and then they will promote your brand to thousands and hundreds of thousands of their followers who will be ready to buy your products.
But you should take this partnering with influencers less as a way of making quick sales and quickly increasing the revenue of your brand and more of as a building a relationship with a huge audience that is following those influencers and then over time converting that huge audience into your customers which will also be loyal to you since your brand would have been a similar face to that audience as you will be a partner with the influencer that they are following.
Instagram ads
Ads are a vital part of digital marketing and in 2022, business is generating a huge amount of sales by using digital advertising platforms such as Facebook and Google.
There are a lot of online advertising platforms which are available in 2022 and Instagram is one of them.
Whether you are a big business brand or a small one that is just starting out, Instagram ads is a marketing strategy that you should not ignore.
With Instagram getting millions and millions of users every single month, its Ads are also becoming more and more effective with the number of users.
Not only that but Instagram can also be used effectively for different kinds of goals.
For example, some businesses would want to get sales on their brand products, some will want to increase their brand name growth by making more awareness about it, while some others would want nothing other than just driving the traffic from Instagram to their own website and then doing the rest of marketing on their website to those users.
It does not matter what type of goals you are having, Instagram ads can fulfill your goals if you run them with the correct marketing strategy.
Not only that but with Instagram ads, you can show them anywhere and you will not just be limited to showing them in the newsfeed of Instagram users.
you can use them to show your message in these stories even in the reels, in IGTV or you just want them to show them in the norma feed of the users.
Another very special thing about Instagram ads is that they do not appear very different from those normal posts, which means that the ads that you will be showing to your audience will appear like casual posts, and in the end, you will get more attention to your ads, improving the CTR.
Different types of Instagram ads
With Instagram ads, you are not only limited to a single type of ad, Instagram has provided you with a lot of options that you can use to create the perfect ads in your point of view for your brand that you think will work best.
Photo ads
Photo ads are those simple Instagram ads that appear in the news feed of Instagram users. They do not appear very different from the normal posts which means that they appear similar to normal posts but there is a small mark on the top right corner of these ads which tells the Instagram users who see the d that it is a sponsored post, but other than that, they appear similarly which attracts the Instagram users even more.
These Instagram Photo ads also have a CTA button at button where you can put a link if you want to direct users to the new website who click on it.
The best way to utilize such Instagram ads is to visually represent your product, keep it as simple as possible and try to grab the attention of the users, by the way, your present your product through the ad to them.
Video ads
Video ads by their name make it clear that there are ads that are presented in the video format.
as you already know that photo ads are shown to Instagram users in their feed and Video ads are no different as they are also shown in the feed of Instagram users.
With Instagram video ads, you can do a lot more things than you could have done with Photo ads, because with Photo ads you have to keep your message simple and also very unique from the visual perspective but with Instagram video ads, you will be able to represent much more information bout your product and about your brand.
If we talk about the length of the video ads on Instagram, then you also do not need to worry there as well since Instagram allows you to choose any length for the video ad under 60 minutes, even you can make an ad that has the length of a second, and then you can make an ad which has a length of an ad of 60 minutes.
With video ads, you can generally connect with your audience in a better way than you would have been able to do so with photo ads which increase brand loyalty as well as the conversion rate to some extent but then there is also a downside with video ads that you do does not get with phoo ads, with photo ads you will get your message to a larger audience since they will need to do anything special to see your ad, it will be already be displayed on their screen but with video ads, your audience will need to click on the video and then watch it which has fewer chances than viewing a Photo ad.
Carousel ads
Carousel ads are those ads that can have up to 10 photos or videos in them, so you can take them as a superior version of photo and video ads since in Photo and video ads, you were only able to direct the Instagram users to one website or to one web page or a product, but with Carousel ads, you can insert 10 different photos and with each photo, you can insert a link to a different web page in the CTA button.
The real and proper use of Carousel ads is not just to add multiple photos of the same product and then try to direct the Instagram audience to that product but to promote multiple products with different photos in Carousel ads.
Instagram shopping ads
On Instagram, you can not only post photos and videos but also make your own sop through which you can directly sell items to your Instagram audience who wants to buy them.
Not only you can promote your Instagram shop through organic marketing on Instagram but you can also run specific Instagram ads which will be focused on promoting your shop products.
Such ads can be really useful to drive revenue from your Instagram shop, and another advantage that you will gain from these Instagram shopping ads is that even after the users click on the ad for visiting the shop, they will stay on Instagram and will not have to leave the site which improves the conversion rate and CTR rate as well because usually, Instagram users do not like to leave the app for visiting another web page on the internet.
However, if you do not have a shop on Instagram, you will need to make one if you want to utilize these types of Instagram ads.
While running Instagram shopping ads, you should be focusing on putting the real images of the products if they are enough to attract the user for clicking on them and if you want an alternative, then you should add photos that can describe your photos to the Instagram users.
Reels ads
Instagram reels ads are those ads that will appear on the screens of Instagram users when they will be scrolling down the Instagram reels which are up to 60 seconds. If you want to further understand these ads, you can take the example of Youtube short ads as they also appear between the shorts or you take Titok as another example.
The length of the Instagram reel ads is limited to 30 seconds, so you should be using those 30 seconds or a shorter amount of time in creating ads that do let users take their eyes off from the ad even for a second.
You’ll need to create such reel ads which in the beginning can get the users interested otherwise Instagram users will just scroll away from your Ads and go on to the next reel.
They appear vertically, so when you will be creating the ad, you will need to make sure that your ad is also in the vertical format and not in the horizontal format which will ruin the entire campaign.
Story ads
As I mentioned earlier in this article, The stories have become so popular and successful on Instagram that Instagram has started showing ads between stories as well.
hundreds of millions of people use stories, which means that if you can utilize story ads in the right way, you can gain really good results.
Make sure when you are running story ads, your ads are fast-paced and can clearly put the main marketing words on the ad.
Using Instagram effectively for ads
you cannot take Instagram ads like another platform for ads such as Google or even Facebook because don’t hose platforms, the focus of users is much more information than entertainment as compared to Instagram, even though users do like to see promotional posts, it does not mean it is the same case like Google ads.
Make sure that with your ads, you represent your product in a fun way and not entirely with text, use infographics, and other visual ways to represent your product through ads
Conclusion
With the rise of social media, its platforms such as Instagram are also on the rise having more than a billion monthly users, which means that every one out of 7 people on the earth uses Instagram once a month, why not also do marketing on it and get great results for your brand.
Just go on to Instagram, and make your own profile but not a normal account that everyone has called a personal account, convert your personal account into a Professional business account which will provide you with many marketing tools such as Instagram Insights which is an analytic tool
Then, you should be focusing on making your content strategy which will be your journey on Instagram marketing from posting your content to getting followers and then promoting your products and converting those followers into your customers.
Using different formats of Instagram such as stories, reels, and normal posts and especially using the Live streaming feature of Instagram is very important.
With time, you will start seeing results in the growth of your brand name, and your sales but it will not be over a single night, it will take you some time.