Instagram Marketing: 7 Tips for Marketing on Instagram

If you’re a business, chances are you have an Instagram account or have seen other businesses on the platform. This social media network allows individuals and businesses to take, edit, and post visual content for everyone to see. Users of the platform can interact with your posts by liking, commenting, saving, and sharing your content.

Things have evolved since the inception of Instagram, and more people are using video to connect with their audiences. While it’s just something to do for some, businesses can capitalize on the power of Instagram to boost their bottom line.

Designing and implementing an Instagram marketing strategy can help your business build an audience and be more successful on the platform. In this article, we explain how to market on Instagram and describe how the platform can benefit your business. Read from start to finish for an in-depth look at best practices for marketing on Instagram.

How can Instagram be used for marketing?

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in existence. Among U.S. adults, 59% report using Instagram on a daily basis. This means that brands using Instagram are able to reach a massive global audience with their content. On the other hand, businesses who haven’t done any marketing on Instagram are leaving money (and audiences) on the table.

When figuring out how to market on Instagram, advertising should be an integral part of the equation. Instagram ads can be structured according to advanced targeting criteria. As a product of Facebook, the amount of data available to create successful ads is huge. Instagram ads also have high levels of engagement through paid advertising and organically. Video ads can be very successful on the platform and, now that Reels has been introduced, it has created another avenue for more engagement and interaction with your target market.

Whether through paid ads or a free business account, you can leverage Instagram to reach people across the world and get your brand’s products in front of their eyes. Instagram can be a great place for your brand to showcase content, introduce new products, advertise promotions, and engage with your audience.

How much does it cost to market on Instagram?

Creating an Instagram business account is free, but as a business, creating social media ads may attract target audiences and send more traffic your way. The pricing for Instagram ads varies based on the pricing model you select, which can charge you based on metrics such as clicks or engagement. Prices often fluctuate when you run digital ads, depending on the type of campaign you run. The most accurate pricing can be obtained when setting up the ads manager on the platform.

Why should I implement an Instagram marketing strategy?

Every industry has a huge opportunity to get their businesses in front of larger audiences based on demographic and geographic information. We live in a very visual society and that’s what Instagram does very well. If you have products or services that can appeal to a mass audience through visual content, Instagram is where you need to be.

To have an effective Instagram marketing strategy, you must set goals. You must have an objective you want to reach, like selling your products or building brand awareness. You also want to determine the target audience before you begin your Instagram marketing campaigns. Using Mailchimp’s CRM software can streamline all of these steps and make it easier for your brand to create effective Instagram marketing campaigns.

You may have more than one strategy, each with a goal or two. That means doing your research through competitive analysis to see what other brand marketers in the industry are doing. Look at their Instagram profiles, look at their engagement, their captions, how often they post, and their hashtags. This can help you develop an editorial calendar that aligns with your company’s goals.

Once these pieces are in place, you can build a consistent brand that reflects your brand personality. This increases exposure and helps the brand grow.

Benefits of marketing on Instagram

An effective Instagram marketing strategy can produce a range of benefits for your brand. Some of the main benefits of marketing on Instagram include:

• Boost engagement with your brand: Instagram is a platform that encourages engagement through likes, comments, and reposts. Thus, marketing on Instagram can be an easy yet effective way to boost engagement with your brand.
• Advertise at a low cost: Creating a professional account on Instagram is free and running paid ads is typically cheaper when compared to other, more traditional advertising platforms.
• Reach a large audience: Instagram is home to a very large and diverse global audience that you can reach on the platform.
• Build a unique brand identity: With carefully curated posts, you can customize the visual elements of your brand and make it memorable in people’s minds.
• Bolster your content marketing strategy: Instagram is a great place to post engaging content—such as images and videos—as part of a larger content marketing strategy.

7 tips for marketing on Instagram

1: Create a business account

If you have a regular Instagram account, consider switching to a business account. If you don’t have an Instagram account already set up, download the app from the Apple or Play online store. Open the app, create a new account, enter the requested information, and create a username and password.

Once the profile has been created, go to the profile and tap the icon at the top right. Switch your account to a professional account to gain access to a new suite of features and expand your ability to track interactions and engagement.

2: Fill out your profile

You have 150 characters to create an Instagram bio that makes an amazing first impression and conveys the personality of your brand. You also have other places where you can talk about your brand, like your name, the username, your website URL, the category of your brand, contact information, and your call-to-action buttons.

All of this information should align with your profile photo. For a business, your profile photo will typically be your logo to provide credibility. Creating clickable hashtags, story highlights, and a view shop button that allows users to visit your brand’s in-app store can also be beneficial for your company.

3: Determine style guidelines

This is where you put together the aesthetic of your brand. A style guide dictates how your brand’s social media pages will look, how you utilize your brand colors, the consistency of your photos, and the look and feel of your content.

Your style guidelines should also have the types of hashtags—if any—you use in certain posts. There are a few different types of hashtags that may work for you: Entertaining, branded, general appeal, niche, timely, and contest-related.

As you draft style guidelines, try out Mailchimp to create a single, uniform look. Mailchimp’s digital asset management for marketers can help when creating content, editing the content, and posting to your marketing campaigns.

4: Create a posting schedule

Your posting schedule should be created around your content strategy. Having diverse content works well when engaging audiences and video tends to get more engagement. Create content with posts around themes, new products and services, what happens in the back office, and more. This saves time and helps in creating content that is consistent with your goals.

Images that have ample white space work well, and lighter images often get more traction than darker images. Switching up the textures in the image is also a big hit. Using best practices and doing research to determine when your audience is most engaged helps with posting. Make sure to utilize all types of content, including Reels and carousels for variety and engagement.

You can use hashtags when you post, but don’t overdo it. Although the maximum is 30, businesses can get a lot of engagement from 3 to 11 hashtags.

5: Use Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories are a very popular feature. Businesses have multiple strategies they can use to engage followers and get results. Here are a few suggestions:

• Get and share audience content
• Be human, transparent, and authentic
• Do live streams on Instagram Live

The goal is to provide the value they may not get anywhere else, tell a story about something, and be consistent.

There may be a few stories you want to remember (since they disappear in 24 hours). You can create highlights for your profile, allowing users to relive some of your best content, promotions, and other content they may have enjoyed.

6: Engage with followers

Doing Instagram Lives where users can engage in real-time gives them an opportunity to speak to someone from the brand. You can do guest collaborations, host an event, do a tutorial, answer questions, or allow a customer to pop in upon request. Responding to comments and interacting with other profiles that are like your brand helps make you visible to others that may be following them.

7: Run targeted Instagram ads

Targeted Instagram ads help you quickly find your customers. Run ads based on their location, demographics, behaviors, and interests. Advertisements can run in the feed, stories, or Explore page to engage them where they hang out the most.

Knowing who your customers are by studying analytics and data can give you the information you need to create campaigns for custom audiences. This helps build and nurture relationships on and off Instagram.

Final notes

As a business, if you aren’t on Instagram, you are losing a great opportunity to connect with audience segments that prefer visual content and interaction. By using these 7 tips for marketing on Instagram, you can reach more of your audience.

Optimizing your Instagram marketing strategy is easier when you have the right tools. Use Mailchimp to run social media ad campaigns, create and store digital assets, review key analytics, and more. Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing platform that allows companies to create, post, and analyze social media marketing campaigns to get the traction and results they need.