The engagement rate on Instagram is staggering with some surveys estimating the user interaction rate on Instagram at over 400% more than on Facebook or Twitter. Figures like these make it an ideal hunting ground for businesses trying to market their brand, however, It isn’t as straightforward as simply sharing a few photos each day, there’s a lot of competition out there so like any Social Media marketing campaign it’s important to have a strategy in place.
Hashtags are vital in Instagram, they enable a company’s posts to show up in live feeds which provides greater exposure beyond your followers. This draws more people to your profile who can then be converted into website traffic with the right links in place.
Always use hashtags that are relevant to your brand and trending news items such as sporting events, election campaigns, music festivals and other topics people will be searching for. Always try to use an average of 10-15 hashtags per post. The overall limit is 30 per post and the more #hashtags the greater the exposure.
They say a picture paints a thousand words and Instagram is the king in that regard. It may seem hard to get your point across using just a photo and a couple of hashtags but you would be amazed at the number of people who would purchase a product or service based on solely on what their eyes tell them.
Imagine you own a restaurant, it’s all well and good telling people what’s on the evening menu but how about showing them what wonderful food you have to offer?. Watch how people are more inclined to engage with pictures of a big juicy steak dinner than a two-sentence worded description about it.
This is of high importance, if you have a presence on a number of other Social Media channels then you can feed your Instagram posts through these channels, thus providing greater exposure for your posts.
More exposure means more engagement and ultimately more traffic for your website. you could also link up all three channels into one campaign such as a competition or a sale. Let’s say a clothes store is giving away a new dress in a competition, you could share a post about it on Facebook while sharing an Instagram post about it showcasing the potential prize.
The caption underneath the photo can prove invaluable for engagement and drawing traffic. This gives you an opportunity to provide a clear description of your post and an encouragement for people to engage with it.
By Using follow-up terms such as “shop Now” “Visit Our Site” or “Click The Link On Our Bio” you are actively encouraging people who have favourited your post to come to your website/landing page where they can then potentially be converted into new customers.
Instagram is too big to be ignored for marketing purposes, even if your business is small make sure you set up a presence. If you take the correct steps you can benefit hugely from it whatever your industry. With so much active engagement happening each day any business with an Instagram presence could be sitting on a potential marketing goldmine.
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Instagram’s Ever-Changing Options
By Jeff Sheridan
By Matrix Internet