Promotion of small businesses on Instagram: useful tips
Instagram is a great free platform for running small businesses. It provides a variety of handy tools that will help increase sales and user engagement with the brand. However, at the initial stage it is difficult to navigate and understand what needs to be done first. We have therefore prepared useful tips that can be followed to achieve excellent results in promotion.
BUSINESS ACCOUNT
When creating an account, immediately indicate that it will be commercial so Instagram will provide you with several useful tips that will help develop your page.
Why choose a business account:
- you will be able to specify the type of activity of the commercial page so that subscribers understand the subject of your account immediately;
- you can specify the address, mail, phone number – all this will help to communicate as quickly as possible with the customer and increase sales if you have an offline point.
- you will get access to analytics. Of course, it’s not very detailed, but it’s possible to get some basic data on the demographics and subscribers activity. It is also possible to view statistics separately for the post.
- you will be able to start advertising immediately from the Instagram application.
PROTECTION AGAINST HACKING
This point is very important, especially if sales are made directly in Instagram. To protect your customers and your reputation, you must take maximum care of the security of your account.
How to protect your account from hacking:
- create a complex password. The method is old, but it’s still working.
- link the page to Facebook, phone number and mail. This point will help especially in case the hack has already occurred. This way you can react quickly and get your profile back.
- But remember that the e-mail and the phone number you freely specify in your profile and the e-mail with the number to which you will link your Instagram should not be the same.
- Also, indicate the mail you regularly use and check – there will be Instagram notifications related to logging into your account, and with any hacking attempt, you can quickly suspect that something is wrong and settle the matter before something bad happens. The main thing is to make sure that the e-mail came from the official Instagram sender, and not cloned by a fraudster.
- enable two-factor authentication.
- only give access to trusted services and applications.
- do not log into your account from public wi-fi.
Take these measures immediately and do not wait for it to happen, because your reputation and the money of the customers who still trust you are at stake.
DESIGN OF THE PROFILE HEADER
First of all, pay attention to whether the new user will immediately understand what is being sold in your account. Try to make the description as informative as possible: assortment, in which country you work, etc.
Also remember that the line below the profile photo works like keywords in search ads: if you write “women’s clothing,” the user will be able to find you for this request in an Instagram search. So if you’ve just recently created a profile – there’s no point in mentioning your brand name there, write a phrase by which a potential buyer can find you.
STORIES
Stories is a great opportunity to remind subscribers of your existence every day. The more interesting, interactive and useful the stories will be for followers, the more often they will be shown in their feed and in case the user needs to buy, he will remember you.
What chips can be used to increase engagement:
- gamification– create interesting stories and games in which users will be involved. Don’t forget about the existing stickers with polls, tests, questions + come up with interesting games such as collect the image, find the differences, and so on.
- create a heading product of the day with a pleasant discount – this will help increase sales at the initial stage, as well as increase the audience’s interest in your profile, because everyone wants to get a cool product with a discount.
- product reviews. Let’s go back to the example of clothes – show the fabric in more detail, use video content so that subscribers can see as much as possible how the clothes fit on the model.
- customer reviews. Show genuine emotion and outside perspective. It’s cool when a picture matches reality, it adds credibility to the brand.
Also, do not forget to create informative and useful saved Stories. There are a lot of ideas for a business account: reviews, assortment, size chart, examples of work, prices, menus, etc. Saved Stories should quickly answer the most popular questions from users that entered your account for the first time. Nobody wants to rummage through the feed, so use Stories to easily navigate your page.
DESIGN OF THE FEED
At the initial stage, this is especially important, because you are just gaining a subscriber base and they immediately assess the general appearance of the feed by entering your account. If they are not satisfied with it, they will not consider your posts in detail.
I strongly recommend not to use stock photos, photos from other people’s accounts or photos from the manufacturer – create content yourself. This may require additional resources and time, but it is only in this way that you will be able to get out of the total mass of uniform accounts.
Also, combine photos with a common style, try to convey certain emotions through posts that should be associated with your brand.
If you do not know how to create high-quality content, it is better to turn to specialists. Since monotonous low-quality photos from one angle won’t exactly attract the attention of new subscribers.
So that you understand what I mean, compare these accounts:
I hope you saw the difference ?
POSTS
In addition to commercial posts it is necessary to add engaging headings to make it interesting for users to follow your page. Basically, low engagement is normal for a commercial account and the main indicator of performance will always be sales, not likes and comments.
However, the attention of subscribers needs to be able to support and engage them in case they start to lose interest in your brand. For this purpose you can use different pranks. Or, if the subject allows, you can create useful or entertaining content. In the beginning, it makes sense to try different engagement mechanics, and later leave only those that showed the best result.
PROMOTION
There’s just no point in hoping for a word-of-mouth advertising. It is necessary to connect a paid promotion. The most popular and effective methods on Instagram are targeted advertising and advertising from bloggers.
Focus on bloggers with a small audience – it will be cheaper and more efficient, because microinfluencers better keep the audience’s attention and have more loyal subscribers. Also, keep in mind that one touch is not enough – try to enter into long-term cooperation, make the blogger the ambassador of your brand – then you will get the maximum effect from advertising.
Targeted ads are also effective, but for those who want to really understand this tool and are willing to constantly test creatives / audiences and track the results.
Before launching an advertisement, do an analysis of the target audience – describe a few people who could definitely become your regular customers and try to display their interests in the targeting settings.
I advise you to set up ads on Facebook – there are wider audience settings. Also, test placements, you do not need to choose automatic ones, preferably divide each site so that it is clear which one is cheaper for you.
Also, see what kind of ads your competitors are running. To do this, find their page in Facebook, click on the “Page transparency” block and find the advertising library:
There you can watch ads that are currently running.
When you gain a certain subscriber base, it is possible to create a user audience based on interactions with the Instagram page.
Firstly, you can launch an advertisement to this user audience that will catch up with them after a certain interaction with your page and remind them of you. Secondly, you can create a Lookalike audience, in which the Facebook, based on the interests of the user audience, picks up a similar one and shows them ads.
Follow these tips to ensure that your start is as successful and efficient as possible. Good luck!