Instagram is one of the best ways to connect with your audience and engage them in your business’s products and services, but it can be intimidating to get started with it as a brand-new business owner. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to use Instagram to grow your business, build your online reputation, and improve your bottom line. Here are nine reasons why Instagram is great for business.
1)Get people to follow you
9 Reasons Instagram is Great for Business
If you’re a new business, starting a page on Insta story viewer might be an easy way to gain customers. The best part about it? You don’t have to post very often (maybe once or twice a week). However, you want your posts to make an impact when they do come out. Customers are more likely to follow your page if they know that your photos will be high quality and worth their time. To get people to check out your page (and not just swipe past it), tell them why it’s awesome in a few words to decide whether or not it fits into their own lives. You may buy Instagram followers and have people follow you.
2) Build your brand
Your social media strategy should have a few overarching goals. The first, of course, is to get eyeballs on your profile. Once there, you can hopefully convert them into new followers, fans, or customers—and drive sales in general. But also think about how you want to grow your following; do you want to develop brand loyalty? Are you building up excitement around a particular product launch? Whatever your goals, they should inform your content plan and help you stay focused with each post. If you’re looking for inspiration and ideas (or just need a break from some marketer’s-tired hashtag game), check out these real examples from brands across all industries.
3) Provide great customer service
9 Reasons Instagram is Great for Business
It’s easy to get wrapped up in other tasks and projects, but delivering good customer service will help you stand out from your competition and drive sales. Give customers what they want—including fast delivery, accurate product info, and great customer service—and they’ll return it to you again. You can even charge more! As long as your product or service delivers on its promise, consumers will be willing to pay more if they feel like they are treated well. Provide solid support, promote strong relationships with suppliers and investors, and do business last.
4) Promote special events
Facebook allows you to schedule events that show up in your followers’ timelines. You can specify a date and time, plus an optional message, and Facebook sends invitations to any guests who have confirmed their attendance. This feature is handy if you want people to know about upcoming events or sales promotions but can’t spend time posting daily updates. For example, if you run a car wash business, you could use Facebook events to announce special discounts that only last for one day, like Monday: One free car wash with every paid purchase!
5) Get user-generated content
9 Reasons Instagram is Great for Business
Not only can you post your photos and videos, but you can also use your followers’ photos and videos. This is a super popular practice on Instagram, especially when businesses look for unique content to share. For example, if you run a weight loss blog, you could ask followers to snap pictures of themselves before and after eating kale for dinner in a bikini—one user could post their shot showing off the results of the kale diet. Or maybe people comment “OMG!” whenever they see someone use mustard for a condiment because it’s so trendy. In that case, you could ask followers to post pictures of themselves using mustard in new or funny ways, or you could pay a few of your Instagram influencers to post their pictures of “mustard on a stick.”
6) Get immediate feedback
As soon as someone posts a picture on Instagram, he or she can start getting feedback from followers. This is a great way for you to gauge customer interest and see what types of content they like the best. (It’s also great for organic marketing—you can find out what products and services your customers are interested in.) For example, if you offer spa services, you have to post some photos with descriptions of various treatments. As your customer’s reply, you’ll easily see which treatments and procedures they enjoy the most—that information will help you understand your customer base and market more effectively.
7) Grow your network
9 Reasons Instagram is Great for Business
If you have a Facebook page and business profile, all your Instagram posts will show up on Facebook. This is great because it means people will see all of your content in one place. You can also use Instagram’s hashtag feature to help with marketing on other social networks like Twitter, Pinterest, or Google+. For example, if you run a restaurant and want people to see your menu on Google+, use hashtags related to your industry when posting on Instagram. For example, if it’s the day before Thanksgiving, you could use #ThanksgivingMenu.
8) Get more followers
Once you’ve established a good following, keeping that audience interested is easy. You can post regularly and respond to comments as quickly as possible—which helps build trust and respect with your followers—but you can also engage them by getting them involved in fun contests or sweepstakes activities. For example, many restaurants like to do giveaways on Instagram where they ask customers for caption ideas for photos of their food or drinks. This is a fun way to get people involved with your business and encourage them to continue following you.
9) Use SNS to grow your business offline
9 Reasons Instagram is Great for Business
One of the most popular uses for Instagram is as a marketing tool because it’s an excellent way to grow interested in your brand. Are you having a special event or sale that warrants some social media attention? That’s when you want to use Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. Use your business profile to extend your reach across those platforms and start building an audience. Then when you have an announcement or promotion to make, get people excited by posting it on Instagram with a location tag to encourage people to follow you and join the conversation.
Conclusion:
There are so many advantages to using Instagram for business. It’s a fun, engaging platform that can help you connect with followers and build your brand—the benefits of which will extend far beyond Instagram.
