Instagram provides an excellent platform for businesses and entrepreneurs to build and grow their outreach and engage with target customers and clients. The best part about this platform is that it is free to use, allowing you to compete with even the most prominent players in the industry. Growing a following from scratch is relatively easy too. Outlined below are 12 solid reasons you should consider joining and using Instagram to grow your business.
What is Instagram?
Instagram is a Facebook-owned video and photo-sharing social media platform with more than 1 billion active users. It allows users to share video posts or photo stories on their profiles visible to either the public or their friends. Instagram allows one to create brief video or photo stories and 15-second Reels that live for up to 24 hours. It is also worth noting that users can shop directly from other e-commerce brands on Instagram. Here are good reasons and ways Instagram can be beneficial for your business.
- There’s a Ready Audience and Traffic
Instagram boasts of more than 1 billion active users from all across the world, with more than 500 million daily users. From this perspective alone, you can be assured of a ready audience to view/consume your content, increasing the chances of your business succeeding. You only need to create quality content to attract their attention and gain a following. It will then be a matter of time before you can convert most of these audiences into potential or loyal customers/clients. Adding social media likes like those from Social Plus can help. Likes and engagement added by Socialplus.net helps you motivate your target audience to engage with you by providing likes.
- It Provides a Level Ground for All Businesses
Any business or company can use Instagram to reach its target audience. Whether you are a startup or a well-known company, Instagram provides a level- ground for all to market their products and services. With the right approach and solid marketing campaigns/strategies, an otherwise unknown company can become popular within just a matter of time. While you shouldn’t expect a miracle overnight, creating brand awareness and targeting the right audience will certainly get your business known. You, however, need to produce quality content, be consistent and be active on the platform (with at least a post every day) to make an impact. Consistency is the secret popular brands such as Adidas and Coca-Cola used to get where they are today.
- You Can Make Money Straight from Instagram
Instagram has evolved from a photo and video-sharing site to allow on-platform e-commerce sales. This usually happens through careful product placement on the Shop tab. Launched recently, the Shop tab allows businesses to put up products/services they have for sale. This enables users to search and purchase products/services from different brands without leaving their Instagram page/profile. Through Instagram’s shoppable posts, you can add product descriptions and tags to your photos, including the price. This feature allows users to click on the product image to be redirected to your online store.
Thanks to past and recent updates, businesses can now generate revenue through sales directly from Instagram. According to a recent study, more than 72% of Instagram users have made at least one purchase through the platform. It is thus hard to ignore the impact Instagram can have on your business sales and progress.
- Instagram Stories Gives Your Business A Face
Creating live stories and posts has made it easier for businesses to show their audiences and customers their real identities online. One of the best ways to do this is to create live stories showing behind-the-scenes videos showing what your company is, staff interaction, and other processes. It can also be in the form of question-and-answer live sessions on Instagram. You can use one of the many Instagram features to make this happen, giving your business a face customers can relate to.
Instagram’s live posts, for example, are an excellent feature that businesses can use to build trust, rapport, and credibility with followers and target audiences. It also gives you a chance to give the ‘human perspective’ of your business, where consumers get to learn more about the business.
- Ability To Partner with Influencers
While having a decent following on Instagram has its perks, partnering with influencers takes your presence and visibility to a whole new level. Although you might know this already, influencers are celebrities (online) with a massive following on the major social platforms and often promote products and brands at a small fee. Influencers work by promoting your product on their profiles, which thousands or even millions of their followers can see and react to. Tangible results from working with an influencer can be massive, translating to high returns on investment. Partnering with a well-known influencer with millions of followers can get your business is known far and wide, all with just a few mentions of your product/brand on their posts.
- Hashtags Boost Online Visibility
This is one of the most popular and practical features of social media. A well-optimized hashtag can boost your business’s visibility online, separating you from your competition. Although you might be lucky to get your hashtag to trend, working with an influencer increases your odds, which again can help rock the boat your way, hence more returns on investment.
- Engage With Customers Effectively
Unlike traditional methods where only companies had a voice, social media, especially Instagram, has made it possible for customers to engage with businesses directly. Customers can air their views, complaints, and opinions directly, comment, like, and share favorite posts on their timelines. The more customers like and comment on your posts, the higher its visibility, and so is your company. The more impressions you can get from various posts through quality photo/video uploads and hashtags, the higher your visibility will be.
- Instagram Is Optimized for Mobile Consumption
Instagram was created to be an app from the get-go. This is unlike Twitter and Facebook, which started as desktop browser versions. Most online consumers use mobile phones to access the internet, with more than 90% of smartphone users spending time on apps such as Instagram. Instagram, unlike Facebook, has a cleaner mobile look and style, a reason most consumers prefer going to Instagram first before turning to Facebook. That said, Instagram has 10 times more audience engagement compared to Facebook.
- Ability To Monitor Competitors
With Instagram offering a plain playing ground for all players, it has made it possible for you to keep an eye on your competition, especially how they interact with their audience and followers. It is relatively easy to follow your competitor’s proceeds on Instagram, how and what they publish when they publish, and what angle they use. You can then use this information to counter their approach to garner more following.
- It Allows You to Be More Creative
Your level of creativity is the only limit you have on Instagram. Your marketing team can thus go as wild as they wish to draw the desired attention and attract new customers and followers. As long as your approach is unique and intriguing, more audiences will be fascinated and want to learn more about you, hence more followers and impressions.
- Use Instagram Advertisements to Reach New Customers
Instagram ads allow newbies to extend their reach and visibility on their platform through custom, trackable ads. This feature allows one to pick a target audience based on different demographics and links to your website. It also helps one collect valuable data to use in future marketing campaigns.
- Take Advantage of Instagram Insights
Instagram Insights is a feature that offers you specific information about your followers, the type of content they consume/prefer, and your content’s performance. It also provides valuable information such as the gender and age of your followers, their geographic location, when they log on to Instagram, and recommends the best time for you to post.
Instagram is one of the must-use social networking platforms, especially if running a business. Whether running a startup or an already established business, Instagram can benefit and impact your online marketing campaigns and outreach.
