Instagram is a fundamental marketing tool for every brand, regardless of the type of business you are dealing with. It’s a perfect combination of visual and textual content that you can use to engage the audience and help your organization grow in the long-term perspective.

Numerous studies reveal the importance of Instagram marketing, but we want to highlight the most significant facts here:

  • Instagram has more than a billion users.
  • The platform’s usage doubled between 2016 and 2018.
  • Visual data is processed 60 thousand times faster by the brain than text.
  • 72% of users have bought a product they saw on Instagram.
  • The top 100 brands on Instagram have seen engagement on their posts grow by 53% year-over-year. 

However, you can’t hope to win over the audience using simple marketing mechanisms. It takes a good strategy to boost popularity, so we present you six marketing tips to help grow your brand on Instagram. Let’s check them out!

 

  • Know Your Audience

 

Understanding the target audience is an essence of digital marketing, including Instagram. You need to learn everything about a typical follower because it will give you relevant content creation ideas. Key features of your target persona are these:

  • Demographics: These include information such as age, gender, and location.
  • Education: It’s necessary to know the academic level of your fans so as to tailor Instagram content accordingly.
  • Average income: Do you target low-income or well-off users?
  • Lifestyle: You have to figure out how your audience behaves and what they believe in. You also need to understand their basic values and beliefs.

Besides that, you should know when to publish content. According to the report, the most successful times to post on Instagram are 2:00 AM and 5:00 PM, but it doesn’t mean the same timeframe works for you. Keep an eye on audience behavior and try to learn when your fans are likely to engage.

 

  • Mix Content

 

Every brand is trying to develop a unique style on Instagram because they want to stand out from the crowd of competitors. However, the fact that you want to look authentic doesn’t mean you can keep the content monotonous. On the contrary, you should mix different formats to make posts more compelling and versatile.

According to content creators at EssayOnTime.co.uk, you should combine plain images, videos, Instagram stories, and carousels. While the general message or a theme of your posts can remain the same, different formats will make it look different and more amusing. At the same time, you can play with content ideas and publish product images, motivational photos, quotes, user-created content, and so on.  

 

  • Use Relevant Hashtags

 

You probably know that hashtags make a key concept of Instagram marketing, but we must not underestimate the importance of this feature. After all, relevant hashtags are pretty much the only way to get noticed and discovered by new fans.

Hashtags allow you to categorize posts, thus helping you to reach the right audience and eliminate disinterested users. You can add up to 30 hashtags per post, but we don’t recommend you to use the maximum capacity.

Namely, a lot of Instagram users consider hashtag abundance to be spammy, so it’s much better to choose up to five or six highly relevant solutions. There is a whole science behind Instagram hashtags, but the two most important things are to use top-performing niche hashtags and your own branded hashtags.  

 

  • Encourage User Engagement

 

The best way to strengthen relationships with your audience is by promoting user-generated content (UGC). The principle is simple: you invite fans to shoot brand-related images or videos and publicly acknowledge the most creative posts.

This is a powerful Instagram marketing tactic for a number of reasons. First of all, it helps you to raise awareness as the audience is using branded hashtags and sharing content related to your brand, products, or services.

Secondly, you get to show that you care for your followers. When you endorse their posts, you show appreciation and support, which is always a good way to turn fans into loyal brand advocates.

If you are wondering how to encourage user engagement, the answer is easy – just ask them directly. You can organize contests and prepare prizes for the most popular posts. People love free stuff and enjoy competing, so you can expect a lot of users to join the game.

 

  • Work with Influencers

 

Social influencers are one of the strongest forces of modern marketing. They can skyrocket brand performance on Instagram very quickly, but only if you cooperate with the right person. Once again, it is crucial to understand how your followers think and what they want to see from you.

Markus Bradley, a CMO at AssignmentMasters, prefers working with micro-influencers over their more famous colleagues: “Macro-influencers are celebrities with millions of fans, but they can’t drive engagement as successfully as their less known peers.”

Studies confirm his point since micro-influencers are able to generate 60% greater engagement than other types of campaigns. Unless you are trying to boost brand recognition internationally, your tactic should be to work with niche-oriented influencers who guarantee user engagement.

 

 

  • Don’t Forget to Add a Link

 

While Instagram gives you the opportunity to promote the brand, it doesn’t allow you to add too many links leading to the website. As a matter of fact, you can only add one link to the BIO section, so don’t forget to use it and to change it frequently depending on new product releases or marketing campaigns. The only way to add more links to your content is Instagram advertising, which is a very convenient solution if you can afford a budget for this purpose.

 

Conclusion

Instagram is not only the fastest-growing social platform but also one of the most fruitful networks marketing-wise. A well-crafted strategy can earn you tons of new fans and raise awareness significantly, which is why we discussed six marketing tips to help grow your brand on Instagram. These tactics are only a starting point, but they can skyrocket your account rather quickly. Make sure to use our suggestions and let us know in comments if you have any other ideas to share with our readers!

Becky Holton is a journalist and a blogger at RushMyEssay. She is interested in education technologies and is always ready to support informative speaking at paper writing service, BrillAssignment . Follow her on Twitter.