Instagram Marketing Strategies in 2023

6 min read

Contents

1. Instagram Marketing’s Value for E-commerce
2. The Platform’s Algorithm
3. What are Your Marketing Objectives?
4. Setting Up and Optimization of Your Business Profile
5. Building a Content Strategy
6. Influencer Marketing Campaign
7. Hot to Get More Followers
8. Track Your Instagram Analytics
9. Final Tips for Effective Instagram Marketing

Instagram Marketing’s Value for E-commerce

Instagram gives lots of opportunities for businesses to present their products and services from various angles. When it comes to building a social media presence for a company, it’s probably fair to consider Instagram as the number one social network. The application’s marketing strategy works miracles if you create high-quality content and use the tips on how to boost the effectiveness of the marketing strategy.

If you don’t sell tangible products, the presence on the platform still has a great value for your company. It’s a perfect place for you to spread the brand’s awareness and connect with your audience, as well as attract new customers. Various statistics show that people are more likely to buy a product or services after seeing it on the platform. But you can’t post whatever comes to mind, proper marketing strategy requires analysis, and it’s better to create a schedule for your posts and stories.

The Platform’s Algorithm

As you may already know, the application replaced chronological feed with the algorithm.

Instagram made the switch to the algorithm because the app was growing in popularity, and it was difficult to keep up with the content overflow. The algorithm implies that you’re supposed to see posts that you are the most relevant to you and align with your interests. To be honest, that became quite a challenge to try and predict how the algorithm is going to work and to build the marketing strategy around it. Developing a strong marketing strategy for the platform requires experimenting and constant analysis of your profile and your competitors’. Even the tips that you’ll find in this article will not save you from making mistakes, but the results you can get are worth the effort.

Here are the key factors that influence the work of the algorithm, according to Instagram:

• Interest

The app tries to figure out what kind of content you’d like to see on your feed based on your previous activity and the publications you liked.

• Timeliness

The platform’s algorithm prefers showing you recent publications.

• Relationship

If you often engage with someone’s publications and these people tag you in their posts a lot, the application will let you see more content from them on your feed and vice versa.

• Frequency

If you spend lots of time on the platform and constantly scroll the news feed, then Instagram tries to demonstrate to you the best content since your previous visit.

• Following

If you rarely open the app, then your feed will be based on what the platform thinks you’ll like based on the account you follow.

• Usage

The content you see on the app depends on how much time you usually spend on the platform.

What are Your Marketing Objectives?

The success of your business’ activity on Instagram depends on your goals. First things first, you need to figure out why you use this social network. To set up strong marketing objectives is very important for moving in the right direction and measuring the company’s success by using correct metrics. Here are the tips:

• Find your target audience

Think about what is the portrait of your targeted audience, who are the people you market to, analyze their activity on social media further.

Another great option is competitor analysis. Visit your competitors’ pages and research their following base and what hashtags they use. It can help you with developing a strategy to attract more followers organically.

• Run the checkup of your Instagram

This research will provide you with the opportunity to look at the profile from another perspective, and make sure you’re moving in the right direction and staying on brand. This way, you will find answers to questions that are the most relevant to your business, such as what are your goals and objectives, branding strategy, engagement strategy, etc.

Setting Up and Optimization of Your Business Profile

• Create a Facebook page for your brand

You’re supposed to already have an active Facebook page, open it, and choose the option from the menu to create a page. Then select your business category and name for the page, add a profile and cover photo. When choosing a picture, think carefully about your brand’s representation.

• Connect the Facebook page to Instagram and set up a business profile

In the settings to your profile, click on the switch to the business profile, and then connect with Facebook. When you see the option continue as click on your Fb page.

The next step requires you to add contact information, like email, phone number, etc.

Here are the tips to help you with invoking the users’ interest to start following you:

• Consistent Instagram aesthetic
  

Tips:

1. You need to choose a color scheme for your feed and focus on the lighting so that your content would perfectly fit together.
2. Learn how to space out pictures with lots of elements with the minimalistic ones.
3. Stay consistent. If you chose warm tones for your feed, then stick with it.
4. Incorporate UGC in your Instagram strategy, but choose content that fits the style of your profile.

• Stories highlights

This is a great chance for the company to introduce its products and services by grouping highlights into different categories. Also, it’s a chance for the brand to introduce itself to the new followers.

• Insta bio

Tips:

1. The most important step is choosing the right name (not a username). The users will search for your company likely by using its name, so your consistency assures them that the account is yours. Besides, this way, it’ll be easier for people to find you.
   
2. By adding branded tags to your bio, you provide your potential followers with the opportunity to look through your content.
   
3. A good bio always gives a clue for people on what your business is and what products or services you provide.
   
4. Using keywords based on your main values may help you to bond with the followers who want to interact with your content.
   
5. Regularly update your website link to refer your followers to the new products, services, promotions, etc.
   
6. Add contact information because it’s a way for your audience to connect with you outside the platform.
   

• Run the checkup for your account

Once you finish with the steps listed above, you should take a critical look at your profile. Keep in mind that every element you add on your page is relevant to the brand perception.

Building a Content Strategy

• Photos remain one of the most popular forms of content on the platform.
• Shopping posts make the shopping process easier for people.

• Carousel publications help you to promote your products and services, demonstrate them from various angles; share content from your events without spamming the feed; showcase before-and-after sequences.

• Videos are a good way to promote your products or services by conveying a lot of information in a limited time.
  

Tips on making a great video:

1. Make a cover photo eye-catching.
2. Lots of people prefer watching videos without sound, consider adding subs.
3. Capture viewers’ attention from the first seconds.
4. Think of the optimal video length.
5. Dedicate time to editing.

• Stories are a vital part of the marketing strategy.
  

1. The frequency of posting depends on your content and what the audience expects from you.
   
2. Stories are available to watch for 24 hrs, so don’t worry about the posting time, unless you don’t aim for immediate engagement.
   
3. Your content should be a mix of entertaining, informative, and promotional stuff.
   

You can add various features to your stories, like clickable links (it allows driving traffic to certain landing pages), question stickers to communicate with the audience, polls to explore the audience’ interests, location, and hashtag stickers to expose your profile to a larger audience, share IGTV videos, and posts in stories, or invite an influencer or celebrity to guest host your story, and many more to boost the engagement.

• IGTV videos allow you to add clickable links in the description, add an eye-catching cover photo, and boost engagement. You can share the company’s news and different tutorials. Also, you can explore IGTV analytics and see not only likes and comments but also your audience retention rate and drop-off graph.

Influencer Marketing Campaign

When influencers recommend a product or service, their audience perceives it as a recommendation from a friend. You can work with an agency or simply with influencers.

When it comes to the cost, there is no definitive answer, seeing as lots of factors impact the price of a promotional publication. And it depends on whether you’re working with an influencer or an agency (in this case, what are the agency’s fees).

Lots of businesses tend to partner with micro-influencers, who have a small but significant following. People perceive micro-influencers as trustworthy everyday consumers. Micro-influencers tend to retain higher levels of engagement and seem more relatable to the customers.

To find the right influencers for your business, you can work with an influencer marketing agency. These agencies help in connecting brands with influencers. Brands approach the agency and give a brief on their goals. The agency looks for suitable candidates by checking their Instagram engagement, the quality of their followers, budget requirements, etc. Both businesses and agencies consider engagement as the most relevant factor.

Hot to Get More Followers

The first step requires you to create high-quality content that resonates with your audience.

You can use the top Instagram hashtags that are relevant to your audience or the industry you’re in, your location, market, etc. The best way to find them is to look at what your audience, industry leaders, and competitors use. It’s smart to consider hashtags as categories and use relevant tags that expose your profile to users who might be interested in buying your products.

Your stories can appear on the explore page and search pages for different locations and hashtags, so don’t forget about them.

Promote your publications to reach a new audience.

A contest or giveaway can help you with growing the following base and promoting your brand. For organizing it, you can partner with other businesses with a similar target market and audience.

Live videos are a great way to tease the launch of a new collection and promoting your products and services.

Track Your Instagram Analytics

Instagram analytics helps you in modifying your marketing strategy to achieve better results.

The app’s insights allow you to understand your audience demographics, which is relevant for the proper analysis. This way, you also get to know how often you should post and when.

With Instagram Insights, you can track your impressions (the total number of times users saw your content), reach (the total number of views unique users saw your content), engagements (the total number of likes, comments, or saves), profile visits, and followers. These categories allow you to calculate your engagement rate.

Also, you can sort your content metrics by the types of content you post. It’s an important option because the way your audience engages with each type of content varies, and it can affect the performance.

When it comes to stories, you can track taps forward (when the user clicked to get to the next publication), taps backward (when the user rewatched the content), next publication & exits (when the user exited the publication or tapped to view next account’s content), replies, swipe-ups on the links you added.

You’re also supposed to determine the right KPIs for your company that depends solely on your goals.

Final Tips for Effective Instagram Marketing

• Post when your audience is the most active

It’s important to figure out your own perfect time for posting to get the most engagement.

• Communicate with your audience

It helps with increasing sales and connecting with your customers.

• Schedule your publications

Having your publications scheduled helps to get the most out of your marketing strategy, saves lots of time, and you get to preview how your feed is going to look like.

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Answers on most common questions

How can you promote business on Instagram?

Is Instagram marketing really effective?

What are the most important things for the Instagram marketing strategy?