HOW TO USE INSTAGRAM FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING by Victoria Victor (Part 7)

Instagram is the 3rd most popularly used social media networking site in the world. With more than 800 million active users, the sobriquet that Instagram has earned seems quite justified.

Data was collected from napoleoncat.com on Instagram 

Nigeria has over 5.1 million users on the site (as at October 2017 - napoleoncat.com). Hosting your business on Instagram should serve the basic purpose of attracting people to it. Unless you have good following on Instagram how you can expect your sales to grow? The platform has literally translated into a hub for business seekers who can gain considerable mileage from it.

The powers of social media in making business grow had already been established and Instagram has literally blown the lid off with its enormous abilities of engagement.

The Image above  shows Davido as the most followed person in Nigeria on Instagram as at February 2018.

Staying connected with customers is now a delight – thanks to Instagram that is now the focal point of attraction in the social media. Such is the high impact of Instagram that many people have dubbed it as the King of engagement.

Below is an article By Trudy - Seeger which was actually published April 24th 2017 and is very key to develop and grow the Instagram page of your dreams

Numbers are impressive

The Image above shows Diamond bank Nigeria on Instagram

The statistics of engagement rates on Instagram is also quite startling. Some of the top brands on Instagram enjoy an interaction rate of 2.3% for every follower. What they experience on Facebook is only 0.2 percent and the figure is even dismal on Twitter that records interaction rate per follower at 0.02 percent. It will be wrong to assume that by merely opening an Instagram account, you would be in the league of the big ones. In order to generate engagement numbers that could be close to the leading brands on Instagram, you need to work diligently to develop new Instagram followers in a methodical manner. Improving and fine tuning your Instagram strategy is the only way to do it, as discussed in this article.

Lay the foundation stone- have a strategy

Your Instagram strategy is like your ambition in life. Not having a strategy in place can make you drift aimlessly and you can get lost in the vast expanse of the social media. The strategy provides the guiding light that would drive the Instagram campaign. What you want to achieve for business by using the platform is spelt out in the strategy that is based on the following.

·    Goal setting – Begin by setting goals for Instagram that have to be aligned to the business goals and strategy of marketing that you have already. From creating brand awareness and driving quality traffic to your website, everything will be covered by it.

·    Learn from competitors – This would need some research as you have to see how your competitors are making use of Instagram. You will know about what kind of content is being served and what is being liked by viewers. This would give an indication about the workability of that type of content for you. You can also gauge the level of following that the content is able to generate and lean about the techniques of engagement. How much of following you should expect can also be understood by analyzing the trend of Instagram followers of the competitors.

·    Tell a story – What story you will tell is a part of the strategy you make. The visuals have to narrate a story that would reveal its purpose. This would make the audience curious about it and facilitate engagement. Share the inside story of making the products. Demonstrate the humane side of your business by showcasing employee welfare and includes customers’ achievements too.

Make it more visible

The easier it will be for people to find out your entity on Instagram, the better will be the prospects of increasing the number of followers. Take pro-active measures to show up to people instead of waiting for them to find you. Start following people and comment on their visuals to tell them about your existence. Use relevant hashtags to draw the attention of search engines towards your content. Link your Instagram account with all other online accounts that you may have and even embed the visuals in blogs. The idea is to point out to your Instagram account from every possible direction where the audience treads on the social media.

Develop compelling content

The strength of your content contributes to enhanced following. Make the content interesting and attractive so that viewers are compelled to remain engaged with it. In addition, you have to be consistent in providing content so that the growing expectations of followers can be met. Know when it is the best time to post content and use the most relevant hashtags for captions that would attract new followers. Pay attention to the captions that have considerable powers in driving new followers to your account. Make good use of videos as tutorials, tips and to delve into product details that the audience is likely to lap up.

Become a follower first to get new followers

Identify potential new followers and build relationship with them by following them, sharing their content after liking it and commenting about it. In a way, become a follower first to attract new followers. These actions can result in favors being returned – something that you are looking for. The path of collaboration with other successful businesses on Instagram can help both parties to gain new followers and expand the market.

Contests can drive new followers to you

Organizing contests on Instagram can attract new followers. Making it mandatory to like, comment and repost any photos and also advise the use of a specific hashtag to enter the contest. This will drive more traffic to your website comprising of new followers. The reach can be expanded further by including user-generated content within the scope of the contest. New followers who were unaware about you on Instagram will be drawn to such content posted by someone they already follow and in turn they will discover you at the end of the tunnel.

There is still more that you can do to attract new followers. Having a budget for advertising and spending it for advertising on Instagram can draw the attention of new followers. Sponsored ads can put you in the fast track of reaching out to new followers.

Whatever you do need to be reviewed to understand the kind of results you are getting. This would help to identify the weak areas and point to the adjustments in strategy that are necessary to give better results.

Instagram Tips and Tricks

How to Build a Massive Following on Instagram (by Richard Lazazzera)

“Used correctly, Instagram can be a highly-targeted, visual advertising channel for your brand. In fact, in a recent study it was discovered that Instagram provides brands with 25% more engagement over other social platforms. This means that Instagram is a prime channel to build your brand for your ecommerce business.

Like any social network out there, there are right ways to use it, wrong ways to use it, and clever ways to use it.

In this post, we will show you how to most effectively use Instagram to increase engagement and build a massive following.

How to Get Followers on Instagram

There are five tactics that will help you get more followings on Instagram.

1.   Use the right hashtags

2.   Use the right filters

3.   Post at the right time

4.   Steal your competitors followers

5.   Sponsored posts and product reviews

Let's dive deeper into how to implement each tactic.

1. Use the Right Hashtags

Your goal on Instagram is to engage your current audience while also growing your following. Posting new, interesting and engaging photos will satisfy the first requirement but to begin growing you'll find hash tagging your photos to be extremely important. Hash tagging your photo makes it easy for people to find your photos that are searching for those specific terms. 

So which hashtags should you use?

Just like with Twitter and other social sites, users on Instagram use certain hashtags over others. If you use the right hashtags within your photos, you're much more likely to reach new users and be discovered. 

Here are the current top 10 hashtags on Instagram according to Websta:

1.   #love (1,027,917,810 posts)

2.   #instagood (552,537,705 posts)

3.   #photooftheday (394,332,818 posts)

4.   #beautiful (367,636,422 posts)

5.   #tbt (360,522,758 posts)

6.   #happy (2353,202,629 posts)

7.   #cute (351,930,751 posts)

8.   #fashion (351,195,493 posts)

9.   #followme (326,083,312 posts)

If you looked at the list above and said “But none of those apply to my products or brand”, you're likely correct.

Using hashtags is one thing, using the right tags is a completely other thing. Popular tags like the ones listed above will likely net you additional engagement and likes; however, they will not lead to increased long-term engagement, new interested followers and most importantly, sales.

If you want to tag your photos properly, you'll need to find and use the most relevant hashtags. This means doing the appropriate research to make sure you're using the most relevant hashtags that not only describes your brand, but is also being searched for on Instagram. 

2. Use the Right Filters

Keyword hashtags aren’t the only thing you should pay attention to. The Instagram community responds to certain photo filters more favorably than others. Using these preferred filters can have an impact on your engagement.

Here are the 10 current most popular filters on Instagram according to Iconosquare:

Here are the 10 current most popular filters on Instagram according to Iconosquare:

1.   Normal (No Filter)

2.   Clarendon

3.   Juno

4.   Lark

5.   Ludwig

6.   Gingham

7.   Valencia

8.   X-Pro II

9.   Lo-fi

10.                      Amaro

TrackMaven recently did a study on Instagram accounts to see how filters affected engagement and found that Mayfair, no filter and Inkwell drove the most interaction.

More important than the overall Instagram communities’ favorite filters are your particular audience's favorite filters. Consider this custom graph which correlates filter usage to engagement from your own Instagram account:

You can use IconoSquare to review the performance of your own account to understand what is and is not currently working for you.

3. Post at the Right Time

Beyond adding the appropriate hashtags and using the best filters, you should also be considering the timing of your posts. 

A targeted approach is to analyze what has and has not worked for you in the past. By visiting IconoSquare’s optimization section, you can get a detailed analysis of your posting history vs. engagement. This report will also highlight the best times of the day and days of the week to post.

The dark circles indicate when you usually post media. The light gray circles shows when your community has been interacting. The biggest light gray circles represent the best times for you to post.

You may want to consider using a scheduling program to schedule your post. For that, you can use a (paid) program like ScheduGram.

4. Steal Your Competitors Followers

One of the best ways to find and attract new following is by seeking out your closest competitors' Instagram accounts and engaging with their audience. These people have already shown some level of interest in the products you carry simply by following your competitors' account.

So how do you effectively steal your competitors' followers?

You can steal your closest competitors' followers by engaging with them. There are several ways to engage with Instagram users, and predictably, the more work you put in, the more followers and return engagement you’ll get out of it.

The three types of engagement on Instagram are:

·        Follow a user

·        Like a photo

·        Comment on a photo

I ran an informal test with my business account to see how my competitors' followers responded to my marketing advances. I targeted the followers of a close, local competitor. Since I know many of his followers would be local, I added my city to my profile to create a greater sense of familiarity between my brand and the people I am targeting.

I began by simply following 100 of my competitor's followers. Later, I followed another 100 of my competitor's followers but I also took the time to like one of their photos. Finally, I followed another 100 of my competitor's followers and commented on one of each of the 100 user's photos as well as liked that same photo.

Here were the results:

·        Follow: 14% followback

·        Follow + Like: 22% followback

·        Follow + Like + Comment: 34% followback

Although the are many variables and the test was far from scientific, the results were clear. The more you put in and engage with people, the more you’ll get out of it.

Note: While it's against Instagram's terms of service, some people use automated tools to follow the same process. House of Hannie discusses this tactic on the episode of Shopify Masters embedded below.

5. Sponsored Posts and Product Reviews

All this optimized posting to your account is great but if you really want to make an impact, you need to take advantage of influencer marketing on Instagram, exposing your brand to a wider audience.

So how do you do that?

First, unlike the tactics above to grow your account this one isn’t free. However, if done correctly, it’s good value.

To get started, you’ll need to make a list of large accounts in your niche. For example, if you sell beauty products, you’ll want to find large accounts from beauty bloggers.

You may already be following these accounts, if not you’ll need to find them. One of the best ways is to use Webstagram and search for some of the closest hashtag keywords you uncovered in the beginning of this post. When you do a search for your keywords, not only will it show you the related keywords, but it also shows you the top Instagram accounts that feature those keywords.

There are a few things to look for in the profiles results:

·        Large following - Usually 20k-200k

·        An email address in the profile

If there is an email address in the profile, it usually means they're open to sponsored posts. You’ll want to email them and ask them their sponsored post pricing. In general, I have found the average rate to be around $20-$50 per post, depending on the size of their following. However, if you're selling an unique and original product, you may also want to consider sending them your product to review and post. The more natural and less advertisement like the image, the greater the engagement and response usually.