Grow Your Business with Instagram

Instagram's icon on the screen of mobile device

With over 500 million monthly active users and over 300 million daily users, it is not surprising that Instagram is fast becoming one of the biggest marketing channels on the internet. Every day, the photo app’s users, spread across the world, post millions of photos and short videos, sharing entertainment and information with followers, and creating a presence for their businesses. 

As you would have observed, Nigeria isn’t left out of the party. Although there are no official statistics as yet, our fellow countrymen share thousands of selfies and comedy shorts by the hour. Brands and individuals battle to break out of the noise, to trigger some engagement and, hopefully, some sort of conversion. Unfortunately, this is not as easy as it sounds. So, how can small businesses use Instagram to generate sales and enhance their customers’ experience? This post offers some useful tips. 

Create an Account

Expectedly, the first step is to sign up for an account in the same name as your brand’s Twitter handle and Facebook page. Next, create an optimized profile with your business logo, link to your website, contact details and industry related keywords. 

Combine Fun and Business

Someone once remarked that Instagram is a platform for telling stories with images. Create and, or repost fun and interesting photos that are aligned with your brand’s identity, and balance them with images related to your products and services. 

Connect and Follow

In order to get followers, connect your brand’s Instagram account to your Facebook account. This would help Instagram to suggest your account to all your Facebook friends who are on the platform. Next, engage by following others and liking their photos – your best bet is to follow people who follow competing brands. In addition, when you post new photos, make sure to use trending, but relevant hashtags. 

Embeddable Video

Experiment with Instagram’s 15-second, editable video functionality. Users like to watch these videos because they are short and low on data consumption. Again, you can now embed your Instagram video in your website or blog; this extends the reach of your contents. 

Photo Contests

Nigerians love contests and prizes. If you can afford it, leverage the craze for photo contests and share across the other social media channels. When you host this kind of contests, create dedicated hashtags to organize submissions. 

Reward Followers

Depending on the nature of your products or services, you can offer your followers discount codes and promos. These discounts do not have to be huge; they will naturally cause your followers to checkout your website or standalone sales page. 

Conclusion

All in all, be clear about your brand and create contents that would attract people’s attention and make them want to share. Although 5000 users won’t follow you 24 hours after you implement these, you will see your Instagram followership and engagement grow exponentially. Our hope is that that would translate to sales. 

Do you have questions? Then, leave them in the comment section below. Contact me if you would like us to help you handle any aspect of your digital marketing.