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6 Essential steps to building your Instagram presence
22nd September 2017
If you’re serious about growing your business, it’s important that you build a following on Instagram. With more than 700 million monthly users, it’s an exciting time to be a marketer on Instagram, as the platform offers the opportunity for businesses to reach a massive audience. More followers can mean more sales for your business and a strong brand community. It’s important to get the most out of Instagram, especially if you want to target young people. The channel is popular with the younger demographic, as 73% of Instagram users are between 15 and 35 years old.
Below, we’ve got 6 actionable tips that’ll help you grow your Instagram following.
Outreach
Building relationships with influencers is one of the best ways to grow your Instagram presence. It’s a simple, effective way of creating more awareness for your brand, but make sure you identify the relevant influencers before you make contact. To do this, filter your Instagram search by follow count and hashtag, so you only target those with a large following and that are in your niche. If you want to seek out influencers who live in the same city as your business, you can also do a location-based search on Instagram.
Once you’ve identified the right influencers, reach out to them and offer a free product and have them mention your product and brand on one of their posts. This will boost referral followers across Instagram, as well as increase traffic to your site because your brand will be validated by the influencer.
Cross-promote
If you already have a business page on Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat, you’ll want to broadcast the fact that you’re on Instagram. This is mostly common sense, but make sure you share your Instagram account on your other social channels to gain more followers. More importantly, you should create a cross-promotion ad campaign on both Facebook and Instagram. You need to connect your Instagram account to your Facebook page.
To get started, go to settings on your Facebook page and in the left column, click Instagram ads and click ‘add account’ on the right. Once you have connected your Instagram account to your Facebook page, you’ll be able to show the same ads on both channels.
Run a contest
Running Instagram contests is a great way to create excitement around your brand and boost exposure. There are multiple ways you can run contests. First of all, you should make it easy for customers to be able to sign up to your competition. You could create a “like to win” contest and simply ask your followers to like a photo to be entered in the contest.
This requires little effort and over time you can build up the level of interaction with your customers, such as creating a photo challenge. To enter to win, ask your followers to post a photo with a specific hashtag. Make sure you have a suitable prize that your followers will get maximum value from. For example, if you’re a fashion brand, consider giving away a designer watch or a bundle of your products. Remember, this type of competition must come after you have already built up strong engagement from your earlier contests.
Post consistently
Make sure you post on a regular basis. Know why you’re posting, and who you’re posting for. You need to think about how your Instagram feed will look. All your photos should have some link that ties them all together. So, opt for a strong theme or style that’ll fuel your consistency. With a theme in mind, you’ll always know what to post about, making it easier to come up with photo ideas.
Use Crowdfire
Crowdfire is an excellent way to analyse the performance of your posts and how they affect your followers. It’s easy to get started with this tool. Simply create an account and select sign in with Instagram. You’ll be able to schedule posts on Instagram and it can help you follow relevant people based on keywords and hashtag. By connecting with meaningful people, you’ll be able to grow your following more easily, as you’ll be choosing people in your niche.
By following these five steps, you’ll be able to build your network and engage with your followers, creating conversations that’ll give your brand an extra boost.
Use hashtags and emojis
Hashtags and emojis are very important for building traction and discoverability. You can add up to 30 hashtags on Instagram. When a user wants to look for a particular service or product, they type in a particular keyword, so using hashtags effectively makes sure brand visible to people who are looking for your brand related product. Emojis are also searchable on Instagram, so make sure you use emojis that make the most sense. Nearly 50% of all captions and comments have at least one emoji. So, it’s important you give your business a personal touch because it can lead to higher interactions and more visibility.
