How to grow a brand account on Instagram
Key takeaways
As per statistics, Instagram now enjoys over two billion monthly users; that’s MASSIVE! But do you want to know what makes it unique for businesses? About 90% of these users follow multiple brand accounts. Instagram has grown from a photo-sharing fun application to an all-in-one business platform in the last ten years. Multi-billion dollar brands are already utilizing it to run their online shops, broadcast their live events, and even raise funds for various causes.
So if you have a brand that you want to start and grow Instagram business account of that brand, get your business boots on because this article is for you! You will learn the art of using Instagram like a pro and establishing your brand account on Instagram for ultimate success.
Why Instagram?
If you believe in statistics, here’s why Instagram is a must in 2022:
● More than 50% of the global population is aged below 30 years.
● Adults aged 18 to 40 are connected to the internet throughout their day.
● Instagram was downloaded more than 500 million times last year.
● About 510 million users are active on Instagram every day.
● The revenue of Instagram in 2020 was a whopping $24 billion, and it’s about 36% of entire Facebook’s total.
How do brands market on Instagram?
Marketers use this social media platform for advertising their business through various techniques and strategies. To narrow it down, let’s divide it into two main categories:
● Using Paid advertising methods through famous influencers to promote a brand.
● Using organic methods like creating and sharing regular posts and stories, answering comments, and keeping users engaged with the brand.
To achieve the second one, you’ll have to set some goals and work on them in different ways that we will learn in this article. But first, you need to know the algorithm!
Why are Algorithms important for marketers?
An algorithm is a widely used term in marketing, but often marketers neglect its importance. Even if you have little knowledge of it, you can achieve your end goals 2x times quicker than your competitors.
The primary task of an algorithm on Instagram is to ensure relevancy, engagement, and enjoyment as per the company’s core values and policies. Algorithms keep an eye on daily activities that users are performing, and they make assumptions about what and when a user will need relevant content in the future.
If your content is something the user wants, the algorithms are more likely to show your brand account on Instagram to the masses. So, the main question is: how do you ensure that your content is relevant to what your customers want? Simple, follow these six steps!
How to grow your brand account on Instagram?
First step - Create an Instagram business account
If you haven’t already created one, here’s how to make a new account from scratch:
- Install the Instagram app on your mobile: Android, iOS, or Windows
- Open the application and sign-up
- Fill in your details. Tip: If you create the account to connect with your business Facebook page, use the official admin email to sign-up.
- Select a preferred username and password, followed by filling out other information on your profile.
- You can even sign in with your Facebook if you already have a business Facebook page running under your profile.
- Once the account is created, it’s time to switch things to business mode!
Switch your personal account to a business account:
- Go to your profile, and tap the burger menu on the upper right.
- Go to settings and select switch to “Professional Account.” If you don’t see one, tap on “Account” and choose “Business.”
- You can connect your Facebook page to your Instagram account with simple steps.
- Choose the category you want to have and fill in your business details.
Second step - Time to create a strategy that will work!
Know your audience
The first step to creating a successful strategy is to know about your audience. Read and get some statistics straight about the demographics of Instagram users. You will have to list the most critical areas where your customers are currently active. To explain to you in simple steps:
- Differentiate the audience that is already your customer base.
- Look at the analytics to find which people already follow you on other social media platforms.
- Do competitor research and see how your audience is different from others.
Once you have essential elements of who your audience is and what they are looking for, you can easily see through their glasses.
Know what you want to achieve
List down your objectives and your expectations of joining Instagram. Ensure that you work on the SMART approach (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely) to win the user's attention and engage them.
Keep monitoring your actions.
When you are super confident about your goals, you can easily track and monitor every move on social media. Every brand has its steps to follow, but here are some basic actions that should be observed on social media:
- Monitor followers' awareness through page likes, post reactions, audience reached, and the impressions received.
- Monitor followers' engagement through likes and comments on posts and the post shares on your page.
- Monitor conversion metrics that may include the click-through rate or bounce rate (in the case of paid advertisements).
- Monitor the actions of your customers that include continuous repetition on your page, and keep engaged with your posts.
Make a calendar of your postings.
Plan the best days and timings where you want your posts to be shown to customers. With an excellent social media calendar, you will be more likely to focus on monitoring the customer metrics than thinking about what to post daily.
List down all the critical days and the times when your customers are most online. Yes, you can do that! You can even check the hours and days where your audience is most active when you use Instagram for business. Isn’t it cool? You can see these details by visiting the “Insights” from your profile and clicking the “Audience” from the menu.
Step Three - Make sure your profile is 100% complete!
While scrolling around the app, you will see many places where you can put some details about your business; never leave them empty! It is where you take the edge from others in capturing users' attention.
Write your brand's voice in Bio.
As a business, your bio will be the primary reason why a user should follow your profile? It all comes down to 150 characters for creating a positive effect on your user. Here are some tips to ensure you keep the bio effective:
- Organize your bio by describing details in multiple lines
- Add a relevant emoji
- Add a call-to-action and tell users why they should click it?
Add your business logo.
Your logo should remain constant on all social media platforms so that users see uniformity in your brand. Make sure you upload an HD version of your business logo within the given size of 110 x 110 pixels.
Include a button
You can set different call to action buttons on your Instagram account profile, like contact by email or phone. Go to “Profile” and click “Edit Profile” to set the button you want to add.
Include Stories & Highlights
One of the most excellent methods to get users' attention is to post stories and highlights. Use Instagram for business to save the stories as highlights that will stay on your profile once the story disappears after 24 hours. Your stories can be everyday events, tips, new products, or anything relevant.
Step Four - Always share relevant and quality content!
Make use of visuals
It’s essential to utilize visuals as Instagram is all about what people can see. Showcase what you think will appeal to the customers, and they will share it in their stories as well. Take examples from other competitor brands and see what images they have shared relevant to daily activities performed by an individual. Keep following the same pattern that you decide so that your followers can differentiate your brand from others based on the theme and color you share.
Learn and use various tools
Regardless of how beautiful your brand image looks, there’s always room for improvement on Instagram. Editing your photos with mesmerizing filters can increase the chances of success. Add some frames, infographics, or even something from the emoji list to make your content appealing and unique.
Content is the king
A great caption can uplift your entire visual or even your brand account. If you’re passionate about your brand, tell a story to your followers that creates meaning in your post and wins their confidence.
Don’t neglect other Instagram formats.
Explore some of the other formats that Instagram offers and see what fits your brand. Some of the most available options include Instagram Carousels, Instagram Reels, IGTV, Instagram LIVE, and Instagram Guides.
Post Regularly
The rule of law for Instagram branding is to keep on sharing consistently. It shows your followers that you are here to keep them engaged daily and share interesting facts and helpful techniques apart from sharing your product or service. With this method, people will start following your brand to stay aware of various points.
Step Five - Come up with something good to keep your audience engaged!
Always respond to your audience.
Never ignore the comments and mentions your brand gets from users. Replying to them will keep them engaged with your brand in many ways. Many brands automate responses and forget about visiting the inbox but writing a custom message to users never goes astray. They will know that another human has typed this message. The same goes for the mentions on your profile or the stories.
It’s all about using the #hashtags.
A user can easily find anything on Instagram with hashtags. Captions you write are great when a user reads them but cannot search them. The only way to search for good content is through a hashtag that every brand uses. With hashtags, you make it easy for your users to share photos and videos relevant to your hashtags. They can do it by putting your brand’s hashtag in the caption of their shared image or video.
Establish your brand on other platforms
If you have other social media platforms running, utilize them to promote your newly created Instagram brand account. Share what type of content users will see on your Instagram and why it’s worth following your brand and profile.
Run Instagram Ads
Organic reach is declining with time, so it’s always an excellent strategy to promote your Instagram profile through Ads. It becomes easy to reach out to your targeted audience and encourage them to click on your profile and take the desired action. You can try various techniques to see which type of Ad will be best for your brand and audience.
You can create a significant impact with Instagram campaigns in a certain period. Here are some of the ways it will help your brand:
- Increasing the visibility of your brand on Instagram.
- Promote your products through the Instagram shop. (If available in your country)
- Boost engagement through sharing contests.
Step Six - Monitor & Improve
Use Instagram for business and get all the results that you need to track and monitor how you went with achieving your goals. Instagram also provides access to built-in tools that provide analysis on posts and profile visits, but it only gives reports within 30 days. Apart from Instagram, many other tools are available on the internet for analysis that can be utilized to see results for a longer duration.
Keep on experimenting
Start doing A/B testing to figure out what strategy works best for you. Social media is all about testing various techniques until you find the one to go along with. Keep experimenting with new methods and try out unique and catchy formats on your profile. If you see a form working, it’s good to carry on with it and research to make it more appealing.
Manage and save your time by using various tools to schedule and modify your posts whenever you want. With these measures, you will be able to grow Instagram business account and manage it in the right way.
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