Instagram is a home for roughly one billion monthly active users. From a photo-sharing platform to a crucial platform to build a business’s online presence, Instagram has transformed itself into a blessing for marketers around the globe. The internet era has great potential for small businesses that strive to compete with multinational companies. Instagram is the right tool for every business in any industry that not only wants to sell more but also wants to sell effectively. With its productive organic tools, such as an Instagram business Account, insights, and Instagram Live, it aids in building an effective marketing strategy, engaging with customers, creating brand loyalty, and analyzing the results of such activities to decide on the best-performing ones.
Instagram has the potential to convert your potential customers into paying customers, your followers into your brand’s advocates on social media, and your one-time customers into loyal customers. However, not every activity you perform on social media will turn out to be extraordinarily fruitful, but not doing a few will cause you to fall. Therefore, we have brought some of the most crucial steps you would need to take to leverage Instagram for your small business.
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Create and complete your profile:
You might think of it as an unnecessary-to-mention-here step, but it is the first and foremost step to start your pursuit of making the most of Instagram. To take your business online, you must bear one thing in mind: a personal account and a business account are different, and for your business, you must have an Instagram Business Account.
Once you have your business account up and running, add all the necessary details about your business. Make sure your profile picture, bio, product catalogue, contact method, location, etc. These profile components strengthen your brand on social media.
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Design a killer Strategy:
For small businesses, well-designed and implemented strategies can do miracles. But unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy to break the bars. Nevertheless, a few things every plan has in common and must be done by every business are listed below:
- Define your audience: Use Instagram Audience Demographics to comprehend who uses the platform the most, and then jot down what demographics you would like to target. To get more insights about your target audience, carry out audits from time to time and analyse who buys from you and what your followers like.
- Set Goals: After you determine your target group, now is the time to ascertain the target to achieve. Make sure your goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely).
- Determine & Monitor KPIs: As you have your goals defined, now is the time to determine the right set of Key Performance Indicators. Your goals reflect the ideal performance indicators. For example, to spread awareness about your product, you must keep analysing growth rate and reach. For small businesses, some crucial KPIs are Growth rate, engagement rate, post impression, etc.
- Create a content calendar: Creating a content calendar will help you maintain consistency while posting on Instagram. If you are a small business owner, you need to show your audience that you care about them. Hence, make sure you never miss an opportunity to post what your audience may like.All of the events that your audience is anticipating should be included in a content calendar.
· Never compromise with quality:
Quality is the key, whether you post a video, reel, IGTV video, or a simple picture with a caption. Not only does it attract users and have them like, comment, and share such content, but it also has a positive impact on your reach and social media optimisation. For Insta visual or video content, we suggest using AI reel maker or Intagram video editors from popular AI platforms these days such as Invideo. When uploading your product photos, always confirm that the images are captured professionally.
If you are a small business owner, you can post nicely written captions, reels, and relevant quotes to boost engagement.
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Make use of highlights:
Highlights are the stories that stay on your profile for as long as you want them. Whenever a user tries to find more about you and your business, it will be tiring to scroll down until they find a post that tells them the exact information. However, if you use highlights, they can find information more easily. It also helps you highlight your star posts to get them to reach a larger audience. Users can also reshare highlights, and hence, it can aid in generating more user-generated content. You can keep in mind the following: About us, FAQs, customer reviews, current job openings, and highly appreciated posts.
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Keep an eye on the trends:
Small businesses abundantly benefit by keeping up with the trends. Trends indicate what your audience loves. And what could be a better strategy than creating what people love to watch?
One thing that never goes off the trend is creating guides. If your products come with steps to be followed, you must post guides or How-to posts and feature those posts in the highlights section. Another thing you can do is keep your audience engaged with story polls, questions & answers, and offer followers-only promotions.
Go live:
Using Instagram Live has proven effective in the pandemic period when managers realised that even though they are working from home, the need to connect with the audience still exists. Your followers are notified each time you go live, which facilitates audience interaction.
So now the question arises: what should you do when you go live? We have hand-picked a few ideas for you.
- Show behind-the-scenes or factory/office visits.
- Ask questions and answer them with explainers or How-To guides.
- Conduct interviews with your employees, CEO, or guests.
Closing thoughts
Instagram has a lot of potential for small businesses to connect with audiences and gain a competitive edge in a highly competitive market. Therefore, it is the list of what you must do with your Instagram to stay ahead of your competitors. However, what you can do with your Instagram is not limited to the strategies mentioned above. In reality, the sky is the only limit. Hence, use a great AI-powered Instagram video tool to keep the quality high and allow your team to manifest their creativity.
