Instagram has more than 1.47 billion users each month! This is why building an Instagram marketing strategy can offer an amazing opportunity for businesses to market their products and services and reach a larger audience base.
Many businesses have been tapping into the power of Instagram marketing to expand their reach and increase brand awareness.
While most people use Instagram almost daily, positioning yourself on Instagram requires a strategic approach. Instagram goes beyond just posting pictures and videos. It requires enormous efforts and resources, similar to any other marketing strategy.
The key to successful Instagram marketing is a definite action plan which covers all aspects of Instagram, such as engagements and attracting new audiences with value-driven content.
Asking yourself questions before you begin the process can help lay the foundation for your Instagram Marketing Strategy. These questions can be:
- What are your objectives?
- Whom are you trying to reach?
- What stage is your social media marketing at the moment?
- What kind of content will you need to create to meet your goals?
In this article, we will be diving deep into:
- The Purpose Of Instagram Marketing.
- The4-Step Approach to Creating a Winning Instagram Marketing Strategy.
The Purpose Of Instagram Marketing
Instagram is fitting for brand awareness and selling new products because customers willingly and actively engage with brands and welcome new products. Instagram has humanized marketing. It allows brands to promote and engage with the audience on an emotional level. This humane connection is what makes Instagram a strong marketing tool.
Due to the vastness of the audience, it has become a global platform to showcase your brand’s uniqueness, paved the way to create engaging, innovative content, and created a cushion to engage actively, grow and inspire your audience.
While Instagram is great, it can sometimes be overwhelming, especially for beginners. However, the four steps below can help you establish a winning Instagram marketing strategy for your business.
Steps To Create A Winning Instagram Marketing Strategy
1. Defining Your Marketing Goals & Creating A Plan Of Action
Similar to the base questions we covered in the first part, it is important to ask where you stand as a brand, what your end goal is, and how you will use Instagram to achieve it. This helps in forming the foundation of your Instagram marketing strategy.
The most important point to remember is that the goals you define should resonate with your brand’s needs. Customer engagement will be the top marketing strategy if you want to increase brand awareness.
For this reason, ensure your goals are within limits, attainable, clear-cut, and have an achievable timeline.
2. Devising The Plan Of Action
Mapping out an action plan after defining your goals ensures a seamless transition. Using a social media calendar to map out the contents you will produce for the month and scheduling them beforehand can ease down the process of marketing on Instagram.
Businesses can use social media platforms like Buffer, Sendible, ContentCal, or any other, depending on their needs and requirements, to build monthly social media calendars.
Brainstorming relevant content and planning campaigns such as product launches can improve Instagram’s marketing process. The action plan for Instagram should be complementary to other social media marketing strategies you may have implemented to ensure there is no overlap.
While creating a social media or marketing calendar might seem tedious initially, it can go a long way to ensure your content stays on point and there is no confusion later on.
As you actively brainstorm and add relevant content ideas, you will also be able to analyze which goals are achievable and when. Hence, this ensures your goals align with your strategies and vice-versa.
3. Know And Understand Your Target Audience
Instagram marketing relies completely on the audience and customer engagement. You are creating content for the audience. To reach your target audience, getting to know what they want should be your top goal.
Once your goals are ready, your content strategy should be focused entirely on your audience. Knowing what content is most welcomed by the audience and which type has the most user engagement helps devise a fool-proof content plan for your brand’s Instagram marketing strategy. Also, understanding what inspires your target the most and aligns with your common goals is of prime importance.
Here is a tip to learn about your audience using Instagram. Open the app, the “insights dashboard,” and select total followers. Here you will see a split of insights based on gender, range, city, age, and country, giving you a map of your audience demographics.
Using this valuable insight, you can tailor your content to exactly deliver what your audience needs and wants to see.
A little insight into the minds of your target audience can help you determine the best approach to reach them at the right time. It is also important when choosing targeting options for Instagram ads.
Another way to understand your target audience is by exploring hashtags and using them to your advantage. Try to learn more about who is using hashtags related to your brand or product, their reactions, and how they engage with similar content. It gives you a closer look at your audience’s thoughts and reactions. You can also use tools such as Inflact to generate hashtags for your posts. These tools provide insights into which hashtags are performing better in your niche.
4. Curate & Optimize Your Content
Creating compelling and relevant content is the key to always staying fresh and on top. Instagram users are very picky and selective. If the content is not engaging enough, they skip and move on to the other. The posts on Instagram have to stand out and urge the audience to stop scrolling and have a look.
While this is easier said than done, you can start by determining the main theme and current trends. Try to create a humane connection with your content that resonates with the audience personally.
Instagram provides various formats to create engaging content. The key is to determine which format, when delivered, would showcase your product the best. There are short-form (reels) and long-form video formats that are trendy and engaging, and there are attractive carousel posts where you add more value-driven, textual content.
Since Instagram is more visual than textual, your posts should highlight the visual qualities and look great. Catchy captions coupled with alluring pictures are a great start. Each content you put out there has to have meaning and a story behind it that connects with your brand and the audience. Using content such as behind-the-scenes or customer experiences can help build the credibility of your brand.
Your brand identity lies in the content of your post on Instagram. Ensure a common aesthetic is followed to imprint the brand image on the user’s mind. It is also important to make the content authentic and genuine.
Remember, the content is the bridge between the brand and the audience; make sure that the bridge is strong and attractive.
Key Takeaways
Instagram is a game-changer in the marketing world. It has transformed into a global playfield for brands to showcase the best of their abilities and create the much-needed emotional bond between the audience.
Using this platform is a win-win situation for everyone. From using tools to curating eye-popping, engaging content, there are many assured ways to get on the Instagram train and use it to your advantage to grow your business exponentially.
After all, anything for the gram, right?
Author Bio
Ankit Vora is a results-driven freelance content marketer with over seven years of experience in the MarTech space. When he’s away from work, he likes to head over to the beach, spend time with his loved ones and cook.