Social media is the modern digital tool that business organizations have turned to market their brands to a large audience. Instagram, in particular, is advantageous to marketing campaigns because of its visual-based content and algorithm that helps brands get discovered by more people.
However, the platform does serve a unique audience that may not make it necessary for every business to utilize. Nonetheless, it remains an effective marketing platform for businesses globally.
If you’re wondering whether your social media marketing should expand onto this platform, there are several steps you can take to find out.
Here are nine factors to consider and determine whether Instagram is a good fit for your business:
Should Your Business Be On Instagram?
Increases Brand Visibility
Social media is the best means to establish an online presence, especially for new businesses. That is because millions of users interact on these platforms every day. As such, they’re the perfect tool for reaching your target audience in a short period. If your business wants to benefit from more exposure and visibility, Instagram can be the right platform to achieve this goal. Instagram can help increase awareness of your brand through its discoverability and sharing functions. It is where users can ‘stumble’ upon your posts and spread them to their network if they’re interested. The key to making this work is to use the right hashtags and attract as many Instagram followers as possible. Your marketing strategy, such as advertising and influencer marketing, is where you can build a strong following and draw in viewers passing by. If you achieve this, you can boost your business’s online presence and increase sales.
Social Media Marketing Strategy
Assess how your current social media marketing strategy works and whether Instagram marketing can be incorporated thereon. It includes all publicity efforts and content you’ve planned for each platform you’re using, such as advertising or sponsored posts, pictures of products, graphics, videos, and informative guides.
Then, you can discuss with your marketing team whether all this material can be developed for Instagram. You can utilize this to expand your social media reach to a more visually attracted audience. You may then need to analyze your market research data first to know if your business can draw in followers as you have on other social media apps. Otherwise, you can use Instagram growth services to increase your following and grow your business account.
Target Audience
One of the most critical factors in determining whether Instagram is right for your business is your target audience. It is especially the case if you plan on opening your shop on the platform. You’ll want to ensure that the time and investment you exerted into promoting your business reach your intended market. You also want to make sure that your target market is active on Instagram in the first place too.
There is a large variety of users who visit the app every day. They range from teens who use it for sharing social interactions to young parents using it to discover informative content. The app is also segmented into communities that share the same niche interests. So if your business is related to an active internet group, you should consider Instagram as an effective tool to reach out to them.
Competitors
As with any business, you’ll need to conduct market research on your competitors before starting your account. It is to inspect how they’re performing on the app and gauge their audience share. You can do this by searching hashtags related to your industry and then checking which brands or businesses have a strong presence and high follower count.
If you notice that several big businesses are doing well on the platform, you can start planning your strategy. Never be intimidated by your competitors because there’s plenty of room for any brand to grow, provided that your marketing tactics can focus on your unique selling point, brand identity, and a niche segment of the same market. If your business already has a strong presence through online marketing without the need for social media content, then you can forgo competing with competition brands on Instagram specifically.
Products Or Service
Examine the type of products and services that your business has to offer. From there, you should discern if these can be promoted into interesting and eye-catching visual content. Think about whether your pictures, blog posts, short videos, and other marketing material can be packaged into single posts. Currently, most brands rely on professional images when it comes to touting services and products. You need to devote equal attention to the shooting and photo editing stages. Fortunately, you can improve product images faster with the help of Instagram Photoshop actions. If that might not work at first, review with your team whether you’d be willing to invest in creating this optimized content for the platform.
Another consideration related to your products or service is how likely they can build a community around them. Social media functions on communities and connected networks interacting and cross-referencing. Due to this, for your business to succeed on Instagram, you’ll need your product or service to have passionate followers who regularly engage, repost, share and talk about your content. It is what can convert your audience into loyal customers.
End Goal
You’ll need to define the purpose of your business to understand whether Instagram can help you get to your end goal. The app is most notable for assisting businesses to increase sales and grow a brand. It has now also provided the necessary tools to achieve this by transforming itself into an e-commerce marketplace where organizations can set up a shop and directly sell products to consumers.
Keep in mind that Instagram might not be the best tool to improve clickthrough rates as a goal because there are no active links for each post. Only one link in your business account bio is live, while a call-to-action link can be placed below-sponsored contents.
Furthermore, Instagram will give you access to insights into your followers. This information may not be essential to you if you’re trying to build a database of emails and contact information. You only get limited data from the platform. To protect the confidentiality of its users, the only resource you’ll get in this situation is the locations of your audience.
Reputation Management
Having any social media-marketing business account will require an online reputation management strategy. These are standardized procedures to retain a consistent quality and audience perception. It should also have steps to respond to bad publicity or reviews should your business ever garner negative publicity. Social media is known to be quite a challenging place to operate a brand due to the many different viewpoints of users.
Therefore, if you can regulate and control all communication and manage your public relations, Instagram can work for your business. Additionally, Instagram can also allow you to improve your reputation through customer engagements and interactions. It is where your business can make its mark in customer service in a way that can’t be done on a website or email consultation.
Content Format
Instagram is a mobile application. But it can also be used on the web as a desktop site. So if you’re going to utilize the app for your business, then your content should be optimized for mobile platforms. It means that when users see pictures and videos of your business, it fits into the dimensions of their phone. No part of the page should be cut off by Instagram itself or needs zooming out to see the entire content.
Concerning this, the content you’re likely to produce should be brief and to the point. Consider trimming videos over a minute long, reducing large-scale pictures, or summarizing long-form written blogs. It is especially helpful since the online attention of most users is relatively short. If you prefer keeping your content within the original condition, perhaps you can optimize your posts for websites or other social media platforms where they are better suited.
Brand Identity
Staying true to your brand identity even on social media should be a top priority for your business. It retains customers and ultimately gives them a reason to relate to your established identity. Moreover, it ensures that you don’t isolate existing and long-time consumers by re-molding to fit into the social media landscape. This is particularly important if you have a legacy business aiming to uphold old traditions and customs.
When working on the brand indentity, you should also pay attention on your audience as well. You should check who are following you, what they are posting. But some of your user have make their accounts private so you should try to find any tool which can allow you to view private instagram profile as well.
Thus, if your business caters to a clientele that is more privatized, exclusive, and prefers personalized service, then Instagram might not be needed. Many regional luxury brands can keep their services on a website and have no Instagram account. But if your brand identity can be enhanced by fun and lighthearted content aiming to target the general masses, then you should consider opting to set up an account on the platform.
Conclusion
Many businesses that have utilized Instagram’s tools have found success in sales, growth, and customer outreach. These brands have tailored their social media strategy to the dimensions of the platform by creating content that’s visually appealing and short-formatted.
You can decide whether your business can benefit from using Instagram using the above factors and analyzing your data about your target audience. If you’re still unsure, there’s no risk in testing it out by starting an account for a limited time and setting goals to study what you achieve in that trial run.
