Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms around, with more than a billion active monthly users. As a result, it’s essential for ecommerce businesses and marketers to understand how they can leverage this platform to drive sales.
Creating and marketing content on Instagram is no easy task, but it can be done. There are a variety of tools to help you create stunning photos and videos that you can post on your profile or share to your followers’ feeds.
Captions and Hashtags: You can write up to 2,200 characters in a caption, but remember that your audience will only see the first few lines of the caption until they click “More.” To increase engagement with your Instagram posts, use long captions and include calls-to-action (CTAs).
Stories: In recent years, Instagram has released a variety of features to support brand storytelling. This includes Stories Highlights, a way to add categorized collections of posts that stay on your profile so viewers can easily access them.
Reels: The newest release on the platform, Reels lets users create 15 or 30-second loops of video content. These videos will appear in a reel that can be viewed on the Explore page of Instagram, which means more visibility for your business’s content.
Storyboards: Instagram also allows you to create a Storyboard, a montage of images that can be animated or edited to look like a video. These curated stories are ideal for showing off your brand’s personality and attracting new followers to your account.
Bios: You can write a short description of your business in your bio. Be sure to include an image or two and a link to your website.
Embeds: You can embed images and videos from your desktop version of Instagram to your website. This will show your visitors that you’re a real account and can help them follow you.
Photo Ads: With the right photo, you can create an Instagram ad that will attract your target audience and get them to follow you or take action. These ads are typically in a square or portrait frame and have a CTA button at the bottom and a sponsored tag.
Optimizing Your Instagram: Ensure you’re using the best hashtags for your business and are posting regularly. This will ensure your posts are more likely to be seen by your followers and drive them to your website.
Researching Your Competitors: This can be a painstaking process, but it’s essential for successful Instagram marketing. By taking a closer look at the accounts of your competitors, you can learn more about their posts, hashtags, and interactions with their followers. You can do this by analyzing their profiles and looking at their hashtags to determine which ones are the most popular.
Sprout Social and Iconosquare are both great tools to use for this kind of analysis. Both allow you to track performance based on your goals and compare it to those of your competitors. They require a small fee, but they can help you improve your Instagram marketing efforts.