Instagram is one of the newest and fast-growing platforms, which already numbers over a billion users. Initially, it was a platform for posting photos, but then Instagram became one of the basic marketing tools in the world.
According to Sprout Social research, 41% of users follow their favorite brands on Instagram, and the audience is already over 1 billion people. By the way, 65% of marketing specialists use Instagram for promotion. In this article, we will cover how to join them and make your business successful.
What way of promotion to choose?
There are many ways of promotion on Instagram. There are built-in tools which involve using Facebook-based functionality, and there are schemes that users have developed themselves.
1. Targeted advertising
Targeted Instagram advertising is a built-in promotion tool which helps advertisers select and attract the segmented target audience. Before launching an advertising campaign, you need to define characteristics of people it will be shown to, as well as their location, age, gender, family and financial status, and interests. All these data are important to explore to form the vision of a “perfect” follower.
There are two ways of customizing your targeted advertising — using Instagram and using Facebook. The second way is more efficient because it allows setting the exact target audience parameters, this way, you will hit the bull's eye most likely. When creating an advertising campaign, you will have an opportunity to define what amount of money you need to spend on impressions a day. The number of attracted users depends directly on the way the advertisement is made.
Example: the creators of the @abeautifulmess account used advertising to attract the primary audience. Further, their unique content helped in promoting themselves. Also, the account of the @asos online store and the @maccosmetics @benefitcosmetics brands use this way of promotion even now when they are famous already.
2. Influencers
Bloggers, celebrities, and experts are influencers, and they have a large audience and power. People trust them and often regard their advertising as a recommendation, and that’s why they always rely on it.
Influencer’s advertising is efficient, if you know the characteristics of their followers for sure. In other cases, you should think twice because even celebrated accounts can cheat and show false statistics data. Besides, such advertising is rather expensive. If you want to attract a large audience, be ready to spend much money.
Example: @jamescharles, a worldwide famous beauty blogger has managed to promote himself due to the strong support of Tati Westbrook (@glamlifeguru), a makeup artist and influencer.
Brands also rely on influencers — collaboration is a very popular method. The NYX brand does so by launching the limited-edition eyeshadow palette in the style of Aquaria drag queen and promoting it on social media.
3. Giveaways, contests, special offers
For example, to follow the account, you need to give a like to the post and comment on it. For example, to follow the account, give a like to the post, and comment on it. When the contest is finished, the organizer chooses the winner out of all participants.
Now giveaway contests are more rear because everybody does not want their posts to look suspicious to the Instagram algorithm. However, contests asking followers to like and comment on posts, are “flourishing”.
You can also hold some activity for your followers. For example, many personal accounts and brands ask their followers to make a post or a story with the content they need, and thus, they interact more with the audience. In such cases, the prize can be given not only to a random participant — very often there is a jury which chooses the winner or the winners, and a vote for followers. Activities not only boost the reach but also show that you go public with your brand and that you are ready to interact with your audience.
Special offers give benefits which are available only for our followers. For example, a brand announces a new product only on Instagram. You can add a discount or gift promo code to your post or story — so, the user feels unique and appreciated.
Example: the @jcrew brand announced the presales only through Instagram, attracting attention to a new product and building much hype by this.
4. Cross-promotion
It is a free way of promotion, which is very popular because of its availability and efficiency. Cross-promotion means that two users agree on cross-promoting each other. By this, they boost their reach and share the audience. This way is efficient even if you have just some 2-3 thousand real followers. The main thing is that you and your partner’s audiences should match to make mutual recommendations interesting for followers.
Example: blogger @ktsarskaya tells that she started her carrier on Instagram with cross-promotion using beautiful photos. And brands develop this scheme holding joint giveaways and cross-promoting each other by this.
5. Mass following and mass liking
Mass following is mass following users from your profile. Mass liking is based on the same principle, but you just give likes instead of following users.
These methods can be carried out in two ways — manually and automatically. Currently, Instagram is struggling actively against mass following and mass liking programs. The matter is that they break the rules of using the social network. It is not prohibited to like and comment manually, so you can do it yourself if you want. After getting likes or following requests, people receive notifications. So they check them, look through the profile, and some of them even follow back.
Be careful, excessive activity does not look good to the algorithm — so your account may be banned. So, you can see that there are quite many ways to promote yourself on Instagram. Perhaps, you will create another one, and so far, Onlypult is always ready to help you.
