There are 1 billion monthly active users on Instagram and 500 million users use the platform every day. Users spend an average of 53 minutes per day on the site.
Instagram has become a popular Social platform and businesses are starting to understand this, 71% of businesses use Instagram to market. Instagram provides a huge opportunity for business marketing because of the ability to reach an interested audience without spending a large amount of money.
However, it is not as easy as posting a photo and reaping the benefits. Monetizing Instagram so your business can make money requires a strong following and an engaged audience.
The sales funnel for Instagram is basically the same as a traditional sales funnel.
Reach (Awareness)
Follow (Interest)
Contact (Decision)
Purchase (Action)
Engage Your Followers
The simplest way to increasing your engagement on Instagram is to create content that solves the needs of your audience. Measuring the success of your content involves the number of likes, comments, and shares on your posts.
Here is what you need to do:
Post Consistently – Posting content regularly will increase the odds of engagement with your followers. It is helpful to set up a fixed posting schedule that aligns with your target audience. Instagram determines what users see in their feeds by interest, timeliness, and relationship. Additionally, the other criteria used to show content in users’ feeds includes the frequency you post. The general rule for posting is once per day, but no more than 3 times per day. Content posted lasts approximately 21 hours, so once per day is sufficient.
Use the Right Hashtags – Instagram allows a maximum of 30 hashtags per post. However, the recommendation for maximum effect is around 10 or 15 per post. Users can follow hashtags, so with the right hashtags you could show in the feed of a user who is not a follower and expand your visibility even further.
Quality Content – High-quality images are important for posting to Instagram. Captions with a more personal touch work best, avoid the canned brand verbiage. It is important to come off as genuine and more personable.
Leverage Marketing Success
Instagram is proving to be a powerful marketing tool for businesses to increase their visibility and expand their reach. Instagram can generate more than 4 times the interactions compared to Facebook. It is time to add Instagram to your Marketing strategy.