How can you create demand for your services, products, or content?
While Instagram will always be a place for friends to connect, it is also a resourceful place to connect brands, businesses and their followers. It has evolved into a place to shop, find information, and see who is buying what and from where they are making purchases. Influencers have flooded the platform and businesses are utilizing their followers. Many people follow at least one brand on Instagram. (Check your Instagram-how many brands are you following?)
It does take time, patience and sticking with your goals, but you can gain followers and build your brand, organically, using Instagram. Doing it this way will gain you authentic and invested followers, which leads to sales and demand for your services. You created your Instagram for a reason–understand why you created it and the how to grow it.
What can you do to grow your brand–organically?
Do Some Research
Who are your competitors, friends, and those you emulate in the business? Take a look at their Instagram accounts and find out some information. Gaining some insight will help you to build your strategy.
- Who is following them?
- What topics and photos get engagement?
- What questions are being asked?
- When do they post?
- Follow some of their followers that might help you get seen and build your target audience. Take your time, since following too many people per day can cause an issue with Instagram, potentially freezing your account.
- Comment on your competitors’ pages and their followers’ pages, to get them to engage with your page. Commenting on their posts will hopefully entice them to follow you and comment on your posts. But be careful to be strategic and authentic while doing this.
Create Content Ideas that Resonate
Your goal may be to create demand and excitement for your product or service. For some, it is to get their name out there in the social media universe. What and how should you post to get noticed?
- Posts that educate your audience and show you are the expert. Share how to videos, quick tips, and solutions.
- Be the person your audience relates to and reacts to. This means you have to know who your audience is! What is their age? Where do they live? When do they use their Instagram? What is their job? What do they look at and search for on Instagram? Remember, knowing who your audience is and what appeals to them will benefit you and your company. These charts from the Pew Research Center might help you understand who is using Instagram and how frequently it is being visited. Use this as a starting point to truly know your audience!
- Eliminate any objections that you know consumers might have. Demonstrate trust and create understanding that now is the time for what you are offering. Tell them why they should spend their money with you. Be consistent and personal!
- Help people find solutions. Create a reason for people to click on your post!
- Create videos, videos, videos! Videos are more engaging than posts containing only images.
- Use the hashtags your followers will engage with and search for. Don’t flood your posts with hashtags that aren’t relevant to your brand. Do your research and utilize hashtags popular with your intended audience.
- Remember to tag your location. It helps with engagement and allows people in your location to possibly see your value and want to follow you.
- Create content that is engaging, interesting and entertaining!
Engage
This should be intuitive, but we find that many people don’t make this a priority.
- Answer questions.
- Engage with your followers and share your information.
- Thank those that purchase, share your brand online, work with your company, etc. Share a photo, conduct a testimonial and publish it, share their reviews, or share their loyalty to your brand.
- Support causes that you and your followers believe in.
- Share content created by your followers.
Schedule Posts at the Right Time
Depending on what your product or service is, you want to schedule posts at the right time. Hootsuite has done the work for us and you can read the full report to see when you should post.
With Facebook’s capability to schedule Instagram posts, you’ll be able to set it and forget it. No more just trying to remember to create a post on your phone and posting it at the right time. FYI–Wednesday at 11am is a great time to post–but it might not be the best time to your business.
Use the insights on your Instagram analytics (in your business account) and see when your audience is engaging with you. Posting consistently is key.
Be Strategic
- Talk about the content on your Instagram account on your other social media platforms. Are you having a sale? Direct your followers to your Instagram page to check out what is happening.
- Don’t post the exact same content on all of your accounts. Know who your audiences are and make them want to check out each account. If they see a post on Facebook and then go to Instagram and see the exact same message, photo, etc., they may choose to not follow you on more than one account.
- Do you send out email newsletters? If so, add an Instagram button to the newsletter that directs them to your Instagram account. Do the same for your website. How many times do you go to a website and not see those links? We see it more times than you would think!
- Work with a micro-influencer so they can talk and share your brand. Their followers could become your followers.
- Build a profile that includes a keyword relevant to your brand. Create a username that you use across all of your platforms, your website, and a bio that shares information that makes people want to follow you.
Why it is a good idea to use Instagram for marketing and selling
- Customers can quickly react to your posts and stories, generating conversations between you and your followers.
- Direct Messaging (DM) allows customers to interact with businesses in real time–building relationships, making sales, and creating a personal interaction.
- Between long-form videos, stories, reels, and post feeds, you have many options to share information, products, and services.
With some effort, perseverance, and a great product or service, you can grow your Instagram account organically. Find followers who will be loyal to you, that will share your information, and support your efforts. If you need help, our Burgie MediaFusion team is ready to guide your journey for any part of your marketing endeavors!
*Photo by energepic.com from Pexels
