Have you tried using Instagram Marketing for your business? With more than 1 billion users engaging with Instagram every month this is one of the best platforms to find your customers. Out of these 1 billion users, around 71% of users are below the age of 35yr. Hence whether you are a startup or local business (like insurance agency, real estate agent) or a big company, you cannot ignore Instagram when it comes to marketing.
Remember, a lot of people are visual. As a result, they connect to things they see as opposed to those they read. Therefore, Instagram gives you an opportunity to entice people into wanting to learn more about what you provide in a different way from other social media sites.
Even if you use other online selling techniques, you definitely want to take advantage of Instagram marketing. As one of the highest-ranking social media platforms, this site is a highly effective vehicle for reaching both prospects and existing customers. If you have not yet begun to post photos and videos, you are missing an excellent opportunity.
Initial Setup
Convert to Instagram Business Profile
If you are currently having a personal profile then you should convert it into a business profile ASAP.
Keep in mind, a business profile has several different capabilities compared to a personal profile. Therefore, you want to pay close attention to the details when setting up your account.
The business profile also provides you analytics regarding your Instagram account which will in turn help you in identifying what is working and what’s not.
How to set up an Instagram business profile?
Select a high-quality profile picture that stands out and grabs attention. Also, you need a professionally written bio, so potential customers can immediately see the value that your business offers.
In the name field, you should add information about the services you offer. For example, you can mention “ Real estate agent” or “Marketing Expert” or “Insurance agent” rather than mentioning your name.
How to gain followers on Instagram?
Hashtags- Key to growth
Do not forget to use hashtags. With those, you can group your Instagram posts, while leveraging current trends on social media. You also can create a hashtag for your business. Something else to consider is that because you can search for updates on any given topic, hashtags make it easier for people to find your business, which helps generate followers and likes.
Instagram allows 30 hashtags per post. As a rule of thumb, you should have 10 hashtags which are focused towards your customers/product with more than million posts, next 10 should be between 500K to million posts and last 10 hashtags should be super focused with a smaller number of posts.
Content Strategy for Instagram
What to Post on Instagram?
When posting on Instagram, be sure to post things that people find interesting. As mentioned, this social media platform boosts business through visual content, so it is imperative that you post compelling graphics, photos, and videos. As an example, if you have office staff, include photos of them. If your business recently had a team-building event or volunteered to help a charitable organization, include photos or videos of that, as well. You can even use relevant GIFs, memes, and quotes to bolster your success.
Motivational Quotes
Publishing motivational quotes is the easiest way to grow and engage the audience. Who doesn’t like a good motivational quote? When you post using hashtags in your niche, you are sure to get a lot of likes and followers.
Q&A
Most people who want to learn about or purchase your product will have a lot of questions. Use your Instagram account to provide answers to key questions through a series of short videos.
Emotion
Regardless of the content you post, the goal is to evoke emotion. The best ways to accomplish this is by posting the photos and videos that create a connection between your followers and your business. Like a picture of that cute dog in your office is sure to connect you with your dog lover audience.
Humor
Although selling your product or services is serious business, it is important for you to show your human side using humor. Never feel nervous about giving your followers a peek at your personality. The goal is to find a balance of addressing an important topic and having a little bit of fun. Developing a human connection will go a long way in helping your agency succeed. By doing this, people will see you as approachable, honest, and authentic.
Instagram content calendar
Come up with an Instagram content calendar based on these categories and analyzing the competition.
Instagram Competitor Analysis
Find top 10 profiles in subject area/niche you are trying to grow. Analyze what kind of posts are getting the most engagement in terms of likes and comments. Come up with an Instagram content calendar based on this analysis.
Follow folks who are commenting and liking your competitor’s post, also try to engage with them. These are going to be the most engaged audience whenever you post something.
You can find your competitors by searching top posts for a hashtag.
Engage with your audience on Instagram
If someone is commenting on your post then you should respond to them. Similarly, you should find posts which are relevant to your business and leave a comment.
Instagram tracks engagement metrics and the more engagement you get on your post in first 15-30 min the more reach you will get.
Getting Instagram Followers for Local Business
If you are a local business like an Insurance agency, restaurant, real estate agent etc you should target based on geography.
Go to search bar and type your city name, you will find people and tags associated with your city.
Select top tag related to your city, you will see all the posts being shared related to city you want to target. Now go to “Recent” section and start engaging with those posts. Most of the folks get hardly 1-2 comment on their post and if you engage with them you will start getting their attention. Do this on a daily basis and you will grow your instagram exponentially.
Similarly, if you are operating in a particular niche then you should search for that term (instead of the city) and engage with posts related to the niche.
Generating Leads via Instagram
How to Build a brand using Instagram?
Make sure to add your logo and brand name while posting where ever possible. Try to be consistent with your approach and post items which are consistent with your brand.
Unless you are a big brand you should have your real photo on a profile instead of a logo.
How to get website traffic using Instagram?
In your Instagram post, you are not allowed to add any link to your website hence generating traffic is a bit tough compared to other social media platforms.
The only place where you can place a link in your bio. Hence whenever you post something on Instagram make sure you ask your audience to visit your bio. For example if your post is related to “ 5 ways to save on auto insurance”, you can mention in post something like “please visit our bio @yourhandle to get a free guide”. This way you are sending people from your post to bio and then from bio to your website.
Use tools like Linktree
Instagram allows you to have only one link in your bio but sometimes you may want to have multiple links for different purpose/audience. You can use tools like “Linktree” to achieve this functionality. Basically, when someone clicks on linktree link in your bio, it opens a page which shows multiple links to your audience.
Have a Lead Magnet on your Instagram bio
Lead magnet is an offer where you ask some to provide their email address or any other information in exchange for some free valuable resource. If you visit our Instagram page you will find lead magnet “ 5 ways to generate leads via chatbot”.
Once you are able to get an email address from your Instagram audience you can engage them by providing valuable content via email.
Check out his article to learn more about email marketing.
https://www.friendlyagentbot.com/2018/04/24/insurance-email-marketing-to-messenger-marketing/
Instagram Ads
Due to the way Instagram functions, you can target your advertising based on specific traits, including age group, interests, and gender. One critical note: The same company runs both Instagram and Facebook. Unfortunately, you cannot get the same level of details on Instagram users as you can on Facebook users. For optimal results with Instagram ads for your business, link this account with your Facebook account.
Are Instagram ads successful? The answer to this question is a resounding YES. For that reason, companies of all sizes and industries rely on this platform, including those involved with insurance. As long as you do everything right, which includes targeting the right audience, you can easily run a campaign for six to eight weeks and increase the number of your followers by the thousands.
Check out his article to learn more about Instagram ads.
Metrics relate to Instagram Marketing
Unless you keep track of right metrics you will never know whether your efforts related to Instagram marketing are resulting in any real growth or not.
Also keeping track on metrics will help in understanding what is working and what’s not so that you can iterate and improve.
Once you convert your Instagram account from personal to business you get access to analytics/insights.
Some of the metrics which you should be tracking are mentioned below.
Follower growth
If people are liking what you are posting on Instagram then they will follow you and engage with your content. Having a good number of followers also provides social proof to your business.
Profile visits
This tells you the number of folks who visited your bio/profile. If you are not getting enough profile visits then you should add/update call to action on your post. People visiting your profile will learn more about you and your business.
Website visitors
Your bio should have a compelling lead magnet to drive people to your website or any other webpage you want them to visit.
Number of email subscriber
You should be collecting email addresses of people visiting your website. This will help you in engaging with your prospects via email marketing.
Instagram Marketing Agency
If you have limited time and bandwidth to engage and grow your Instagram account for marketing then it is a good idea to hire someone to do that for you. We are Friendly Agent also provide Instagram marketing services and can help you in generating leads and growing your business via Instagram. Setup your FREE strategy call to learn more about how Instagram can work for you.
Conclusion
Instagram marketing done right is one of the most powerful mechanisms to engage customers, generate leads and grow business.
We are soon going to launch a book on Instagram marketing which will discuss exact formulae for follower growth and lead generation related tactics/case studies. If you want to get notified about this book then please signup below.
