Ultimate Guide to Instagram Advertising

Instagram is not for personal use anymore. With 500 million daily active users, Instagram counts as a goldmine for businesses; small, medium, or large enterprises. As a marketer, if you considered skipping the Instagram marketing channel, it is better to rethink your decision. Invest your time, money, and resources to implement your marketing strategy. Be patient, and you will see your business booming through Instagram advertising.

Start Marketing on Instagram

1. Set up Instagram Account

Create a new account and make sure to sign up using a business email. Enter your account details and make sure to choose an easily recognisable username. Make sure to pick a username that matches your other social media accounts. Don't worry; you can change the username later through your account settings.

2. Switch to Instagram Business

Before you even begin thinking about your marketing perspective, you need to switch your account to a business one. A business account allows you to run sponsored ads without the need of Facebook's advertising tools. Also, a business account enables you to customise your call-to-action button. Remember to link your Instagram business page to your Facebook one.

3. Make Your Profile Perfect

Choose the right profile picture, preferably your logo or any other familiar photo. Instagram profile pictures are cropped in the shape of a circle, so make sure that it fits correctly. Take your time to think about your bio. In 150 characters, give a glimpse of your business and why people should be interested. Bios are not searchable, so don't bother yourself with keywords or relevant hashtags. However, you can add a touch of humour or a tagline to catch attention.

The bio is the only place that supports a clickable URL, so add your website link to drive more traffic. Double-check that your profile picture and bio are similar to your other social media accounts. That's how you create brand consistency and help your customers to identify your business quickly. Give your customers a direct way to contact with you by customising the right call-to-action button. You just need to fill your business details in the private information section, to activate any of these buttons. Instagram offers the following buttons for business accounts:

• Email
• Phone
• Address
• Shop (if applicable)

Perform a quick audit on your Instagram account after you finish before you start your marketing strategy.

4. Set Yourself Goals

There is no "right" goal on performing an Instagram- or any other platform- strategy.

Why are you on Instagram? – Your answer is your goal.

Start by setting up goals that can be achieved. Be realistic.

Examples of Instagram business goals:

• Increasing your brand awareness
• Driving more traffic
• Promoting your services or products
• Building trust
• Lead generation

Make sure that your goal is S.M.A.R.T, meaning; Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. According to your goal, define your target audience persona to create the most proper and relevant content.

4. Define Your Audience

Who is your target audience? – To answer this, you need to consider some factors such as age, gender, income, motivations, interests, and location. To make it easier, monitor hashtags that are relevant to your business, see who is engaging, and check out their profiles. You can also check your competitors' followers to create the right buyer persona.

5. Establish Your Brand On Instagram

Your Instagram feed must be different and recognisable. Establish your own style guide across all the social media channels to stand out among your competitors. This style ensures consistency throughout every post or content you share on your page.

Pick a colour scheme for your Instagram feed because the colours influence buying decisions and brand recognition. Having a color palette doesn't mean that you stick only to these colours; it just gives a consistent look and feel. When it comes to the fonts, it's better to choose the same fonts you use on your media channels. As to the filters, choose a few filters to represent your brand. Using a different filter each post will drastically harm your consistent Instagram aesthetic.

6. Create compelling visual content

Now that you have optimised your Instagram account start creating compelling content to post.

Images are the foundation of any Instagram business because they are easy to create and edit. Countless types of images can be posted to your account. Take notes and choose what suits your business.

• Behind-the-scenes posts: Offer your followers a glimpse of your company to make them feel connected.
• Educational posts: Post instructional videos and present some tips or how to do something.
• Reposts from your staff: Re-share posts from your employees' accounts. It is an easy method to humanise your brand and form a bond with your followers. Photos that include human faces get 38% more likes.
• Influencer posts: Include a visual of a famous influencer using your product or service to capture attention.
• Product posts: Use a good photographer and think of your next compelling caption. Finally, try to highlight your product, its feature, price, and how to get it.
• Motivational posts: Post an encouragement quote or uplifting text through a visual.
• Memes: Break the monotony of your news feed with a joke. These kinds of posts have the most engagements ever.
• Customers' testimonials and reviews: There is nothing more rewarding than sharing testimonials and customers' reviews. It is an entirely different thing to be appraised by your customers, making your business look authentic.

Instagram allows you to upload videos up to one minute, adding captions. Videos are considered to be the best formats for driving traffic and increasing sales. Bear in mind that many people watch your videos without sound, so they must be clear. Capture your followers' attention within the first 3 to 5 seconds of the video, to guarantee better engagement rates.

You don't need professional equipment to conduct a high-quality video; your mobile phone will best serve the purpose.

• Boomerangs: Boomerangs are fun repetitive videos, which take three seconds, playing forward and backward.
• Hyperlapse: Hyperlapse is the perfect method to shorten lengthy videos so that you can post them. Choose a playback speed from 1x to 2x.
• Instagram live: Go live and show your followers your company culture. Also, you can show them your products and services through the live feature. While you broadcast, they can comment. Make sure to answer them back.
• IGTV: IGTV is the newest video feature on Instagram. View product reviews, tutorials, or product descriptions through IGTV. It allows you to view, edit, and fine-tune your video before uploading it. IGTV' can run videos from 15 seconds up to 10 minutes.

Carousel posts have become a favourite for many companies and businesses to promote their products. Carousel posts are versatile compared with images or video posts. Besides, you can combine both videos and images in one carousel post. This post can include from 2 to ten videos or pictures. Businesses have incorporated carousel posts to launch new products or share events, images, and videos. Also, they used this type to share a before-and-after sequence of their products' effects in real life.

7. Use Stories In Your Marketing Strategy

"Businesses that are on Instagram get up to 37% of their total impressions from Instagram Stories."

Stories are a great tactic to include in your Instagram marketing strategy. Stories give you the chance to post daily, at a higher frequency without flooding your followers' news feed. Use this feature to provide a behind-the-scenes peek, showcase live events, or promote a new product. Moreover, you can interact with your followers using features such as polls, emoji sliders, GIF stickers, countdown stickers, and questions. Just open your camera and get to know its settings:

• Type: Allows you to create a text post.
• Music: Choose a music clip and pair it to a video or an image.
• Superzoom: Features an animated zoom in a video.
• Live: Allows you to go live, talk with your audience, and publish live content.
• Focus: Gives attention to the vital subject and blurs the surrounding background.
• Hands-free: Allows you to capture a video without pressing the "record" button.

Instagram allows you to tag another account in your story, which is an excellent way to connect with your followers and mention your brand partners. Another benefit is that you get to see who viewed your story and get notified when you are mentioned in someone's story.

Stories highlights feature is also a great advantage so that the stories don't disappear after 24 hours. Preserve your top Stories content and create highlight albums. So you know, highlights albums give more information about your business and culture. This feature has proven its success in encouraging people to follow your account.

8. Engage Your Customers

Engaging your audience builds a long-term relationship with them. Besides, your brand will stick in their brain even after leaving your page. There are various ways to engage your audience by replying to their comments, using Instagram Stories poll features, or using shout-outs on your stories. Another thing, you can always follow accounts relevant to your industry. This method has proven its success in building a rapport with your audience and creating your business community.

Start converting your prospects into paying customers. Check out some other engaging strategies that have proven their success:

• Contests: There is no better way to promote your business on Instagram than running a contest. Running a contest is one of the most effective methods to increase engagements and drive sales.
• Promotions: Offer deals, discounts, coupons, and free giveaways to drive first-time sales with your prospects. Tell your audience what they are supposed to do to earn the offer, giving them a deadline.
• Product Teaser: A product teaser post builds excitement, arousing your followers' curiosity. They will be more interested in your product and wait until you reveal the full details.
• Events photos: Sharing images and videos from your events with your audience is a powerful strategy.

You can also share your Instagram post to your Facebook account. A study has shown that images posted via Instagram get 23% more engagements.

9. Post User Photos

User-generated content is considered a creative way to increase traffic on your account. User-generated content drives a 4.5% higher conversion rates. People trust your brand more when recommended by others based on past experience. That's why this method is authentic. Just let them know that you will post their photo and tag them. This consequently will increase their number of followers, as well as yours.