How to promote yourself on Instagram so that customers fall in love again?

Maintaining a social media account is still just a chore for many business owners. And yet this is where you can reach your customers when they are relaxed and open to new information. In addition, when they do not even suspect that they are dealing with an advertising message. So how to promote yourself on Instagram to reach their hearts? Let's check. 

Instagram as a promotion channel 

On the web, you will find complete manuals on how to promote yourself on Instagram. Unfortunately, the advice contained in them may turn out to be useless after a few months. Trends change instantly, users become resistant to tactics, and changes occur in the platform itself that you are not able to predict. This is why PR activities in the network they must take this into account. 

Remember that the average engagement for a company post is 0.96%. This means approximately 1 followers in 100 will react to your photo or video. This puts Instagram's marketing efforts in a different perspective. It may seem like a few likes at first is a bad result. However, if you know this data, you react calmly to the slowly increasing engagement under your posts and plan your strategy rationally. 

How to promote yourself on Instagram?

If you are already wondering how to promote yourself on Instagram, then you are one step ahead of the competition. Many business owners still don't realize how to do it right. They underestimate the power of trends such as narrative marketing if contextual marketing. And this is one of the strongest trends in online marketing lately. In contextual marketing, you reach people selected based on their location, age or interests. This is exactly what Instagram offers.  

By marking the location and using the appropriate hashtags, you reach those who are looking for a service or are interested in a given field with your message. In turn, narrative marketing is building stories around the brand. It's hard to do without social media channels. Few will visit the appropriate tab on the company's website, but thousands of people can read about your vision or mission every day, if you understand how to promote yourself on Instagram. The third very important trend is the creation of useful content for the user.

Create something that: 

• inspires 
• educates, 
• enjoys, 

so that customers want to interact with the content you post. This strategy is largely resistant to changing trends. Social media users will always need advice, and a short, easy-to-digest form on Instagram is perfect to convey some knowledge to them. 

You probably noticed that ads or posts more and more often take the form of guides. A tax office advises you on how to settle accounts, and on the DIY store channel you learn how to impregnate wood. In this way, you meet the real needs of users. A few of these step-by-step videos or guides can become evergreens that will help users when they have a problem. Another important thing: if you write about yourself, it is so that the user will benefit from it. So inform him about promotions that may be of interest to him, not just about what is important from your point of view. 

Promotion on Instagram - the most common mistakes 

You already know how to promote yourself on Instagram: create useful and interesting content for your users. The most common mistake on corporate accounts is avoiding such a wide view. Instead, the corporate account only shows the product information. This way, customers can quickly sense that they are dealing with a promotion. Create something that grabs their attention and alternate your posts with those in which you write about yourself. Another mistake is underestimating the power of good photos.  

All the most popular company photos on Instagram have been taken by professionals, with good equipment and / or show something that catches the eye. The photo can be taken spontaneously and you can take it with a smartphone, but remember that most brands use the best equipment and even help themselves with the right lighting and background. So find an interesting place where you will display your products. Avoid clichéd corporate photos (office, building, warehouse, etc.). The last mistake is the lack of contact with users. If you do not reply to messages, do not reply to tags, you lose your chances of getting it referral marketing and you take one of the  marketing communication channels. 

How to promote yourself on Instagram in the style of the biggest brands? 

Among the most popular photos in the history of this platform is one where Selena Gomez drinks Coca-Cola. Note that the brand does not encourage or inform you about drinking this drink. It only provides web users with great content. This is the secret of native advertising that is worth watching from the largest brands. By showing office life and products in an interesting scenery, you don't have to directly encourage the purchase.  

If you visit Dior's corporate Instagram account, you will notice that the brand does not describe the properties of the creams or the cut of the clothes there. Instead, you'll find photos showing the craftsmen at work and inspiring combinations of clothes photographed in interesting settings. The most popular brand on Instagram today is Nike. It does not show new shoe models, but tells stories about joyful, diverse sports fans. Users want such content and therefore the brand has 150 million followers. If you want to know how to promote yourself on Instagram, these patterns are worth following. 

Just getting started on Instagram? 

The situation is slightly different if you are just creating an account and wondering how to promote yourself on Instagram. In this case, you may need to gather any group of people to follow your profile first. The beginnings are the hardest, because when followers can be counted on the fingers of one hand, the company's image is not the best. However, you can quickly change this: 

• Find the most popular and most important hashtags for the industry and tag your photos abundantly. Ideally, the hashtags should be neither too popular (the photo will disappear in the crowd) nor too niche. 
• Publish daily. 
• Do lots of Instagram Stories. 
• It's best if you do regular live shows. If you start at the same time every day or several times a week, over time users will be sure that they can count on your live. 
• Tag your partner companies and associates and you'll gain fans faster. 

It may seem so communication strategy it's a lot of work. However, with time, you can develop a system so that you will not spend more than an hour a week on it. You can plan content in advance. Videos can be as long as a few seconds. Photo materials and texts for photos can be prepared in large batches, even several months in advance. This way you will gain quickly sales support and new customers you care about so much. If you need help planning your strategy, be sure to let us know. 

How to promote an online store on Instagram?

Promotion of the online store can be done using various methods, and Instagram should be highlighted among the most popular. It doesn't really matter what industry you operate in - you will surely find your audience on this website. Promoting an online store on Instagram must be a well-thought-out strategy aimed at achieving specific results. What can you do to stand out?

One option you should be interested in in particular is shopping. This functionality has been available for a short time, but it is very popular among website users. If you plan to use it, you must meet several criteria:

• the company's location must be in the market that it serves,
• you must offer products that Instagram has approved as salable,
• comply with the trade agreement and trade rules,
• have your own website through which you sell.

Additionally, your account must have the status of a business profile. Is it worth your time for it? Absolutely, because many website users see it as a kind of convenience. Instead of searching the entire web for a given product, they can find it conveniently from one application, which in turn is a great opportunity for you, so you should take advantage of it.

If you want to promote your store on Instagram, you need to build an engaged community around you. The more attention you pay to building relationships with users, the greater the chance of success. Engagement can build in several different ways, and some of them are exactly the same as with other social networking sites. The basis is activity - regular and focused on bringing something interesting with the next post or Insta Stories. Contests also work very well. However, remember that the competition task should not be too demanding, as it may even discourage you from looking at your profile. Also think about rewards. You don't have to spend exorbitant sums on them. What matters is the fact that you want to engage your audience and encourage them to have fun together.

How to effectively promote yourself on Instagram to gain new customers?

In the promotion on Instagram, it's not the quantity that counts, but the quality. You have to be creative, look for new solutions and follow your own path. Your customers certainly don't like redundancy, so spare them. Since you run a company, you are a specialist in your field and you can use this fact to your advantage. Share expert knowledge, listen to your clients, think about their problems and try to solve them by creating short guides. Some issues, often trivial to you, can actually help the customer. If you are committed enough to what you are doing, people will quickly see it and will look forward to more.

When running a business profile on Instagram, you cannot forget about the visual layer. Instagram is famous for people posting great photos or graphics on it. No new customer will stay for longer if they feel discouraged right after entering your profile, because you did not prepare it visually. Theoretically, the website offers dozens of filters that allow you to create better photos and videos, but as a store owner, you certainly know that even the best overlays will not hide photos of poor quality. Always use good equipment when photographing your products.

New customers must reach you, so you should take care of hashtags. Instagram users often use them, so it's worth taking advantage of this fact. Thanks to hashtags, you can assign photos to specific thematic groups related to your activity, and thus make it easier for others to find them. The website allows you to use up to 30 hashtags, but the optimal number is 10-15. You can use popular tags, but make sure your company name or brand also appears among them. It is also good practice to combine general hashtags with more specific ones. For example: a shoe store has uploaded a photo of trekking shoes that can be tagged: # mountains, #trekking, #tatry, # trekking shoes, # mountain shoes, #rekking adventures. This way, you increase the chances that a new customer will find you.

How do you turn followers into customers?

Some traders find it difficult to turn followers into shoppers. It might seem like a fairly large problem, although it would be much worse if the Instagram company account does not attract attention at all. At the very beginning, you need to consider why a large number of followers are not customers of the store at the same time. There can be several reasons for this, but the most popular of them include the poor offer of the store, which is outperformed by the competition, or a poorly conducted profile.

A large number of followers may or may not! - translate into acquiring new customers. A community that not only observes, but buys is people who love you and your brand. Probably you have often found yourself buying selected products not only because of need, but because you trust the seller. And it is precisely this trust that is the key to success. Your profile should allow you to create the image of an expert. Do not be afraid of authenticity. Today, the internet is saturated with people who pretend to be, making internet users highly sensitive to falsehood. When you stay genuine and don't pretend to be someone else, you'll earn trust. Don't be afraid of your failures and share your doubts. Don't try to create an idealized image - such companies don't exist. Have you made a mistake? Use it! Show others that you are drawing conclusions and while you are not perfect you want to get better. There is nothing wrong with making a mistake, but all your followers will find a lot of good in wanting to be better.

A last good practice, though not the least important, is interacting with your observers. Try to interact with people, because even though you're online and on the other side of the screen, your customers want to know it's there for them, you value their opinion and want to hear their opinions.