5 Tips to Master Instagram for your business

With a billion monthly active users and unlimited creative possibilities, Instagram offers businesses a unique chance to provide a personalized and genuine experience for their viewers. Indeed, it comes as no surprise that businesses would flock to the platform, especially since it started becoming more business-friendly. If you are one of these businesses, these tips will help you master Instagram for Business:

1. Present yourself clearly

The first action you take on Instagram is build your profile. Make sure that anyone looking at your profile can answer these questions at a quick glance:

Who am I looking at?

• Profile photo should be the image that best identifies your brand and in most cases that would be your logo. In other cases, that could be a picture of a product or the face of the brand.
• Username should be your business name. However, if your business name is long make sure to shorten it as precisely as possible. Your username should be at the bounds of the 50-character limit, keeping in mind that you can’t use any spaces, whereas you could use dots or underscores instead.
•  Account name should also be your business name and consistently represented across all mediums.

What do they do?

• Bio, here is where you have some freedom in how you grab your viewer’s attention. It is also where users and businesses alike flaunt their creativity. The space can be used to describe your business, display your slogan, feature your winning product, show off your biggest achievement, or deliver a message. In fact, the possibilities are endless. So set your imagination free and wow your audience, within the 150-character limit, though.

Where can I find more details?

• Website, the best practice here is to enter your website’s homepage link. Whenever possible, you could change it to landing pages links for whatever you are promoting on your Instagram.
• Action buttons, one of Instagram’s features for business. Add an effective call to action to your profile. Action buttons may include, amongst others: text, email, call, or directions, depending on your objective.
  

  2- Stay active

  Like any other social media platform, activity on Instagram is key. You need to spend time engaging with your fans and others who pique your interest. It helps if you follow a plan. Here are a few tips on how to plan:
• Allocate some time for proactive engagement through likes, comments, and follows. Try not to spend more than an hour on this.
• Create a content schedule, prepare content, and create a posting schedule that ensures a regular post flow. Do not overdo it with the posting, a post every day or every other day is more than enough. You can find tools that help you automate this process.
• Figure out how to maximize your responsiveness without spending all day on Instagram. Doing so builds genuine connections with your customers and makes them feel appreciated. Fortunately, there is a solution specifically tailored to help you achieve this.

3- Tap into the power of Hashtags

Hashtags present a great opportunity for increasing your exposure. They are the links that connect users together on Instagram based on common interests. If you know how to use them correctly, you can be certain they will contribute to your organic growth. Here’s how they work:

• You are allowed to use multiple hashtags; utilize this to describe different aspects of your post.
• Be as accurate as possible while choosing the hashtags that describe your post.
• Look for hashtags that attract moderate traffic. Too much would make it hard to stand out. Too little, it won’t be worth it.

4- Wow your audience

Instagram is built on the notion that a picture is worth a thousand words. Therefore, the sky’s the limit with how your creativity would allow you to visually express yourself. Here are some ideas:

• Product promotion: Post an image or a short video of your product in action, or show behind-the-scenes visuals of how your product was made.
• User Generated Content (UGC): Instagram’s true marketing superpower lies in UGC. UGCs are created when one of your customers showcases your product in a post. While making it easier for your viewers to imagine themselves using your product, UGCs, also give you a sense of credibility. Make a habit out of creating incentives for your customers to regularly generate the UGCs you need.
• Tell a story: Instagram relies heavily on storytelling. Therefore, you should seek to keep your followers engaged by creating narratives. These could be about your brand, products, or any topic your viewers could be interested in.
• Perfect your aesthetic: Always seek to please your audience's eyes. Consider following an appealing theme or apply your unique brand aesthetic to your posts.
  

  5- Promote your profile

  Last but not least, keep promoting your page for further growth. There are a few ways to do that:

• Paid Campaigns on Instagram are an excellent way to promote your products, create leads and expand your presence on the platform.
• Influencers are trusted by their followers and are thus able to steer them towards your gain. Find the right influencers that speak to your audience, and that may be relevant to your brand. Start building relationships with these influencers and get them to mention you. Few influencers might do this organically. Others can be persuaded by free samples or offers, and some charge fees.
• Share your Instagram link. This can be done everywhere on social media pages, websites, emails, business cards, and letterheads.
  
  

Instagram is one of the most uninhibited social media platforms out there. There are no limits to the ways you could use it to your advantage. With the previous tips and our Multichannel Chat platform, you are all set to innovate, create, and conquer the platform.