How to Use Instagram to Promote Your Brand
Now that Instagram has over 300 million monthly users (that’s more than Twitter by the way), many brands are finding ways to interact with the Instagram community and earn personally invested customers who keep coming back for more.
But it’s not just the numbers you should care about. It’s the people using Instagram.
Instagrammers are shoppers. Iconosquare’s 2015 Instagram study shows that 70% of IG users report having already looked up a brand on the platform. Plus, 62% of users follow a brand just because they like it.
If you post the right Instagram images, consumers soak up your marketing message without any hard sales pitches from you; which in turn makes you appealing to customers without “selling to them.”
Shoppers turn to social media for references. Instagram can help convert passive shoppers into 
customers.
Set Up Your Optimized Business Instagram Account
If you’re going to Instagram for your business, your account must be separate from your personal one.
Keep in mind that marketing is all about the audience and not about you, so selfies and snapshots of your Caribbean vacation should should stay personal. They’re not relevant to your customers and won’t get you sales. In fact, “you” should rarely appear on your brand’s IG page, or even not at all.
Include a Link to Boost Traffic to Your Site
On Instagram, you have only one opportunity to directly lead a click over to your website.
Your bio is the one place where your link is clickable, right under your name and description at the top of your Instagram page. Always include the link to your online shop or a targeted landing page in this spot.
Stay Recognizable with a Consistent Name and Photo
All your Instagramming will be for nothing if the pieces don’t easily fit together to show what your brand actually is. The key is to stay recognizable. Choose an Instagram name that’s the same as, or related to, your business’s name across other social media channels.
Keep your profile image consistent as well. All your interactions and engagement on Instagram will be accompanied by the little thumbnail of your profile pic. Make sure it’s something recognizable and professional.
Include an Informative and Interesting Bio That Hooks Followers
Before people hit Follow on your Instagram, they have to click through to your profile. So make sure the last thing people see before deciding to follow you is a catchy and informative bio. Convince them of the value and content you’ll add to their feeds.
Include your business name and a description of what you actually do.
Keep it light and interesting, and avoid any sales pitch type tone. Instagram is a unique culture different from your online shop or even your other social media sites. Craft a bio that appeals to the IG community you want to reach and reflects the tone of the images you plan to share.
When in doubt, follow this trusty bio-writing formula: who you are + what you do + a pop of personality.
Keywords and hashtags won’t really matter since they aren’t searchable when they’re on your bio.
You can always change your bio to promote your latest campaign, sale, or launch. And, again, don’t forget a link!
Create Popular Instagram Posts That Users Want to Follow
You’ve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s use this power to its full, customer-hooking advantage.
Analysts credit the growing popularity of Instagram to its image type platform, especially since other social media sites (for example, Facebook) get twice as many comments on posts that contain an image versus just text or links.
Our preference for images is bio-engineered into our brains. In fact, 90% of information transmitted to our brains is visual.
So let’s harness the beloved and effective visual world of Instagram and post some product photos that really make sales. But remember that while Instagram is full of shoppers, it’s not necessarily a shopping destination. Here’s a quick note on the Instagram culture and how not to annoy your followers:
Visuals show your products without you yelling about how great they are. Images allow viewers to make their own decisions without feeling pressure from your business. Walking the line between wielding your influence and coming off too pushy, means you’ll need to get creative with your product photos.
Promote Your Products with Creative, Professional Photos
The power of product photos has always been essential to online shopping, and Instagram’s visual platform takes that power to the next level! 67% of consumers consider detailed images to be more valuable toward making their purchase than the product information or even ratings from other customers.
Instagram is a social marketplace that directs traffic that turns into sales. How do you do that? You share photos that are attention-grabbing, unique, and full of personality.
Consider that your brand is on social media, like Instagram, to establish a relationship and culture among your followers. Do this right, and your followers will come to you when they’re ready to shop because they’re already connected with you.
Show off your brand’s aesthetics while also flaunting your goods. It adds variety, and it’s so pushy.
Size Your Photos for Professional Quality
Avoid an awkward crop or blurred image that loses you professionalism points.
Instagram’s format automatically makes your images square, within a 612 x 612 pixels frame. Consider the square shape when choosing a picture, or the whole appeal of the photo might be lost (i.e., cropped out!).
Make sure your images reflect professionalism. That means they’ll need to be high quality. A safe estimate for preserving quality is to save your photos at double the resolution size.
In Photoshop, you can adjust the size of your image to 1024 x 1024 pixels, and the quality will remain crisp when reduced to Instagram’s parameters.
Use Instagram’s Editing Tools to Stand Out
There are 70 million photos posted on Instagram every day. With so much visual competition, you’ve really got to post “look at me” photos that don’t get scrolled past.
Instagram offers a range of in-app filters to enhance the colors and moods of your photos. Just stay consistent so your photos can instantly be recognized as fitting your brand’s style.
Use your own eyes and judgment to decide what looks best. But if can’t make a decision, studies show that the Mayfair filter attracts the most interactions per 1,000 followers, on average.
Offer Promotions and Exclusive Announcements to Followers
Pump up your followers’ feeds with bonuses, special offers, and insider announcements. Since 41% of Instagrammers state that they follow, or would follow, a brand to take advantage of perks and giveaways, give followers that incentive.
Text overlay lets you include your promotion right on the photo, which is a stylish and visual way to announce sales and discounts.
Promote Events on Instagram and Share Exclusive Insider Access
A seldom-used but surprisingly effective Instagram tool is geo-tagging. Only 5 percent of Instagram posts tag a location, but statistically, posts with a geotag get 79% percent more engagement!
A geo-tag appears above your photo and adds a location (street, city, or country) to show followers where you’re physically located. It’s a feature built right into Instagram. Geo-tags let potential customers know where they can go to find your products and buy. Plus, you can tap into local loyalty.
Many brands use Instagram to promote events, using geo-tags to share the location and invite followers who are near the area.
Pay Attention to Your Most-Liked Media
Notice which of your posts receive the highest levels of engagement. These are your most successful posts.
Why should you know this metric? Likes from your followers are direct feedback that you are posting the right content. Find similarities in the pieces of content that receive the best feedback, and you’ll know which posts to share with your followers.
Original Article by Kissmetrics.
