Instagram isn’t just a social media app full of Love Island influencers and hilarious memes.

It is also a vitally important tool for commerce, with 90% of its users following at least one business account and 44% of them using the platform to shop weekly, according to Instagram’s latest internal data.

It would be a missed opportunity to not use this platform to showcase your brand. But we understand that getting to grips with the business side of Instagram can be a time-consuming and complex task, particularly if you are not very social media savvy.

If you’re low on time and require a bit of support in launching a successful Instagram strategy, we’d advise reaching out to an agency for a little help to enhance your efforts. In fact, if you have two minutes spare, you can use our digital marketing cost comparison tool and see what social media support is available within your budget.

They employ seasoned Instagram pros who will help save you time and money in the long run – and these services often cost much less than you think!

Or read to discover our easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide that will help you gain that highly sought-after verified account tick in no time.

Step 1: set up a business account

If you are one of Instagram’s two billion monthly users, there is no doubt you already know how the platform works.

But note that one of the fundamental rules of setting up your business on Instagram is to make sure it is set up as a business account.

This type of account is very different from the personal account you may already have.

We’ve listed some of its unique features below.Instagram business account features let you:

• Boost your posts and advertise to a target audience
• Access Instagram insights to monitor post and ad performance
• Add business info, including opening hours, location and contact methods
• Add call-to-action buttons to direct Instagram users to your website
• Sell your products in the app via the Instagram Shop functionality

Step 2: create an effective Instagram strategy

Before you run in all posts blazing, any digital marketing professional will tell you it is integral that you put together a solid Instagram strategy.

Get together with other members of your team and think carefully about:

Finding your target audience

Consider the demographic you are trying to reach. Over 60% of all Instagram users are aged between 18 and 34 years old. Think carefully about your product/brand and work out your ideal customer. What are their interests? What kind of content will most engage them? What will make them choose you over your competitors?

Tracking insights

It is important to make use of Instagram’s insight functionality. Regularly and routinely track the performance of your posts to understand what engages your followers. Analysing engagements, click-throughs, and calls to action will help you paint a picture of what content works for you and what doesn’t.

Setting objectives

Having goals to achieve will help keep you motivated and focused. When running a small business, it is often easy to lose sight of the marketing side of things. But setting targets will ensure you spend time on your Instagram strategy and post regularly.

Using a task/project management app

Scheduling Instagram posts is incredibly important to ensure you post consistently. Using task management apps like monday.com will make it easy to create a content schedule. Think about how frequently you want to post, and if there are any tentpole days you want to take advantage of such as Earth Day, International Women’s Day, etc.

Step 3: create captivating content

Instagram is a platform to sell your brand. If you owned a jewellery store and wanted to attract customers inside, you wouldn’t put your worst, most unattractive wares in the shop window. You would showcase your most fabulous diamond-strewn designs to entice customers.

Try to think of Instagram as the shop window for your business. You want it to look as aesthetically pleasing as possible in order to attract users. This means the content you create needs to look and feel professionally designed.

This is the most common and important method of posting content as it helps you build your brand profile aesthetic. It is important to make sure you add professional-looking photos that have been edited and sized correctly. You should post recurring themes so that your brand’s visuals are easily identifiable.

If you haven’t got the money to hire a graphic designer, Canva is an affordable, easy-to-use design tool that we would recommend you use to get started.

Instagram reels for business

Having a video marketing strategy is integral to your business’s success on Instagram. 91% of Instagram users watch videos weekly on the platform, so if you aren’t creating videos you are missing out on a great opportunity to gain new followers and turn them into paying customers.

Creating a reel is super easy and simple, but keep in mind that the videos can only be up to 60 seconds long.

You’ll have a great set of editing tools at your disposal when using Instagram reels. Use them to make engaging, fun video footage and showcase your brand.

Over 50% of Instagrammers have visited a website to buy a product or service as a result of seeing it on an Instagram story. And with more than 500 million people watching Instagram stories every day, that percentage is huge.

So in short, make sure you are posting stories regularly – this will even help you engage existing followers through the use of polls, Q&A sessions and sliding interaction bars.

It can also encourage users to visit your website, follow a brand you are collaborating with, or share a recent post you have uploaded.

Other ways to create content on Instagram include:

• Live feed – Live feeds are becoming increasingly popular on Instagram and are a great way to engage your followers because they can tune into your content in real time.
• IGTV – This is a long video format that is ideal for any recurring content series.

Step 4: optimise your profile for business

So you’ve got eye-catching content and a foolproof Instagram strategy – but is your profile ready/open for business?

Before you start growing your Instagram profile, be sure to make use of the following:

• A strong profile pic – even if it’s expensive, get yourself a professional to design you a logo for your social media accounts. The last thing you want is for users to think your pic is tacky. Remember, we make visual judgments in the first seven seconds, and this applies to Instagram too.
• A concise, intriguing bio – you only have 150 characters (just over two sentences) to show off your brand, so explain what you do succinctly and do it in your brand’s tone. Add a CTA if you have space.
• A link in your bio – unlike other social platforms, you can’t attach links to your Instagram posts, so it is incredibly important to include a link in your bio instead. Be very strategic about where this link sends people – will it be directly to your website? Or will it be to a landing page such as Linktree which allows you to share links to several pages?
• Contact information – keep email addresses and phone numbers up to date so your followers can contact you easily.
• Story highlights – organise your stories into saved collections on your profile so users can get a taste of your brand in just a few clicks.

Julaine Speight, director at award-winning digital marketing agency First Internet, offers us her advice:

“Ensure you have permanent stories on your profile, as they will provide clients and customers with key highlights and important business messaging that can be seen at a glance. This is a great way for you to promote different services or products.”

Step 5: grow your following

It’s all well and good having everything in place for your business on Instagram, but without an audience to engage with, it’s pointless.

You’ll find one of the hardest things to do on the platform is to get noticed and followed by users.

But don’t stress – there are lots of ways you can attract audiences and have followers jumping from the tens to the thousands in no time, including:

Hosting a giveaway

Lots of successful brands have gained followers by organising giveaways in the form of a competition. Typically a brand will ask Instagram users to follow an account, share a post, or comment on a post by tagging a friend. In return, users have the opportunity to win free products or services from the brand – and who doesn’t like free stuff?

Giveaways are a great way to create additional post engagement and reach a wider audience, and working in collaboration with other brands to offer extra prizes will help make the competition a huge success.

Running followers-only promotions

Another way to encourage more followers and retain existing ones is to offer exclusive sales to users that follow you. Offering flash sales and promotions gives your followers a reason to stick around in the hope of future deals.

Being proactive – respond to comments and follow target audience accounts

The more you engage with users, the more likely they are to keep following you and spreading positive feedback about your brand.

Commenting on another brand’s posts is a great way to get noticed, as is following and interacting with your competitor’s audience who will likely be interested in the same products/services that you offer.

Promoting your Instagram account on other channels

A sure-fire way to gain more followers is to let people know about your Instagram business account, particularly if you are already well established on other social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter.

Also, be sure to include visible and clear links to your Instagram on your website and any marketing materials like newsletters or emails.

On the dangers of cutting corners when growing your audience, Petra Smith, founder of marketing consultancy Squirrels&Bears, stresses:

“Quick solutions don’t lead to long-term success. For brands that are keen to appear bigger than they are, without doing the legwork, buying new followers and artificial engagement is a common approach. But many brands are then surprised to see how quickly those followers start to disappear again.

“The reason is that followers purchased in bulk packages are either bots or inactive accounts, and Instagram continuously works on removing any follows, likes, or comments from third-party apps that are designed to artificially grow audiences and engagement.”

Step 6: use hashtags

When it comes to Instagram, it doesn’t get more important than hashtags.

Because captions on Instagram are not searchable, one of the only ways non-followers will be able to see your content is if someone clicks on or searches for a hashtag used in your content.

This is why it is important to use the right hashtags.

Philip Bacon, Director of Bacon Marketing, on hashtags: 

“Like a creme egg, one hashtag is never enough. There is a fine balance on how many to add to a post. A handful of super generic ones are going to do diddly for your reach, same as maxing out at 30 on the post, not only is it crowded, it looks untidy, and it smells of desperation.

“The magic number has a three in it. 13 – 15 hashtags, a mix of high volume and niche lower volume ones will serve you well. On top of that, make them accessible by capitalising the first character of each word.”

Step 7: collaborate with influencers

Instagram is the preferred social media channel for brands engaging in influencer marketing, so you can feel confident that it is worth the effort and (sometimes) expense to collaborate with an influencer when 93% of marketers are using this strategy to grow Insta accounts.What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is the collaboration between an online influencer and a brand. The relationship typically involves the influencer marketing a brand’s product or service to their followers.

Try to find an influencer who fits the ethos of your brand, someone who epitomises your target audience is likely to have lots of followers with similar interests and outlooks so they will be more likely to purchase your product or service.

Smaller but still well-established influencers are your best bet when starting out, as you typically won’t have to pay them to collaborate. Instead, offering them free products or services in exchange for the promotion of your brand will be enough.

On working with influencers, Anna Wilson, Head of Digital Development at Tangerine Communications, says:

“An influencer partnership is at its most valuable when it feels natural and is cohesive with your brand and the influencer’s feed.

“Step 1, make sure you find the right people, either search on Instagram or use an influencer profiling tool like Klear. Step 2, make sure you don’t ‘control’ the process too tightly or the content will be overlooked/ignored. Step 3, make sure you follow the ASA guidelines (it must be labelled as sponsored content). Step 4, review it to see if it did what you set out to do.”

Step 8: advertise your business on Instagram

Growing your account organically is amazing (and doesn’t cost you a dime), but sometimes it literally pays to boost your posts.

Instagram ads are a form of paid social media, which means you can pay for your content to appear in someone else’s feed who otherwise may not have seen it.

By advertising your brand on Instagram you will be able to:

• Reach the right audience with advanced targeting – changing options such as location, age, and even interests
• Maintain higher engagement rates
• Track your Instagram campaign performance

Isobel Burns, the founder of Digital Marketing Engine, offers her insight: 

“Advertising on Instagram is incredibly effective for growth and sales. The Feed tends to generate more sales, whereas Stories and Reels bring in a wider audience.

“Structure your ad campaign to be as broad at the top as possible, capturing more of the right people, and then retarget your ads in their feed with strong calls to action.”

Step 9: measure and celebrate your success

Make sure to consistently monitor Instagram’s insights to determine how well your brand is performing on the platform month on month.

Organising retro meetings to discuss what is working well and what isn’t in terms of your Instagram strategy is an efficient way to analyse important stats like engagement rates and follower growth so that you can plan for future Insta campaigns.

Most importantly, reward all of your hard work by celebrating your successes. It isn’t easy mastering the art of Instagram for business, so when you do, be sure to shout about it!

Using Instagram analytics

In short, Instagram analytics enable you to understand the overall performance of your business account, and at a more granular level, help you determine how successful your posts are.

Also known as ‘insights’, Instagram analytics are fundamental to any successful Instagram strategy as they can help you reach new audiences, improve your content strategy and target the right people.

Insta analytics give you a more detailed breakdown of important data, including the location of accounts reached, the age ranges of your followers, and even their most active times on the app.

This helps you paint a picture of the type of users that are engaging with your account. In turn, this will make it easier to plan your content strategy based on what works currently and what doesn’t.

Via Startups UK