These days, using social media for your business is more important than ever. If you’re not on social media platforms like Instagram, you’re really missing out and at a serious risk of falling behind your competition. Each platform has its own tools, features, and benefits to boost your company profile and reach new customers.

Read on to find out more about the benefits of using Instagram as part of your business’s social media strategy.

The Basics

Instagram is free to join and to use. Once you have an account, the things you can do on the app include:

• Making grid posts, which can be photos, videos, or a mix of both.
• Creating Instagram reels, which are short videos similar to those for TikTok. In fact, you can repost your TikToks as Instagram reels.
• Posting Instagram stories, which expire after 24 hours.
• Holding live streams, which allow you to interact with followers in real-time.

Perhaps most notably for businesses, Instagram also lets users set up an e-commerce shop. This allows followers to buy your products directly through the Instagram app.

Grow Your Audience

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms, with approximately 2 billion individuals using Instagram every month. Over 63 percent of users are on the platform at least once a day.

In addition to having many users in general, Instagram is also a place to reach a younger audience. Approximately 60 percent of users are between the ages of 18 and 34 years old. After that, the largest age demographic is 35- to 44-year-olds. You can find the regularly updated statistics via Oberlo.

Instagram Boosts Business No Matter What Size

If you take a cursory scroll through Instagram, you’ll probably notice that major corporations and household name brands have accounts, but these aren’t the only businesses that benefit from what the social media platform has to offer. On the contrary, Instagram is a great boost for small and up-and-coming businesses.

The large number of Instagram users means there’s an audience for almost any kind of business. And the youthful majority is typically more inclined to support up-and-coming businesses, especially those that are women-owned and black-owned.

When you use the tools of such a large platform in the right way, you can do wonders to boost your brand’s visibility. Instagram allows you to connect with an audience that may never have discovered your business otherwise. By staying consistent with your social media activity, your audience won’t lose sight of your brand.

How Instagram Helps Businesses Make Money

As we mentioned above, one of the tools Instagram provides is an e-commerce shop so that users can purchase from you without going through your website. Specifically, this can be through posts, stories, and your overall profile.

You can also create shoppable posts, which function as a type of ad. This is a post that allows you to tag your products. Then you can provide the price and a brief description of each.

Another way Instagram helps you make money and grow your profile is through brand partnerships. Sponsored and affiliated posts are a touchstone of social media marketing.

Relate To and Communicate With Your Target Audience

The right kind of social media campaign successfully puts a face and personality to your brand. It creates a more approachable, relatable image, as opposed to a faceless corporation. Instagram’s tools allow you to actually interact and communicate with your audience, even in real-time. It’s much different than an automated email response to a consumer’s inquiry.

Seeking feedback from your customers and actually listening and responding to what they say will make your brand appear more trustworthy. You can use both Instagram stories and live streams to hold Q&As. And you can use polls on your Instagram stories to get a casual survey of your audience’s opinions. These tools also open up plenty of opportunities for customers to make their voices heard.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Business Using Instagram

• Use hashtags to improve your business’s visibility: Users will often search for new pages to follow via hashtags. You can also make posts designed to use popular hashtags, such as #ThrowbackThursday. And you can put these hashtags in ads as well as the captions of your posts. That being said, don’t overuse hashtags or include ones that have nothing to do with your brand.
• Partner with the right brand ambassador: You want to work with someone who has a significant reach but also fits with your brand. It comes across more naturally if you have products or services that seem like what the brand ambassador would actually use.
• Post consistently: You don’t want to annoy your followers with endless new posts. But you also need to stay visible. It is usually recommended to post at least once a week or up to three times a week. Also, pay attention to the best times to post. There is data available that shows this.
• Have consistent visuals in mind: A brand style guide should be created as part of your overall social media marketing plan. This can include specific fonts, color schemes, patterns, filters, and angles. In addition to providing consistency, these styles can become your brand’s signature. For instance, everyone knows Tiffany’s blue or Coca-Cola’s red.
• Don’t ignore your bio: Instagram’s signature link in bio feature means your followers can easily find your website. You can also use the bio to get across your business motto, promote certain products, and announce upcoming events or launches. You also have the option to create a link tree so that customers can visit your homepage, links to specific products, your company blog posts, and mentions of your brand in the press and other media.

To really boost your business’s social media, consult with a team of experts. Working with a marketing agency that has plenty of experience with Instagram, social media, and other digital media and content, such as InnoVision Marketing Group, based in San Diego, will help you reach your customers right where they’re at.