Instagram users are highly engaged, the audience is solvent and actively interacts with each other and brands. The application is very popular, especially for business promotion, and it can also be used on the go using mobile gadgets. Instagram differs from traditional social networks in its immediate conversion generation. But how to promote a product on Instagram so that they buy? Let's talk about that.
Business needs Instagram
How to promote a product through Instagram? This question is asked by many businessmen. And all because statistics show that it is profitable to sell through a social network. Approximately 17% of the total number of social network users over the age of 18 check their account daily. More than half of those registered on Instagram go to the application at least once a day, 35% do it several times a day. These are the millennials whooften make purchasing decisions based on visual reinforcement and social media influences. The average age of the audience is from 18 to 29 years old, more than half of active users are women.
There are some simple and very illustrative examples of the use of a social network in business. For example, Haute Future, an online clothing store from the best young designers in Europe, sells more than 80% of its goods through Instagram. The stock Buy-by-me store attracts about 65% of customers using the social network, and some businessmen (especially for small Internet businesses or manufacturers of handmade goods) make sales exclusively through Instagram. The application is quite effective for promoting goods on the Russian-speaking Internet.
Not for B2B and services
One can still argue with the promotion of services through Instagram, because some brands manage to promote through visual content even better than in those social networks where you can describe in detail all the nuances of the service offered and give the client the opportunity to consult with a specialist in real time.
Instagram sales are doing well for body care brands, construction firms, book publishers and retailers selling a wide variety of products. And this is only less than 10% of the possible options! But as for B2B, everything is more complicated here. It is unlikely that such an approach to advertising will be beneficial for suchcompanies. Although an account can only be created for the purpose of branding, and not for the direct sale of goods and services.
Features of a business account
How to advertise a product on Instagram most effectively? To do this, you need to create a business account, because personal is completely unsuitable for business. The main advantages of a business account (in the application, you can enable this option in the settings) are as follows:
- The "Contact" button will allow the user to send a message, call or find out the location (and the application will also build a route, show time and distance) of a company or seller.
- Ability to connect Facebook to manage ads using social network business extensions.
- Setting up comment moderation. You can turn off commenting on posts, apply this option to individual photos and videos, or to all publications at once.
- The ability to use analytical tools without programs and services from third-party developers. The account owner will see the reach of the post, the most popular posts, the number of new followers, custom conversions, and more. The list of possibilities is growing.
Appearance and content
How to promote a product on Instagram? It all starts with page appearance and content. But of course, you first need to register the page if you haven't already. If you already have a company page on a social network, then just switch to a business account in the settings. If there is no account on Instagram, butthere is Facebook, you can immediately log in through this social network. Is there neither one nor the other? You'll have to create pages first.
When choosing an avatar, you need to consider the round shape and small size. Good solutions are the company logo or the name of the service, if, of course, it fits. A picture from another social network is not very suitable - you need to take into account the specifics of Instagram. If there is no ready-made suitable image, then you should order the development of an avatar to a designer or make it yourself.
It's a good idea to place a USP in the description. You can list goods or services. You can reinforce the description with hashtags and a small number of emoticons, but you should not get carried away - you need to remember the 150 character limit. If you need to insert a link to the official website of the company, this can be done in the description, because the links in the description under the photo and comments on Instagram are inactive, and to follow them, you need to copy everything manually.
Putting a watermark on every photo is tiring and doesn't always allow you to take a close look at the product. Therefore, many sellers choose an equally safe and very attractive way to protect content from theft - a business card is placed next to the product in the photo. It looks very interesting and increases brand awareness. But with the inscriptions you need to be more careful, because their abundance leads to visual fatigue.
Discounts for posting photos
One of the methods of promoting a product on Instagram is to offer subscribers a small nice bonusfor posting product photos in your account. This can be a fixed percentage of the discount or summed up for the number of likes under the photo (the number of likes=rubles of the discount). Sometimes marketers are afraid that the discount can amount to an impressive amount, but if you have to throw off even 500 rubles, then 500 people will see the product, most of whom did not previously know about the existence of the company account. Someone will subscribe, and someone, maybe, will place an order.
Contests and gifts
How to promote a product on Instagram yourself? Subscribers can be invited to post a photo with a product and a brand hashtag in their account, promising that the user with the most likes will receive some kind of prize or discount. The best of the photos can be placed on the business account page.
Help of bloggers and stars
There are several nuances in working with celebrities who are widely known outside the social network, and bloggers. You can try to sell your product at a discount for advertising in a popular account. Sellers of dresses and cosmetics can advertise with beauty bloggers (under certain conditions, you can order a positive review of a famous person), and suppliers of sports nutrition and products of natural origin - with those who promote the basics of a he althy lifestyle, fitness trainers.
In the case of celebrity accounts, there is practically no choice - the publication will cost money. Here it is important to think over the concept and the place in which the target is concentrated.the audience. In this case, it is desirable to avoid direct advertising. With a competent approach, people following an opinion leader are highly likely to want to purchase the same product. Sales on Instagram will not keep you waiting.
You can independently negotiate with the sites, or you can do it semi-automatically through the exchange. Suitable, for example, LabelUp. Placement will cost at least 800 rubles per publication. This amount includes a percentage of the exchange's profit, so if the budget is within strict limits, then it is better to negotiate with the owners of the sites yourself.
Direct Advertising
This is a way not only to sell goods "on the forehead", but also to promote your account. For ten dollars, you can bring some kind of record to 5,000 thousand people. If everything is done correctly, then 30 percent of them will buy the product, the average conversion (without taking into account the field of activity) is 8-10%, but even unsuccessful advertising gives 2-3% conversion. And this is 1,500 people at best, 500 on average, or at least 100 new customers.
Insta-advertising is a new direction in internet marketing. You can already get training from various coaches and craftsmen, but in fact there are still very few tools for semi-automatic or automatic business through this social network. This is good - everything is ahead, but for now you can practice on the "young" audience.
There are also few suitable programs for promoting goods on Instagram. Free ones often wind up fake accounts, and the effectiveness of paid ones has not been proven. So for now, it’s better to choose “manual” business promotion.
To create an advertising campaign, you need to use Facebook. Everything can be done in the “Advertising Management” section: the type of post is configured there, the expected goals of the advertising campaign are indicated, and the target audience and budget are determined. Later, you can use "Manage ad" to view statistics and analyze the results.
Useful content
How to promote a product on Instagram? A photo catalog is a great way to showcase your entire product range, but you can create more really useful content on a topic to maximize audience engagement. There are many examples and they are very simple: bike sellers can talk about how to properly care for vehicles, publishers can make collections on various topics and publish reviews from famous people, a camping equipment store can give clear and understandable instructions for choosing a product depending on the purpose pursued by the tourist. In order not to get confused, you need to create a content plan and strictly follow it - this is taught in any Internet marketing training courses.
Live and Instagram Stories
The use of these services attracts the attention of the audience and increases the reach of the publication. Regular posts are often skipped, but live broadcasts are always displayed first in the feed. Live, you can tell subscribers about a product or share valuable content. Another way to unobtrusively remind yourself is “Stories”. Not many people whofully views the feed, but "Stories" are watched by almost all Instagram users.
Other side of business
Showing the inside of the company is always interesting and attracts the attention of subscribers. You can use almost any information occasions - the commissioning of new equipment, the opening of a new branch, a weekly meeting. This will allow regular coverage of the company's activities. You can post photos of employees at their workplaces so that customers know that they are communicating with real people, and not with a faceless company, of which there are many.
Some useful tips
How to sell goods through Instagram? The basic rules have already been listed, but there are some more valuable tips:
- Russian hashtags. If the geography of the company's activities is limited to Russia, then you should not use Latin or English words.
- Hashtags by interests. You need to see which hashtags are popular among the target audience and add them to publications on the topic.
- Marks on the map. Geo-targeting will allow you to orient materials to the audience by geographic location.
- Beautiful photos. Even a visually unattractive product can be beautifully sold. You can photograph not just cans of paint, but painted doors.
- First-hand information. Subscribers can be shown new items before they appear on the site. An option is to form a focus group and let the product be tested.
- Other social networks. The account should not be distanced from other sites. If the companyis present on Vkontakte and Facebook, you can publish photos there too, but with a slight delay. This allows users to choose the communication method that suits them best.
Evaluation of results
An important stage of promotion on Instagram is the evaluation of the results of an advertising campaign. If everything is done correctly, then positive results (an increase in the number of subscribers, fresh comments and a large number of likes under the photo) will not keep you waiting. No promotion? Perhaps not all possibilities are realized or something is done incorrectly. It is worth revisiting the main points of the advertising campaign again.
