10 Interesting Ways to Grow Business on Instagram

 By now, we have all seen the influence of Instagram.  

The platform shows many features for small businesses, balancing the proverbial digital field between small and large companies, from customer criticisms to a viral product. But because it has been everywhere for a while, there is tons of data available to you on how brands can utilize it. In this guide, we split down how to use Instagram for your small business, from taking the benefit of the platform's components to complex ideas on how to improve your digital footprint. 

How Can Instagram Marketing Help Your Small Business? 

When your existence is appropriately planned and executed, Instagram offers small businesses a complete set of benefits. It would be best to have a written Instagram marketing strategy to use the platform as a marketing outlet. Yes, even if it is just you managing the business account.  

As per Instagram's study, 81% of users stated that Instagram helps their products and services. You don't want to skip out on a whole set of clients because you're not engaged on the network.  

Read on for tips to expand your small business through Instagram marketing.  

Start with Basics: Set Up Your Profile 

You might roll your eyes at this, but it is a crucial reminder! 

• Once you are set up as a company account, take a moment to search through your Instagram page. Search for new features and settings that are modified all the time, sometimes without warning.  Other standard business profile objects to regard include: 

• Revising the business categories. 

• Hours. 

• Place (s). 

• A communication method. 

• Connecting to any service or product catalogs. 

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Keep Updating Your Link in the Bio 

Social media managers have become very creative in taking full advantage of Instagram's every link field. It is common to refer to your “link in bio” in posts and utilize this link to pop up a landing page with a combination of current content and evergreen links to your most influential product and pages.  

If your business shares links, has numerous links you want to provide to customers, has innumerable offerings, or all of the above, then the landing page is the right approach for you. Several tools let you link on the bio landing page.  

Geotag Your Posts 

Add the location name to the posts whenever you publish anything from your small business's physical location. If you didn't do this before posting, you can scroll into previous posts and change them.  

What Does Geotagging Do? 

Instagram collects all posts tagged at that location, sorting them top and current. Your brand photos live among client pictures and the “View Information” at the top links to particulars about the tagged business. This adds to brand awareness and allows clients to know your business. 

Use the Save Post Characteristic 

This approach is not public-facing but could help grow your small business's Instagram content strategy. Instagram offers the capacity to "save" a post and save them into a group for you to consider later. While it is not needed to create groups, it is recommended. There are different ways to use this part for inspiration and study. Some collection ideas may contain: 

• What your rivals are publishing 

• Visual motivation for photos 

• Great captions you've come across 

• Ideas for coming posts 

• Customer studies 

• Both positive and negative customer posts 

• Possible influencers 

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Use Highlights to Display What Your Business is All About 

Instagram's Stories Highlights feature offers you a possibility to transmit even more about your brand. Highlights feature the stories on your profile forever. They can help you collect those stories into an easy reference of evergreen content. Start with the basics, such as: 

• About: Just a few posts on your sales, working hours, and label. 

• Locations or Highlights as Per Site: If you have multiple sites, talk about each one and share photos of each. 

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• Customer Feedback or Posts: Repost from client feed posts or make an image that highlights reviews from elsewhere 

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• FAQs: Share details that clients often ask. This also saves you time when replying to customers because you can pivot them to this Highlight. 

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• Product/Service Features: Highlight the product or service. A few things you can't include in one post. This is where you can go in-depth into the details. 

Create Guides 

Much like Instagram Highlights, guides offer you a chance to collect your famous posts into one piece of featured content. But there are some key contrasts. It's more editorial in design, almost as if you were reading an article.  

Each embed lets a caption write even more about the product or place you're featuring.  

Pay Concentration to Captions 

Your first line in the caption is the one that grabs people's attention and determines whether they grow to read more. Instead of just paying attention to the first line, you should check the entire caption. With the recent acquisition of keyword search in Instagram, what you write in your Instagram caption is more critical than ever. Before, you could be cutesy with your words or stylized, and while it's not to say that you can't still do this, you should make sure you include words that you want others to associate you with. This could include your brand and product names or general terms related to your business category, like conducting basic keyword research. 

Use Instagram Live Constantly 

Running Live for brands rocketed popularity in 2020 when marketing managers and company owners found themselves operating from home but still needed to link with customers on a personal level. There are multiple benefits of using Instagram Live, and the biggest is that followers obtain a notification when an account they follow goes Live. This instant contact is important, especially when standing out on the web. A few ideas to begin you off on Live: 

• Go behind the stages: Do a trek of your space or showcase a resourceful approach. Anything that the client does not have public access to is where you should commence. 

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• Run a Q&A: Instagram has a Q&A segment where if you're using the associated sticker, the story post also adjusts to reflect it. Live Q&As can ask me anything (AMA) centered around distinctive products. 

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• Conduct an interview: Share the live stream from another account. Having a visitor on the Live allows you to interview them on the spot or gives them the mic to feature what they're passionate about. 

Offer "followers-only" promotions. 

Everyone loves a profitable sale. But the whole deal? 

That's using the marketing trick of FOMO and urgency. If you run a followers-only advertisement for a restricted time, it gives your followers another reason to stay engaged and stick around. 

Use the countdown Stories to make up hype or make a flash sale, so the advertisements become inconsistent. 

Plan a Giveaway 

One of the best ways to organically grow your Instagram account is by hosting a giveaway. Something that followers love more than a good sale is free stuff. It depends on how you host a giveaway; it will eventually lead to post engagement. Beyond asking people to follow your account, add requirements like saving a post, commenting on a stick, or sending it to a friend. You can also pair up with other small businesses with a similar audience to further your brand awareness. Never completely depend on this plan as your only social media plan. 

Another way to boost brand frontage to your small business is to host a takeover or take over another company's account. Typically, social media takeovers have a series of due posts over time. These posts can be feed-only stories-only. When hosting a takeover, consider it as building a story.  

Increase Your DM Usage 

Community building is a slow process, and one of its characteristics is building that connection between you and your customer. What better way to do this than private messaging?  

Improving your DM usage doesn't mean only answering, and you should also energetically engage with the client on their feed and stories. As your Instagram DM use grows, you'll find yourself needing a way to handle all the messages. 

Chase Your Analytics 

It's worth reiterating this advice found in different guides: track those Instagram analytics. Your strategies don't hold up without data to back up your gut sense of success. You can sink into your native insights through either the Instagram app or Facebook if you're beginning. You also want to be sure that you learn the distinctions between impressions, reach, and other network-specific metrics.  

Taking your Instagram for small business strategy further 

This list is a terrific way to start with Instagram marketing those small businesses can use to enhance their presence. 

Are you beginning your Instagram brand strategy entirely from scratch? Make a personalized Instagram marketing strategy with our in-depth resources, and we at The Big Unit set content plans, Social media marketing strategies, and goals for your brand.