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How to Use Instagram for Business
Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms, especially among younger generations. The beauty of Instagram is that it’s highly visual – the focus is on images and videos rather than text posts. Facebook still dominates the game, but Instagram still holds a strong place on the global list for the highest engagement.
For instance, did you know that engagement is two times higher for video posts on Instagram? To that effect, you should be leveraging Instagram videos if you want to grow your business online. But apart from videos as well several factors affect your growth as a business on Instagram.
As a business, you can spy on your competitors and reach out to a worldwide audience. How cool is that! Instagram is about posting photos and videos. Simple as that! It is a great social media marketing tool. So, are you looking to get started with Instagram for business? Do you want to scale your business by using an Instagram business account?
And in this article, we’ll take you through everything you need to know about using Instagram for business along with pro tips, and ideas to get you started.
What is Instagram marketing for business?
Using Instagram marketing for business allows companies and brands to engage with audiences and analyze their reach with features that aren’t available to other Instagram users. A business Instagram account functions much like a Facebook page – you can sponsor ads and monitor the activities of your competitors. With an Instagram personal account or business profile, you can market your products or services on Instagram stories and insights.
On Instagram stories, you can post a photo or video. Video posts are quick to attract and convert followers. To add Instagram stories, go to your profile, and click on the plus icon to update. You can also create similar stories on your Facebook app.
What is Instagram marketing for business?
Using Instagram marketing for business allows companies and brands to engage with audiences and analyze their reach with features that aren’t available to other Instagram users. A business Instagram account functions much like a Facebook page – you can sponsor ads and monitor the activities of your competitors. With an Instagram personal account or business profile, you can market your products or services on Instagram stories and insights.
On Instagram stories, you can post a photo or video. Video posts are quick to attract and convert followers. To add Instagram stories, go to your profile, and click on the plus icon to update. You can also create similar stories on your Facebook app.
How to use Instagram for Business
As a business, you can have several social media accounts. Facebook and Instagram are the most commonly used social media platforms. To log in to your Instagram profile, you need a username and password.
Tips on using Instagram are:
1. Have a Complete Profile Page
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.
Before you start using Instagram, make sure that you have a complete Instagram profile. Click on edit profile, add a profile photo, phone number, bio, email address, and a call-to-action button. As a brand, do not forget to add a location. New Instagram users will need to know where they can find your business.
Also, one of the best practices when using Instagram is to connect your Facebook business account with your Instagram profile. Here you can check how to set up your Instagram business account.
2. Convert your Personal Instagram Profile to Business Profile
Once you have a personal account, it’s easy to convert it to a business profile.
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Open Instagram and tap on the menu (three-dot) on the top right. Click on settings and tap on account.
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Scroll down and tap Switch to Professional Account > Continue.
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Select the business category that most accurately represents your organization. Tap done.
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Tap Business > Next. (Or tap Creator if you’re a content producer or influencer.)
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Review your public business contact info and make any necessary edits. Tap Next.
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Optionally, tap Login to Facebook and follow the prompts. Instagram recommends you connect to your Facebook Business Page to take full advantage of Instagram’s business tools, such as boosting your posts and stories and setting up ads on Instagram.
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Follow the steps for setting up your professional account, including completing your profile, choosing other businesses to follow on Instagram, inviting friends to follow your account, and exploring professional tools like Insights (analytics about how your content is doing) and ad creation.
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Tap Done to finish creating your professional profile.
Here is the complete guide on some basics to help you connect your Instagram business profile to Instagram.
3. Share Valuable Content
As a brand, you need to have a target audience. It helps you create quality content that is sharable by your followers and adds value to them. You can post a photo or video and then add a caption with relevant information that attracts Instagram users to take action.
Use the content to talk about your brand, what you do and why you do what you do. With valuable content, you can grow your reach and attract people to follow you. Instagram is about visuals, and humans are visual as well. You can use filters to make them as engaging and attractive as possible.
Try to think of Instagram as the shop window for your business. You want it to look as aesthetically pleasing as possible to attract users. This means the content you create needs to look and feel professionally designed.
4. Use Instagram Stories
As a brand, you need to have a target audience. It helps you create quality content that is sharable by your followers and adds value to them. You can post a photo or video and then add a caption with relevant information that attracts Instagram users to take action.
Use the content to talk about your brand, what you do and why you do what you do. With valuable content, you can grow your reach and attract people to follow you. Instagram is about visuals, and humans are visual as well. You can use filters to make them as engaging and attractive as possible.
Try to think of Instagram as the shop window for your business. You want it to look as aesthetically pleasing as possible to attract users. This means the content you create needs to look and feel professionally designed.
5. Use IGTV & Reels
Reels are the most used updates on Instagram. You can post a video i.e., of 15 seconds. Although IGTV and reels both allow you to post videos, they are slightly different.
With IGTV, you can post a video that is one hour long, while reels allow you to post a video that is 15 seconds long. You can use IGTV to post a video about your business and how-to guides. You can have a preview on your feed to attract users to click and view your content on the IGTV section.
6. Write Compelling Captions
You can engage or attract new customers by writing compelling captions. When you post a photo or video, remember to add a caption to it. It can be humorous or gives more information. A caption should be compelling enough to allow photo sharing, clicks, and viewing.
Good copy can build empathy, community, and trust. Or it can just be funny. What’s most important here is that you get your users to feel something and connect with you and your brand. And don’t forget to include relevant hashtags to make your content more discoverable.
7. Use Tags & Hashtags
Instagram puts the social in the social media by allowing you to tag others in your photos. By tagging a follower or another business, you make a connection with that person and share your content with them and their followers.
It’s best practice to use between three to five hashtags, even though the maximum you can add is 30 per Instagram post. Use your own, campaign-specific hashtags as well as the more popular hashtags to increase the discoverability of your content.
With AppuSocial’s hashtag generator feature, you can schedule Instagram posts to include all of the hashtags you’d like to use in the comment section of the post, without distracting from the caption.
8. Post Consistently
Sticking to a regular posting schedule helps you show up in your target audience’s timelines. Instagram strives to show each person the content they’re most likely to enjoy, so it looks for content that is recent and relevant to each person’s interests.
You can stay on top of your content by scheduling posts in batches so your account never goes blank if you get busy. Plus, scheduling makes it easier to experiment with posting times. While there’s no single best time to post on Instagram, there may be ideal times to post to reach the majority of your audience. With AppuSocial you can set up preferred time slots, so all you have to do is add content to your queue and the posts will automatically be placed into the next available slot.
Schedule Content on Instagram
Despite consistency being key on social media platforms, remembering to post on social media every day can be a huge hassle. Learning to schedule Instagram posts in advance is the easiest way to save time on the platform so that you can focus on engagement and other things that matter.
A scheduling tool that lets you upload posts to all major social media platforms, AppuSocial is a good value. If you want to schedule multiple posts a month for each channel (Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Google my business), AppuSocial is free.
It’s a very beginner-friendly social media growth tool. It’s practical to start cross-posting across social channels and have an easy calendar view of your content. The tool also gives you the option to view an Instagram grid preview. Check out this to know more about how to schedule content on Instagram.
Is Your Brand Using Instagram?
Instagram is a platform that has helped brands, small businesses, and big organizations to grow. You can drive traffic, and engage and convert clients when using an Instagram business account. It is free to set up and use.
Make use of the features and post high-quality visuals. Optimize your profile information to maximize clicks, following and conversion. Is your business already using Instagram? Get started with AppuSocial today and start managing everything from scheduling to reporting all in one place.
