Did you know that 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile every day? That’s a whole lot of potential market to be tapped into.
When it comes to social media marketing, we know there are many platforms to choose from, so why Instagram? With incredible visual impact capabilities, your brand simply can’t go wrong by choosing to be on Instagram.
Instagram is an excellent, visual platform for your business’ marketing, but how can you start? Keep reading this guide to find out how to create an effective Instagram marketing strategy!
1. The Foundation Of Your Instagram Marketing Strategy
When creating a social media strategy for Instagram, you need to be aware of the fundamental steps that can make or break your success. So, where do you start?
The absolute solid foundation upon which you should build your Instagram marketing strategy is your audience. Before you can investigate the content and other steps, you need to research who your ideal target audience is.
Knowing your audience inside and out is vital to the success of your strategy.
You need to perform market research into your target market’s demographic, ask yourself the following questions:
- How old is your ideal audience member?
- What gender are they?
- Where is your audience likely to be based in terms of location?
- What are your audience’s interests?
After answering these questions, you can dive a little further into their Instagram behavior:
- Investigate what hashtags your audience is using
- Research the locations that your audience has checked into
- Look into other brands that they follow and the type of people that they follow
With all of these questions answered, you’ll have in-depth insight into your audience and what they’re doing on Instagram, which in turn, will arm you with the information you need to engage with them.
2. Set Yourself Goals
As with any marketing strategy, you’ll need measurable, achievable goals in place to allow you to track how you’re performing within a set period of time.
Your goals should be aligned with what you want to achieve with your brand’s Instagram account. Are you wanting to simply improve brand awareness? Are you hoping to generate leads and make sales?
Each of these objectives will play a part in the content that you ultimately choose to publish.
3. Research Competitor Content
Part of choosing a direction for your Instagram marketing strategy is having an in-depth look at what your direct and indirect competitors are doing on their pages.
You’ll want to start by identifying who your competition is, on both a global and local level. Analyze their content and decide what it is you like about their content, and also, what you feel you can do better.
The reason we encourage you to do this is because of one thing:
Their audience is also your audience.
If they have content that is working, then they’re successfully engaging with the people that you want to be engaging with, and you should be able to take inspiration from this. Have a look at the type of content they’re posting, and also take note of the hashtags that they’re using.
The final thing you should pay attention to is what their call to action is, and why it may be working.
4. Create Your Content Strategy
At this point in creating your Instagram marketing strategy, you’re armed with sufficient information to start the content creation process.
Your content needs to achieve two things:
- It needs to be aligned to your business objectives as a whole
- And it needs to showcase your brand in the best possible way
These two points will be the foundation upon which you build and create your content. The next step is deciding the form in which your content will be posted. Are you going to focus primarily on images? Do you want to incorporate video too? And how will you interact with your audience through Instagram Stories?
Taking a step back, you already know what kind of content your ideal audience likes and engaged with, and you already know what your competitors are doing. Use this as a basis to create your content strategy. If your product is aesthetically pleasing, then obviously you can use this as a foundation for your images. If not, you’ll need to think of creative ways to showcase your brand through clever content.
5. Create Your Content Calendar
After creating your content strategy, the next thing to know is when you plan on posting and how often. The thing about social media marketing is that you want your content to be both relevant and regular to and for your audience.
By creating and following a content calendar you’ll be able to identify when your content performs best, on what days of the week, and at what time of the day. And ultimately, over time, you’ll be able to analyze what types of content your audience engages with best.
This means that you can identify any potential gaps in your content strategy that may need to be adapted and changed in order to get you measurable, positive results.
Remember though, when it comes to content, consistency is more important than frequency. So keep this in mind when creating your content calendar.
6. Ensure That You Track Your Progress
The key to an effective Instagram marketing strategy is being able to measure where you started and how you’ve grown. This means that you need to have metrics in place against which you’re going to measure your goals.
Were you after increased brand awareness? Then you need to analyze the growth of your followers and mentions.
Were you after lead generation? Ensure you’re able to measure how many qualified leads you’ve received, and if they turned into sales.
Finding Instagram Success
The thing about a successful Instagram marketing strategy is this:
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this platform. What works for one type of company may not work for another. The type of content you post combined with your brand’s message is ultimately what is going to help you find success on Instagram.
And remember, there is no such thing as an overnight success. Commit to the journey ahead of you, and stay realistic when it comes to what you want to achieve.
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