An Insta-Worthy Social Platform
As the second-largest social media platform, Instagram’s popularity is quickly gaining on its parent company, Facebook. Its popularity is due to its intuitive mobile user experience and engaged communities.
With the support of a dedicated social media strategist, your brand can extend the reach and visibility of its visual content.
What is Instagram Marketing?
Instagram marketing is how brands use the app to make connections with their targeted followers and audience more generally. Instagram marketing is an effective practice for top-, middle- and bottom-of-funnel marketing, facilitating a wide range of promotional strategies.
76% of marketers say
they’re active on Instagram.
____________
Social media is a key component of every well-rounded digital marketing strategy, and Instagram is one platform that many marketers find success with. In fact, more than 200 million businesses use Instagram as a part of their wider marketing strategy.
Instagram is first and foremost a visual platform, which allows you to have some fun with how you choose to present your product or service. High-quality visuals, including photography, custom illustrations and videos encourage engagement, which can in turn convert customers, increase website traffic and amplify brand recall.
The platform’s popularity with consumers makes it a massive opportunity for brands that are willing to dive in and start interacting. As with all forms of social media marketing, it always pays to build a sense of community.
Instagram has both organic and paid content capabilities. Organic marketing in this context refers to optimising your content efforts for the Instagram algorithm to increase the probability of your content naturally landing with your target audience. Through organic marketing, Instagram followers and potential customers find you, fostering a sense of reputability and trust.
When done correctly, paid advertising can also facilitate a strong reputation and build trust. While some fear an influx of “fake followers” — those who see or may engage with your brand, yet are of little to no business value — paid marketing best practices can not only lead to significant Instagram follower growth, but also price-effectively contribute toward your bottom line.
Within both of these categories are a plethora of sub-best practices, as we’ll look into below.
How to Build a Strong Instagram Strategy
A successful Instagram marketing strategy takes advantage of all the tools the platform has to offer.
Specifically, a typical strategy includes:
Instagram Profile Optimisation
A complete profile helps you to earn the trust of your Instagram followers. That includes a branded profile image, a descriptive bio, engaging Instagram story highlights and a link to your website.
Keyword Research
Hashtags and keywords are how an Instagram user finds new accounts to follow — a key consideration for all Instagram creators. Additionally, including appealing copy or commenting on relevant trends makes your Instagram posts more visible and attractive.
Follower Tactics
The growth of your account often depends on its relationships with others. Following, liking and commenting on posts from other accounts is essential. Engaging with influencers or Instagram stars who reflect your brand’s values can help drive organic Instagram follower growth. In addition, sharing Instagram user-generated content can boost engagement with potential customers.
Instagram Story Integration
Nearly half of all marketers use Instagram stories — a number that’s on the rise due to its wide recognition as an effective Instagram growth tool. Stories appear at the top of a user’s feed and are available for 24 hours before they disappear, making them perfect for sharing timely content and limited-time promotions.
A Regular Posting Schedule
It’s important to post with regularity so that your brand stays relevant, reduces ghost followers and keeps in alignment with the Instagram algorithm. An active Instagram feed gives new followers plenty to browse through while increasing your probability of high organic placement — driving brand awareness to potential followers, engagement and an increased Instagram presence more generally.
Ad Campaigns
An Instagram advertising campaign can draw attention to product launches, new initiatives and expand your reach to users who haven’t interacted with your Instagram feed yet.
Your social media strategist can help maximise your results by ensuring that each aspect of your strategy is aligned with your other marketing efforts.
Brafton’s Instagram Growth Service
As leaders in the social game, Brafton offers the best Instagram growth service. This includes both our organic Instagram growth service as well as our paid advertising offerings.
We drive real Instagram growth — it’s not about Instagram growth hacks (which ultimately attract ghost followers and fake accounts), but rather tried-and-true strategies for paid and organic Instagram growth. When you partner with Brafton’s seasoned Instagram creators, you’ll work with a dedicated social media strategist, content marketing strategist and project manager who will learn about your organisation’s mission and goals. We will develop Instagram campaigns that engage and convert.
In addition, you’ll receive monthly analytics reports to help you understand your results so you can continually improve your strategy.
Here’s a look at the Instagram growth services we provide:
Rolling Instagram Marketing and Promotions
Successful Instagram marketing relies on relevant and timely content, which is why successful brands develop sustainable strategies. With consistent effort that is backed by Instagram content expertise, your follower count will grow and you’ll see more visitors arriving to your site from this channel.
Rolling social media management for Instagram includes activities that enhance user engagement, build your brand awareness and increase your organic followers. Your strategist can manage your Instagram account, supporting your brand with image and video posts, shared user-generated content and more. They can also build out your Instagram profile so it grabs attention and sparks interest.
Furthermore, your strategist can also help you build relationships through influencer marketing. They know how to seek out micro and macro influencers in your industry who promote brands and content related to the interests of their followers. Sourcing, qualifying and collaborating with influencers requires the expertise to know when both parties are a good match for each other. Instagram influencer marketing is challenging, but with the right strategy, it can pay off in terms of increased brand awareness, user engagement and overall campaign success.
Rolling Instagram management includes monthly analytics reports and review calls to evaluate the most important metrics for your social media campaign. These reports help you understand your results and adjust your strategy based on real-world data.
Running a rolling Instagram campaign in tandem with other social media efforts can boost your results. Your strategist can help you align your campaign with the other social channels that matter to your brand and audience. Our social media strategists work with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Google+ and Snapchat.
Successful Instagram
marketing relies on relevant
and timely content, which is
why successful brands develop
sustainable strategies.
____________
À la Carte Instagram Posts
In place of a rolling Instagram campaign, a social media strategist can help you craft one-off posts to promote blog posts, webinars, events and other content. This option might be a good idea if you want to support an in-house social media expert or you’re just dipping your toes into the platform. Your strategist can help you schedule each Instagram post based on our data-driven research and best practices.
Instagram Listening
With over 1 billion people using the platform, it can be difficult to find out what people are saying about your brand. Searching Instagram hashtags and reading through user conversations is resource-intensive, especially for small marketing teams.
Your social media strategist is adept at identifying and assessing what’s being said online and on social media about your company and its products. This information can give you insight into how your brand is perceived, misconceptions people may have about your industry or products, or even trending conversations that you have the authority to contribute to. Plus, your strategist can give you actionable advice on how to respond and nurture your customers according to your goals.
Audience Engagement Videos
Video content — namely, Instagram reels — have seen a 57.4% increase in usage in 2023 compared to 2022. Why? Because they work.
User engagement on Instagram, both relating to current and potential followers, is critical to success, and Instagram reels can facilitate such user engagement. Your brand can gain an advantage by working with a strategist to produce short-form video content that converts.
Remember: Instagram is a scrolling app – your brand often has less than a second to make an impression before your post is scrolled away. Video encourages users to slow down and take in your messaging without asking too much in return, giving your brand a social boost.
Instagram Ad Management
Instagram ads follow a pay-per-click (PPC) model that uses a bidding algorithm to place your ads in users’ feeds and stories. Using the Facebook Ad Manager, you can segment your audience for precision campaigns.
An expert PPC strategist will help you build your ads, identify audiences and develop a competitive bidding strategy. This service can be combined with other PPC platforms.
Ad campaigns offer the best return on investment when they’re properly optimised and managed. There are a few key tactics marketers can use to ensure their Instagram advertising campaign is set up for max ROI, including:
Adding Facebook Pixel to Your Website
This is a piece of code that tracks the activities your website visitors engage in, including when they convert after seeing your ad. This gives you more insight into the effectiveness of your ad campaign.
Creating Custom or Lookalike Audiences
Your ads work best when they’re shown to people most likely to engage with them. Create audiences based on location, demographics, interest and more.
Choosing the Right Ad Format
Instagram ads can take many forms – images, video, carousel, stories, collections and more.
Promote Your Business on Instagram
If you want to put your brand message in front of a massive group of potential customers, Instagram is the place to be. An optimised Instagram profile, stunning posts and the right amount of promotion can help your business grow and succeed.
Brafton, as a leading Instagram growth service provider, can help you identify the best pathway toward paid and/or organic Instagram growth. Reach out today to get started!
Not in Australia?
Check out our international Instagram Agency Services: