How to use Instagram to make money and promote yourself online
In this article, I will describe to you my step-by-step eight-step plan for building an effective Instagram for business. Everything an entrepreneur and professional needs to do to get a good return on this social network is gathered here. Entrepreneurs have used this plan to start a business through Instagram hundreds of times in different niches.
The promotion methodology is constantly being refined, so all the steps are relevant. If you have decided to create a commercial profile and don’t know where and how to start a business, this is the perfect place to start.
Why do businesses need Instagram?
If you sell services, such as life savings insurance, online trading or laptop repair, look for customers on Facebook and other traditional social networks. Visual social platforms, including Instagram, are more appropriate for selling products. Clothing, cosmetics, handmade goods, photography, decorative items, are some product categories that can be promoted on Instagram.
But there is one condition – a sufficient number of followers, views and likes on Instagram. The site lowcostsmm.com will help you with this, low prices and guarantees are what you will definitely find on the site.
Turn your account into a business profile
The functionality of such a profile is two heads above a personal one. Without this add-on, running a real business on Instagram is more expensive. You can change it right from the settings.
When you switch to a commercial profile, you’ll have:
- Full account traffic statistics – geo, gender, age
- Publication analytics
- Ability to run ads from the mobile interface
- additional contact buttons
- Shopping Tags functionality (product tags leading to the online store with a photo)
And if specialists and those who simply use this social network as a portfolio can live without it, then business with this step will limit its opportunities in Instagram and lower its efficiency.
Quick design tips:
- Look at what the best competitors have done in design. Borrow good ideas.
- Key benefits and appeal are a good basis for a selling description
- Use Emoji for accents – it’s okay
- If you specify “main key” in the name field – this will bring in additional users from search
- Specify methods of communication “messengers, direct”
Post photos periodically that are entertaining
Try to give your audience something to smile about. It’s good if the funny photos are related to your business. Did the customer service manager spill coffee on the keyboard? Show your users that your employees are trying not to leave a single request unattended, so they can’t even go out to the buffet for 5 minutes.
Engage your followers
The effectiveness of using Instagram is directly related to the number of followers on your account. To increase your follower count, follow these tips:
Connect your Instagram account to your Facebook timeline.
Tag photos you post with popular hashtags.
Subscribe to other users’ updates, comment and tag photos you like.
Crosstalking photos on Facebook is a very effective way to attract the attention of your followers on the largest social network in the world who don’t know about your Instagram account yet.
Make a content plan
This is a sequential scheme for creating new publications, presented in the form of a table.
Inside it: genres, formats, descriptions of future entries, ideas, goals – and other data.
Convenient forms are Google tables or an Excel document.
Compiled based on the chosen business promotion strategy
It can be hard – for 1 or 2 pieces per day.
Or soft – for 2 times a week.
But it needs to exist.
Without malomalny planning guidelines – it is difficult to do business in Instagram.
Filling it out, as well as continuing to use it – the process is complex, painful and individual, it should not cause discomfort for the performer and the pressure. Do such a planner so that there is comfort.
Don’t get carried away with a variety of content and suck ideas out of your fingers. Only original and lively content related to your activity. There is enough of it as it is.
Practical tips for using Instagram to promote your business
To promote your Instagram, you have to try hard. There are already more than a billion users on the platform – there are many competitors, and everyone wants to lure followers to themselves. You need to combine both free and paid methods of promoting Instagram: targeting advertising, running contests, advertising from bloggers, cross-promotion and others.
Get your content production up and running
The most difficult point. Instagram is a visual network, so the external quality of the content for the audience comes first. Underestimating the importance of this is one of the major blunders of commerce. Then there’s copywriting.
What ways and frames you achieve a quality picture – it’s up to you.
Better visuals mean higher engagement and sales.
Ordinary modern girls are often so cool with their personal profiles (as opposed to commerce) that it’s enviable. They learn photo-processing from guides, spend time shooting and strive for perfection (all for their own sake).
The fate of a sales page with a weak shell is to be swiped, lose engagement and drown in the smart feed. Before new algorithm of displays it was possible to run Insta anyhow and still be shown to subscribers, now it is not.
Video content, stories, live feeds, Highlights are all attributes of successful commercial profiles.
Instagram for business will never be completely friendly, but you have the power to be likable, bring value to your CA and earn times more than your slobbery competitors.
- Clothing trade – photographer shoots, models, and stylish layouts. Increased attention to color reproduction and framing.
- Cosmetics – tasty product promos, pain closure, application results.
- Corporate blogging – show life, be bold and original.
In any layout, you need to plan, prepare and produce quality, relevant content, process and package texts and messaging communications.
This also includes maintaining a business account in the same style
Fact of the day: autoposting posts through services reduces nervous tension and prolongs the life of a professional.
The best tool for delayed posting
SMMplanner – up to 50 posts per month for free, promo code Dekrass will give you 31 days of full premium rate.
Add smart automations
There are additional inexpensive services that multiply the effectiveness of Instagram for businesses.
There are many, but I recommend Zeus – it’s the only one that packs all three features and can do smart massfollowing.
The cost for the full set of automations – 600 rubles per month per account, which is affordable for such services.
Systems: dispenser, massfollower and autoresponder.
- The first clever thing – this is configured autoresponder directive for new and active subscribers.
- The second, a mailing bot with which we can hook both our and not only subscriber bases with direct offers.
- And third, massfollowing by hot activities of competitors, which replaced the old-fashioned subscription to the collected bases.
Show the kitchen of your business
Equipment commissioning, the opening of a new office, a weekly planning meeting – use these kinds of occasions to highlight your project’s activities. Publish photos of employees in the workplace. Customers want to know that they are talking to real people, not faceless X company.
Showcase the capabilities of your product
Stimulate demand by showing the capabilities of your product. Show how high foam a coffee machine makes, let customers appreciate clothes on models instead of hangers, demonstrate the speed of a vegetable slicer, show the hair and makeup that can be done in your beauty salon.
Measure the effectiveness of business promotion on Instagram
Focus on the standard metrics of social media marketing effectiveness: the number of likes, comments, sharings, conversions to the company website, leads and conversions. Use analytics services that measure the effectiveness of posts with visual content.
How to get to the top of Instagram for free and fast
Instagram is one of the five most popular social networks in Russia, both as a marketplace and as a convenient promotional tool. Let’s find out how to get a flow of clients from your business account.
The most difficult thing for a new profile is gaining the first subscribers. When a user sees that the profile is new and no one reads it. If they get at least 10-20 likes and a few comments people know the profile is alive and it makes sense to subscribe.
Invite friends and colleagues to your profile. Sign up for them, send them personal messages. Attention! Don’t send the same text: algorithms might perceive it as spam, and block your account. Spread the word on your Instagram on other social networks, include a link to your profile on your site.
If you’re promoting a business account on Instagram on your own, use scenarios like this:
- Look for potential customers, write meaningful comments on their posts. Don’t spam! It’s better to spend time, have a little interaction with a user and get a subscription than to send out hundreds of the same comments and get banned – to become blocked.
- Use hashtags: This will get you into the feeds of users who are looking for something specific.
- Hold a contest, for example, give away your product among those who have reposted it. You can use more complicated mechanics: invite readers to post a photo of your product in their feeds and tag you. The prize goes to the one who gets the most likes or comments. Experiment.
Avoid cheating services: Instagram algorithms will track suspicious activity and send your profile to the ban. You can also get blacklisted for mass-following and mass-liking – indiscriminate subscriptions and likes to everyone in a row.
Publish content that is interesting to your audience. If subscribers actively like and comment on posts, the social network will recommend you to other users with similar interests.
Bet on the quality of your audience. It’s better to have a thousand active buyers than a million followers who aren’t going to buy anything
Study the statistics
Statistics in Instagram is divided into three categories:
- Content – data on posts, stories and promotions. There is filtering by impressions, reach (number of unique views), likes and comments. See which posts your audience responded to better.
- Actions – general information on the engagement of the profile’s audience. You can find out which days your audience is most active and make a content plan based on that.
- Audience – information about the geography of your subscribers, dynamics of subscriptions and unsubscriptions, activity of visits to the profile by days and hours.
Keep track of how your profile stats change after each post or new story. Analyze which topics are interesting for your subscribers and bring more activity.