Instagram is among the most popular social media platforms, and today for getting competitive advantage every small business should consider using the Instagram platform. Instagram keeps introducing latest tools to help business owners to succeed on the photo-sharing social media platform. Businesses can promote their products and services with the right marketing strategy. Moreover, they can boost their brand, and increase sales on Instagram.
Instagram has come a long way since its inception in 2010 with more than 800 million monthly active users and around 500 million daily active users. However, businesses have started to take note of it now. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook has bought it out just 18 months after it launched for $1 billion, and the platform has continued to grow since then. Now-a-days businesses have started to react more and more to this platform as it is a rapidly growing platform. And you must not get amazed if I say that among the top 100 brands in the world more than 90 have an Instagram account.
With so many brands and businesses on Instagram, there are several clear-cut methods to generate sales, leads and more via Instagram. However, Instagram is relatively a new platform and new app updates are introduced all the time. So, the first mantra to stay updated, to capitalize on all of the new features and get all of the benefits of Instagram include, is to just tap into them? Whether you’re new to the platform or whether you’re looking to better your existing account, you just need to start.
Well, we are putting together the top 6 benefits of Instagram for businesses as well as how to use them to your advantage.
1. Over 30% Users of Instagram Have Used it to Purchase a Product Online:
We are concerned with the sales at the end of the day, isn’t it? Sales are what most business owners are striving for, and it is the same case when it comes to the benefits on Instagram. And it is important too as you must definitely know that what you’re investing in is worthy or not i.e. it is going to provide a return on your investment or not. When talking about Instagram, we must take a look at some of the facts.
Statistics:
More than 30% of Instagram users have sometime or the other used Instagram to purchase a product online. And this behavior is 70% more likely to do than non-Instagram users. Before diving into the other benefits of Instagram and its users, just think about the sheer volume of potential customers that are just waiting to interact with you or your brand. And you know what, these are not just followers but these are people who have a history of making a purchase form the Instagram platform.
Moreover, 75% of Instagram users take action like visiting a website by clicking an Instagram advertising post. An Instagram ad is a post that you sponsor with advertising money so that it can reach more people. As per the statistics 75% of Instagram users take an action on these ads, for instance they click the Shop Now or Contact Us buttons. There may be cases that these people do not purchase on the first click but their action is still valuable because you can retarget them with Instagram ads until they do purchase!
2. Tap into an Otherwise Unreached Customer Base with Instagram’s User Base
There are around 500 million Instagram active users who can be found active on the platform at least once a day, and at least 266,666,667 i.e. 50% of them are actively purchasing via Instagram ads and profiles. So, just think if your business is not present on Instagram, can you be so sure that you will be reaching them?
Let us put it more precisely. Around 200 million Instagrammers actively visit a business profile every day, but if you don’t have an Instagram account your company will not be one of them. So you must think of Instagram as an extension of your company. If you are present on Instagram then there are more chances to present yourself to your potential customers on Instagram.
3. Instagram Ad Platform has Access to the Most Advanced Social Media Advertising Targeting Options
Now when we know that how many Instagram users are there and how likely they are to purchase. Next thing comes to leverage this data for your advantage. As Instagram was bought by Facebook a few years back so, Instagram’s capabilities rapidly broadened and started matching Facebook’s capabilities. Facebook is already known as the most advanced social media advertising platforms. On Facebook you can advertise to people by age, interests, location and behavior and you can now do the same on Instagram.
In addition to the above listed targeting options, Instagram has the same extensive retargeting capabilities just like Facebook. Retargeting stands for targeting again the people who have somehow already seen your brand and business. The most common form of retargeting is the type of targeting which is done for the website visitors who haven’t made a purchase yet or didn’t completed the action you’re wanting them to make on your site. Instagram offers this and much more.
You can moreover, create custom retargeting audiences based on Instagram post engagement, Instagram video views, customer email lists and more. Even the other social media platforms established for a lot longer also do not have some of the targeting capabilities that Instagram platform has. With these options you can take your Instagram marketing strategy to the next level and to implement a specific sales funnel with your Instagram ads that can make you achieve more results.
4. Personal Profiles and Business Profiles are Differentiated in Instagram
Instagram also differentiates business accounts by personal accounts just like Facebook. If you turn an account into business account then it can unlock a world of features that can help to promote your business. For instance you can have a call to action button for your page visitors and you can promote your posts with ad dollars and can get access to account insights.
How does it benefit you is that it also gives a clear understanding to the Instagram users that the page they are on is owned by a business and not just a personal Instagram page. By making this adjustment you can set your account up for success to reap all of the Instagram benefits.
5. Through Instagram Ads Sales and Leads Are Trackable
These benefits of Instagram are obvious, but do you know how many companies invest into platforms without infact knowing its effectiveness. As we know Instagram uses the same Ads Manager platform as Facebook. So, it has all of the same tracking capabilities just like Facebook. You can see everything: like link clicks, leads, conversions and you can also see the cost per result on any campaign that you are running on Instagram. This means that you can always see how many results you achieved and at what cost, depending on what objective or goal you’re measuring.
Moreover, you can break down the results you receive and check that who or where they came from (including gender, age range, region and device etc.). And if you have this knowledge then it allows you to understand where you should invest your money to get the best output.
At jeewangarg.com we do A/B test on ads sets for our clients. A/B testing does mean running a group of different ads at the same time for checking which of the ad set going to perform the best. Tracking metrics is one of the most important benefits of Instagram as analytics and tracking capabilities of Instagram make A/B split testing efforts not only worthy but highly effective.
6. Use Instagram to Fuel Other Marketing Efforts
You can take all of the information and data you gather from Instagram and make use of it across all of your other marketing efforts. All of the website traffic you gain from Instagram can be retargeted on other platforms such as Facebook, Google etc as well. You can also use your Instagram posts to promote other marketing efforts you have till now made and vice versa.
With these kinds of cross-promoting channels and marketing efforts you can extend the reach of that channel. Moreover, you can encourage existing followers to keep track with your brand on other platforms as well. The more touch points your brand has with a consumer, the more chances are that they will make a purchase from you over competitors.
Wrapping Up:
So these are the top 6 benefits of Instagram for business. When you build an Instagram business account then it can consist of a lot of hard work but the benefits of Instagram are worth your effort in the end. If you are interested in letting the Social Media Advertising Experts manage your Instagram marketing account then contact Jeewangarg.com today!!!
