How to Use Instagram for Marketing: Part 1

Are you ready for a massive statistic? Around the world, 300 million people are using Instagram every single day. This equates to roughly 95 million photos and videos being shared per day. That’s a crazy high number, yet the real question is how can you stand out among those 95 million photos? It’s no lie that Instagram has huge potential for marketers, yet only 36% of marketers are using Instagram compared to 93% of marketers using Facebook. If we are totally honest, we think they’re missing a trick here… Instagram is an incredibly effective engagement-driver among customers. So how can you get into using Instagram to market your brand?

Step 1: The Basic Recipe

Just like making a cake, there are a few basic elements you need for your business to succeed on Instagram. Unfortunately, it’s a little more than posting a few pretty photos, but don’t worry – it’s super simple.

• 500g of clear vision and strategy
• 3 tablespoons of consistent posting
• 75ml of audience familiarity
• 250g of well-defined visual style

Once these ingredients are combined, it’s possible for you to achieve huge results from Instagram for your brand.

Step 2: Choose Your Goals

In any business plan, goals are essential. Select one or two main goals for your brand to focus on when posting on Instagram to achieve a consistent posting style. Perhaps this might be building your local community, or perhaps showcasing your products or services? It might even be as simple as sharing company news and updates, but whatever it is make sure you understand how you can measure these goals effectively and ensure you stay on target for them. There is no point in setting goals if you don’t work to achieve them!

Step 3: Know the Demographics

Are you aware that just over half of internet-using young adults use Instagram? That’s 53% to be precise. Moreover, 29% of online females use Instagram compared to 22% of online males. Finally, 28% of Instagram users live in urban areas whilst 26% live in suburban areas and 19% live in rural areas. Once you’ve understood the key statistics, you can begin to understand which members of your key audience are active on Instagram and begin to build your presence.

Here we have the beginning stages of how to use Instagram for marketing. Whilst this is more behind the scenes, our next post will show you how to actually create, run, and maintain your business’ Instagram account with the key goal of increasing engagement and sales.