Instagram users are highly involved, the audience is solvent and actively interacts with each other and brands. The application is very popular, especially for promoting a business, and it can also be used on the go using mobile gadgets. Instagram differs from traditional social networks in the immediate generation of conversion. But how to promote the product on Instagram to buy? We’ll talk about this.
Business needs Instagram
How to promote the product through "Instagram"? This question is asked by many businessmen. And all because statistics show - selling through a social network is profitable. Approximately 17% of the total number of users of social networks over 18 years of age check their account daily. More than half of those registered on Instagram log into the application at least once a day, in 35% do it several times a day. These are representatives of the millennials generation who often make purchasing decisions based on visual reinforcement and influenced by social networks. The average age of the audience is from 18 to 29 years, more than half of the active users are women.
You can give some simple and very revealing examples of the use of social networks in business. For example, an online clothing store from the best young European designers Haute Future sells more than 80% of its products with the help of Instagram. A stock Buy-by-me store attracts about 65% of customers through a social network, and some businessmen (this is especially true for small Internet businesses or manufacturers of handmade goods) make sales exclusively through Instagram. The application is effective enough to promote goods on the Russian-speaking Internet.
Not for B2B and services
We can still argue with the promotion of services through Instagram, because some brands manage to advance through visual content even better than in social networks where you can detail all the nuances of the offered service and enable the client to consult with a specialist in real time.
Sales on Instagram are excellent for brands that create body care products, construction companies, book publishers and retail stores that distribute a wide variety of products. And this is only less than 10% of the possible options! But as for B2B, then everything is more complicated. It is unlikely that such an approach to advertising will be beneficial for such companies. Although an account can only be created for the purpose of branding, and not for the direct sale of goods and services.
Business Account Features
How to advertise a product on Instagram most effectively? To do this, you need to create a business account, because personal is absolutely not suitable for business. The main advantages of a business account (you can enable this option in the settings in the application) are as follows:
- The Contact button will allow the user to send a message, call or find out the location (and the application will also build a route, show the time and distance) of the company or seller.
- The ability to connect Facebook to manage advertising using business extensions of the social network.
- Setting comment moderation. You can disable commenting on posts, apply this option to individual photos and videos, or to all publications at once.
- The ability to use analytical tools without programs and services from third-party developers. The account owner will see the coverage of the post, the most popular posts, the number of new subscribers, individually configured conversions, and the like. The list of opportunities is growing.
Appearance and Content
How to promote the product on Instagram? It all starts with the look of the page and the content. But, of course, you must first register the page, if it is not already done. If you already have a company page on a social network, then just switch to the business account in the settings. If you don’t have an account on Instagram, but there is Facebook, you can immediately log in through this social network. There is neither one nor the other? You will have to create pages first.
When choosing an avatar, you need to consider the round shape and small size. Good decisions are the company logo or the name of the service, if, of course, it fits. A picture from another social network is not very suitable - you need to take into account the specifics of Instagram. If there is no ready-made suitable image, then you should order the development of an avatar by the designer or make it yourself.
In the description, it’s nice to place the USP. You can list the goods or types of services. You can reinforce the description with hashtags and a small number of smiles, but you should not get carried away - you need to remember the limit of 150 characters. If you need to insert a link to the official website of the company, this can be done in the description, because in the description below the photo and comments on Instagram, the links are inactive, and to go through them, you need to copy everything manually.
Placing a watermark on each photo is tiring and does not always allow you to carefully consider the product. Therefore, many sellers choose an equally safe and very attractive way to protect content from theft - a business card is placed in the photo next to the product. It looks very interesting and increases brand awareness. But with the inscriptions you need to be careful, because their abundance leads to visual fatigue.
Discounts for posting photos
One of the methods of product promotion on Instagram is to offer subscribers a small pleasant bonus for posting product photos in their account. This can be a fixed percentage of discounts or summed for the number of likes under the photo (number of likes = discount rubles). Sometimes marketers fear that the discount may be an impressive amount, but if you even have to throw off 500 rubles, then 500 people will see the goods, most of which did not previously know about the existence of a company account. Someone will subscribe, and someone may make an order.
Contests and Gifts
How to promote the product on Instagram yourself? Subscribers can be invited to place a photo with the product and brand hashtag in their account, promising that the user who gets the most likes will receive some kind of prize or discount. The best of the photos can be posted on the business account page.
Help bloggers and stars
There are several nuances in working with celebrities who are widely known outside the social network, and bloggers. You can try to sell your product at a discount for advertising in a popular account. Sellers of dresses and cosmetics can be advertised with beauty bloggers (on certain conditions you can order a positive review of a famous person), and suppliers of sports nutrition and products of natural origin can be advertised with those who promote the basics of a healthy lifestyle, fitness trainers.
In the case of celebrity accounts, there is practically no choice - publication will cost money. It is important to consider the concept and the place in which the target audience is concentrated. In this case, it is advisable to avoid direct advertising. With a competent approach, people who follow the opinion leader are highly likely to want to buy the same product. Sales on Instagram will not be long in coming.
You can independently negotiate with the sites, but you can do this in a semi-automatic mode through the exchange. Suitable, for example, LabelUp. Placement will cost at least 800 rubles per publication. This amount contains the percentage of the exchange’s profit, so if the budget is within strict limits, it is better to negotiate with the owners of the sites yourself.
Direct advertising
This is a way not only to sell the product “on the forehead”, but also to promote your account. For ten dollars you can bring some kind of record to 5000 people. If everything is done correctly, then 30 percent of them will buy the product, the average conversion (excluding the scope of activity) is 8-10%, but even unsuccessful advertising gives 2-3% of the conversion. And this is 1,500 people at best, 500 - on average, or at least 100 new customers.
Instareklama is a new direction in Internet marketing. You can already get training with various coaches and masters, but in reality there are still very few tools for semi-automatic or automatic business through this social network. This is good - everything is ahead, but for now you can train for a "young" audience.
There are also few suitable programs for promoting products on Instagram. Free often win fake accounts, and paid ones have not been proven. So for now, it’s better to choose “manual” business promotion.
To create an advertising campaign, you need to use Facebook. Everything can be done in the "Advertising Management" section: there you can configure the type of post, indicate the expected goals of the advertising campaign, determine the target audience and budget. In the future, you can use the "Ad Management" to view statistics and analyze the results.
Useful Content
How to promote the product on Instagram? A photo catalog is a great way to showcase the entire range of products, but you can create more really useful ones on a topic in order to engage the audience as much as possible. There are many examples and they are very simple: bicycle sellers can talk about how to properly care for transport, publishers - make selections on different topics and publish reviews from famous people, a tourist equipment store - give clear and understandable instructions on choosing goods depending on goals pursued by a tourist. In order not to get confused, you need to create a content plan and clearly follow it - this is told in any training courses in Internet marketing.
Live and Instagram Stories
Using these services attracts the attention of the audience and increases the reach of the publication. Ordinary posts are often skipped, but live broadcasts are always displayed first in the feed. Live, you can tell subscribers about the product or share valuable content. Another way to unobtrusively remind yourself is “Stories”. Few people are fully viewing the tape, but "History" is watched by almost all Instagram users.
Reverse side of business
To show the inside of the company is always interesting and attracts the attention of subscribers. You can use almost any informational reasons - the commissioning of new equipment, the opening of a new branch, a weekly meeting. This will allow you to regularly cover the activities of the company. You can publish photos of employees at workplaces so that customers know that they communicate with living people, and not with a faceless company, of which there are many.
Some useful tips
How to sell goods through Instagram? The basic rules are already listed, but you can give some more valuable tips:
- Russian hashtags. If the geography of the company is limited to Russia, then you should not use Latin or English words.
- Hashtags by interests. You need to look at what hashtags are popular among the target audience and add them to publications on the topic.
- Marks on the map. Geo-targeting will allow you to orient the materials to the audience by geographical feature.
- Nice pictures. Even visually unattractive goods can be nicely sold. You can take pictures not just paint cans, but painted doors.
- First-hand information. Subscribers can be shown new items before they appear on the site. The option is to form a focus group and let them test the product.
- Other social networks. The account should not be distanced from other sites. If the company is present on Vkontakte and Facebook, you can publish photos there, but with a slight delay. So users can choose the most suitable way of communication for them.
Evaluation of the results
An important stage of promotion on Instagram is the evaluation of the results of an advertising campaign. If everything is done correctly, then positive results (an increase in the number of subscribers, fresh comments and a large number of likes under the photo) will not be long in coming. No progress? Perhaps not all possibilities are realized or something has been done incorrectly. It is worth once again to review the main points of the advertising campaign.