In a world where traditional forms of marketing are slowly becoming obsolete, digital marketing has been quick to fill the void. Instagram has the potential to be the frontrunner in the new era of marketing.
Ever since its launch in 2010, Instagram has been quite popular among teenagers and young adults and is now considered to be one of the best platforms to market your business. After all, it has over 800 million active monthly users and more than 400 million daily users. This only proves the potential of Instagram.
why use Instagram for business
If your business is not yet on Instagram, you are missing out big time. Here are a few reasons why you might consider using Instagram for business.
High Constant Traffic
Did you know that 33% of total internet users are now on Instagram? It is said that Instagram is the second most used social media network, right after Facebook. This showcases an immense opportunity to reach millions with a single post. Such audience reach is seldom achieved by traditional sources of advertising if we take the money spent into account.
Small businesses can specifically benefit from the high traffic of Instagram. Especially those on Shopify don’t usually have the resources to invest in advertising via traditional media. The cost of reaching your audience via Instagram is comparatively low. At the same time, the high traffic itself ensures that your message gets heard.
Enormous Time Spent on Instagram
Not only do people visit Instagram almost as much as Facebook, but they spend considerable time on it. If I were to talk about the USA alone, people spend over 12 billion minutes on Instagram in total in a single month.
As a marketer, I can tell you that to persuade anybody to buy a product or solution, you have to walk them through the KLT process. KLT stands for Know, Like, and Trust. This three-hit theory can be accomplished through the higher frequency of your posting on Instagram and due to the high time spent on the platform.
Figure 1 Source: https://www.serveyourprospects.com/what-we-do/marketing-sales-funnel-development/know-like-and-trust-funnel-c2017/
It Is Easier to Get Noticed on Instagram
You might wonder, why shouldn’t you just build your company’s presence on Facebook. After all, it is still the most used social media platform, right? While that is true, its vastness has become counterproductive for small businesses.
You might have heard of clutter. It occurs when there are just too many competing communications used by different companies. At such a time, it is harder to get your audience’s attention. With every passing day, the number of ads posted online is increasing. This means it is harder for businesses to get noticed.
The good news is while Instagram is growing, not all companies have yet realized the importance of the platform. This means that there is less advertising clutter on the site. Hence it is easier to get noticed by your target market.
Everyone Love Visuals
Each generation is different from the previous one. Millennials, for example, are quite peculiar since they have witnessed the technological revolution. Hence, their consumer behavior is different from other generations. However, everyone loves visual content.
The first thing that your business needs to do is meet your target market. Hence grabbing attention and making your target market aware of your presence should be your initial priority.
Visual content allows you to do so. It acts as a stimulus for the sensory organs of the consumer. If the content is novel and unique enough, your target market is likely to select it and process it further. After you are part of their consideration set, you can begin trying to convince them.
Instagram helps you get there. It is a hub of visual content. You might think this means more competition in terms of content, but if you are smart about it, you can ensure that your content stands out from others. On Instagram, unique content is much more likely to be noticed.
Read: A Sure-Fire Way To Boost Social Media Engagement And Increase Share And Like
It Lets You Show Your Brand Personality
Your company should be more than just the products or services you sell. If you wish to survive in the long run, all that matters is a brand name. Why? Well, whatever differential advantage you have now will disappear in the future as other companies will follow you. In such an instance, your target market will only choose you over others because of your brand name.
In order to build a brand, creating a relatable and creative brand personality is key. For instance, when you think of Coca-Cola, you think of happiness. This is because it has molded its personality like this through its consistent communication.
How does Instagram come into the mix? Well, it allows you to be as creative as you want. Between Instagram Live, Stories, posts and videos, you have the opportunity to create a campaign that best reflects the personality you wish to create.
High Conversion Rates
Did you know that Instagram is known to drive sales? It is not a given that people who visit Instagram and are exposed to a given product are likely to purchase it, but there is a higher likelihood. Compared to platforms like YouTube, Instagram has a higher rate of conversion.
According to Shopify, after being exposed to a referral on Instagram, people order goods with an average value of $65. This is significantly higher than the $37.63 average order value of YouTube. Hence, your business should be on Instagram so that it can benefit from higher revenues provided by the platform.
A Hub of Bloggers
These days, the power of bloggers and internet celebrities is unprecedented. They are considered to be much more credible than the promises of a company. Instagram is considered to be a hub for bloggers. All the popular internet celebrities are on it, and each one of them has millions of Instagram followers.
By collaborating with them, your business can reach great heights. However, even if you are asking them to help you out, you need your business to be on the platform. This will make it easy for such bloggers to share a link to your business and allow traffic to be diverted to your Instagram account, where you can inform them about yourself much more holistically.
No Filter Feed
Even though Facebook has millions of users, one of the problems of marketing on this platform is its filtered feed. Even if you have a million likes on your page, this doesn’t necessarily mean that all a million followers will see what you post.
Facebook has its own algorithm based on user engagement that governs what a given user sees on their feed. This greatly limits the reach per post on Facebook.
However, this is not the case with Instagram. On Instagram, all of your posts will show up in the feed of each Instagram follower. This means that even with fewer total users, Instagram is better programmed to reach the masses, from a marketer’s point of view.
An Opportunity to Interact with Customers
Customer service and after-sales experience are as important as marketing. At the end of the day, the goal is to build long-lasting customer relationships. How you, as a business, interact with your customers governs whether you will be able to retain them.
By being on Instagram, you can interact with both satisfied and dissatisfied customers. Anyone who posts a good review about your product can be appreciated by dropping a grateful comment. Moreover, complaints can be addressed to reduce dissonance among customers.
This two-way communication is an appreciable product of today’s technology. You should make sure that your business is on Instagram to benefit from it.
Instagram Videos Are Extensively Shared on Facebook
One of the most important features of any marketing campaign is coherence. Your message and promise should be the same across all platforms. Generally, there is a gap between the marketing efforts made on Facebook and Instagram due to their varying features.
However, as both social media sites are slowly converging, it is getting easier to bridge this gap. For instance, it has been found that Instagram videos are shared on Facebook at a fast pace. This way of getting your content shared is much more preferable than doing it on your own. After all, a user sharing any video has much more meat to it.
Conclusion
If your business is yet to establish its online presence, now you know which platform to focus on. Instagram has a lot of untapped potentials and you have now read the importance of Instagram for business. Get the first mover advantage by putting your business on Instagram.
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