How to Use an Instagram Marketing Strategy for Businesses
Instagram now has more than 400 million active users and is a main connection to the younger generation, forcing businesses to get online and implement an Instagram marketing strategy to stay relevant. Many businesses are new to Instagram and social media advertising in general, so they may struggle with implementing an Instagram marketing strategy. Below are some tips on how to use Instagram marketing for businesses/companies.
Build Content Themes
Although it is important to maintain a consistent tone and voice in your captions, how your company presents itself visually on Instagram is an extremely important factor. When a potential customer clicks on your Instagram profile, the first thing they will see is a grid of your 9 most recent photos. These viewers will form an opinion on a company based on how visually appealing and cohesive the profile is. Planning your company’s posts ahead of time ensures that there is variety in the style of photos while still correlating to the overall theme of the account. Preview is a free app that any Instagram user can download to plan the layout of their posts before they are shared.
Create And Use Branded Hashtags
Branded hashtags build consumer awareness and interactions on Instagram posts and businesses that implement branded hashtags to their Instagram marketing strategy stand out over those that do not. 
Pottery Barn began a social media campaign in which they use #mypotterybarn in their captions and occasionally reposts high-quality customer posts that use the hashtag. This builds brand awareness and engagements online. Hashtags can now be followed on Instagram, so a catchy branded hashtag that users follow will bring greater following and brand awareness. Sprout Social has tools to measure your branded hashtag’s success against benchmark hashtags so your company can see how much the branded hashtag increased post engagements over time.
Use Geolocation Tags
Instagram offers users the ability to search for posts at specific locations. This is a great tool for business to utilize in Instagram advertising because your posts will show up in any location search that is near the geotag being used. Using a geolocation tag on your company’s posts, whether it is a picture, video, or post to your story, will boost the interaction and engagement dramatically. SproutSocial recognized that posts with a geotag get 79% more engagements than those without a geotag. Using a geotag will also enhance your Instagram marketing strategy because it enables you to monitor and track who is engaging in different specific locations. If your business consistently tags its commercial geolocation in posts, customers will likely begin to tag themselves at your business locations as well.
Use Call-To-Action Buttons
Instagram now offers users the option to access a company’s product simply by tapping their fingers. The new “shop now” and “install now” features on business posts direct users to any destination, on or off Instagram, that a company chooses for the link to go. Theses call-to-action buttons will be a great tool for your company if you sell product or services online. This new linking feature will help drive website traffic, sales, downloads, and do more that aligns with your Instagram marketing strategy.
Invest In Instagram Ads
Promoting posts on Instagram has brought positive results to advertisers from all industries. Making an investment in Instagram advertising is an important tactic for your business’ promotional strategy because the ads increase traffic to the company website, brand awareness, online sales, and application downloads. Instagram gives businesses the option to promote their content each time they post it. In making an ad/promotion, your company can specify the objective of the ad, select the target audience, and set up the budget preferences. Instagram allows your business to set up its own specific budget that tailors to your preferences: you can choose a daily limit for your ad budget, or larger, lifetime limit that is used in increments. After your business sets up the ad, it can optimize the delivery (will it be on the feed or shown in between Instagram stories), set the name of the ad that will be displayed, and, lastly, you can format the media that will be posted (video, photo, or carousel of photos).
Schedule Your Ad Campaigns
Your business will recognize that posts shared at specific times of the day on Instagram tend to result in more engagements than other times of the day. Instead of worrying about being on the computer at that specific time to share your posts every day to ensure optimal engagements, websites like Hootsuite allow businesses to easily plan, optimize, schedule, and share ads from one location. Hootsuite allows businesses to manage and schedule their Instagram and Facebook ads, along with offering the options to preview and measure the success of ads using built-in analytics. Previewing and scheduling posts should be a key part of your Instagram marketing strategy because it will enhance your business’ online presence, consistency, and brand recognition.
