With an estimated 1.38 billion users in 2022, Instagram is one of the leading social networking sites at present. The platform offers several useful features for small businesses, from selling products and services and gathering insights to customer complaints and viral products.
According to Instagram’s own surveys, 81% of the users say the platform helps them research products and services. So, small businesses can greatly benefit from Instagram marketing if they plan and manage their presence on the platform correctly.
It’s not too late to use Instagram for your small business marketing. With the right Instagram marketing plan, you can promote your products and services, enhance your brand and increase sales too.
Here’s how Instagram marketing can help small businesses:
1. Instagram Stories Make a Business Relatable
Instagram is one of the best mediums to show prospects that you are not just a faceless small organization. You can do this by using different Instagram features, but stories and live posts will be more effective than anything else. They help in making the best impression.
Use live stories to show behind-the-scenes insights of your corporation and the people working for you. Use an Instagram video editor for making videos showing how products are made, live Q&A sessions between you and the audience, and videos showing the employees interacting among themselves.
The live posts and stories on Instagram are one of the most excellent ways of building credibility and rapport with followers while showing the human side of your business. When customers see your business as something more than just an entity looking to make money, they will buy from you.
2. Builds Trust Among Intended Audience
If you build a focused audience for your company profile on Instagram, it will instantly help you connect with your audiences daily.
Your brand will successfully establish a reliable relationship with upcoming and existing fans by creating positive interaction.
It gets easier to form an emotional connection with people when they react favorably to your Instagram content. In a way, Instagram makes your brand more individual, thus increasing revenues instantly.
Cluse, the specialized watchmaker from Amsterdam, has grown 690K followers by sharing user-generated content on its Instagram business account. By getting its existing customers into posting images of themselves wearing Cluse watches, the brand shows off its huge fan base and builds trust among prospective customers.
As a small business, you can do the same by getting your existing customers into marketing your products and services. Ask your loyal consumers to share videos and pictures with specific hashtags on your Instagram profile. This will make your business more trustworthy among the prospects.
3. Proper Instagram Marketing Builds Your Brand
Instagram is a typical social media networking site where small businesses can connect with prospective and existing customers easily. As a small business, you can use the straightforward and efficient methods Instagram offers to reach audiences at affordable rates.
Sharing detailed videos and images about your business, customers, and staff on the platform will help you efficiently engage with your customers. Besides, visual feeds will reflect the exclusiveness of your brand and differentiate it from your competitors.
All this together helps create robust growth of users, which further builds your brand.
4. Hashtags Increase the Visibility of Your Products and Services
If you are a new small business looking to take on the market, you might be intimidated by the competition. However, Instagram marketing, where you use the right hashtags, can separate your organization from the crowd.
Some of the most well-known Instagram hashtags like Charmin’s #TweetFromTheSeat, Calvin Klein’s #MyCalvins, and Coca-Cola’s #ShareaCoke have taken the industry by storm. These hashtags have become pop culture cornerstones making these popular organizations even more visible.
It will take good time for your small business to become Charmin or Coca-Cola, but the efficient use of Instagram hashtags can work wonders for your brand.
5. Boosts Sales
Providing frequent updates to your followers on Instagram will give them important insights about your brand and thus increase your sales. Using Instagram promotions and advertisements drives traffic to your site and even boosts operations.
Not to mention, Instagram is one of the most excellent tools for small businesses launching their new products and services. Proper Instagram marketing helps in generating more customers, which is essential for the overall growth of your business.
Increased Instagram followers mean increased prospects, and these are crucial for enhancing the sales of your company.
6. Offers Small Businesses Many Ways of Getting Creative
One of the greatest benefits of Instagram marketing for small businesses is the creativity it offers. Marketing teams can go wild on Instagram with new ways of drawing the audiences’ attention and adding new customers and followers.
You can use different Instagram features like contests, vivid images, shoutouts, and interactive videos to showcase your brand’s personality and to put down how cool it is to shop with your brand.
For example, 33 Acres Brewing Company, a craft brewery from Vancouver, does a great job at keeping its Instagram account simple with creative thinking.
The brand’s identity shines through in all its posts, with its Instagram feed conveying a specific mood that is cozy and laid back. Your small business should develop an exclusive visual content style that the viewers recognize instantly every time they see a post in their newsfeed.
When posting pictures and videos, think about what you want to convey and choose creative ideas that fit your style.
7. Instagram Advertisements Help in Reaching New Customers
You can extend the reach of your small business by using trackable and customizable advertisements, targeting certain demographics, collecting valuable data about the users, and providing proper links to your site. These are methods that can also help you in reaching new customers.
Final Thoughts
So, these are the ways Instagram is helping small businesses thrive and grow in this competitive market. Instagram is the most suitable platform for small businesses to engage with prospective customers. It can help your small business attract many clients within a very short period, and lead to a successful business with your hard work and time.