The Seven Step Process to make your Instagram Marketing Strategy Effective

Since its inception in 2010, it’s no surprise that Instagram has been a prominent player in the internet marketing sector. Instagram was once just a simple photo-sharing website, and it has since evolved into a video, e-commerce, and advertising platform juggernaut.

While it appears that fashion influencers were the first to recognize Instagram’s marketing potential, renowned brands and businesses have devoted significant time and resources to figuring out how to provide the most engaging digital experience. Instagram knows they have an incredibly engaging platform. They are one of the most valuable brands globally because of their ability to deliver an amazing experience for their members, whatever their passion may be. Here are some amazing Instagram factoids.

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• There are more than 1B active users of Instagram every month
• Branded hashtags account for seven out of ten Instagram hashtags
• 90% of Instagram users follow at least one brand account
• 30% of Instagram users purchased something they saw on the platform
• 83% of Instagram users discover a new service or product
• Around 71% of businesses in the US are active on Instagram

Now that we’ve established that Instagram is one of the most dominant marketing platforms globally let’s move on to the next step. Let’s put together an Instagram marketing strategy from the ground up.

Step 1: Make Your Objectives Clear.

It is one thing to just “desire development” for your business, but it’s another thing to implement it the right way and get the results you wish. Before you begin developing an Instagram marketing strategy, ask yourself a few simple questions so that you can chart a course:

• What am I hoping to achieve with Instagram marketing?

Here, you’ll want to define what you want your Instagram strategy to accomplish about other marketing initiatives you’re running. Whether it’s a part of the continuous discussion with your audience (using Instagram Stories) or becoming an authority figure in your field through follower growth, explicitly defining intent and goals will make it easier to make better marketing decisions.

• Who do I want to contact?

You may accurately undertake competition research and analyze your products that the audience is more likely to engage with based on facts and data available online and by carefully identifying your desired audience segment or demography. You can go deeper into your audience’s interests: What type of content do they enjoy? What hashtags are they searching for and using? Are they a part of other online communities? What other brands do they have on their radar?

• What does it take to be successful?

It’s critical to have a precise gauge of success that you can strive toward, whether converting followers back to your product, increasing involvement, or expanding your follower count, because each goal will necessitate a slightly different technique.

Step 2: Make Your Instagram Profile More Attractive.

We have divided it into two easy steps:

• Choose a photo for your profile that will capture people’s attention

A simple profile image option is your logo if you’re a company. This aids in the development of long-term brand recognition. If you’re an influencer or creating your brand, try using a headshot as your profile image so that your fans can put a face to a name. Whichever option you choose, make sure it provides additional information about you or your company.

• Create appealing content

Your brand’s voice is as important as its visual appeal. An Instagram bio informs users about who you are and your services. You might want to share your brand personality and effectively convey its value on your Instagram bio to make it stand out. Captions are as if not more important than the bio. Instagram allows for as much as 2200 characters for captions. So you can either opt for a short caption or a long storytelling concept for your posts. Both are equally effective if the content is relevant, entertaining, informative and compelling. Since people tend to skim while scrolling through, ensure that you capture their interest in the first two lines of your caption.

• Use relevant hashtags

Hashtags increase the chances of visibility and discoverability. Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post, but using so many will give an impression of spamming, annoy users, and turn them off. Instead, use hashtags relevant to your post that convey your post’s core intent/idea and drive home your niche values. Also, never succumb to using direct persuasion hashtags such as #followme, #likeforlike etc.

Step 3: Make A Content Plan.

It’s critical to have a content strategy in place. Whether you want to focus on high-quality photographs, user-generated content, Instagram Stories, Reels or Live, the content is always the King.

• Boost the impact of your content

Simply uploading content to Instagram wouldn’t do the trick. There must be a thought process of making your followers and other users on Instagram view it.

The following are ways to help ensure your target demographic finds your Instagram post:

• Collaborations with influencers
• Content created by users
• Internal tags
• Location tags
• Hashtags

While each post will most likely necessitate a distinct marketing strategy, it’s critical to factor this into the planning process from the start.

Step 4: Engage With Your Followers

Engaging with people on Instagram is just as important as creating and posting quality content. Pin the most interesting comments, reply to top fan comments, acknowledge constructive feedback, making people believe in your brand. You are simply increasing your presence on the platform and encouraging more engagement on your page.

Step 5: Using Instagram Ads to Expand Your Customer Base

A sure shot way to engage a new audience for your services is to run Instagram advertisements. Please use analytical data to know your target audience by determining their location, demographics such as gender, language and age, preferences such as the other accounts they follow, products purchased, and behavior to make the ad campaign better focused and get better results.

Step 6: Keep Track of Your Progress.

It’s time to analyze how your implemented approach fared now that you’ve specified your goals, curated your content, and gone live. This is, in fact, one of the most crucial parts of the process since it allows you to evaluate your strategy and identify what works best for your business. Understanding your demography, improving your content, and reviewing your overall Instagram marketing effectiveness requires analyzing the data to understand your followers better and make more informed decisions.

Here are a few ways to keep in touch and track your Instagram strategy.

• Analyze Instagram’s data

One of the advantages of having an Instagram Business account is free analytical insights. By periodically evaluating which photographs, videos, and stories worked best — and at what times — you’ll begin to notice user tendencies that might help shape your future approach. Suppose you’re still using a personal Instagram account. In that case, there are several free analytics apps available that can fetch, process and present data in a format that helps you understand your Instagram marketing effectiveness.

• Create and test various types of content

You can group your metrics into content pillars as you notice patterns. For example, you might discover that publishing an inspirational statement with the hashtag #MondayMotivation on Monday mornings increases engagement. Alternatively, you might discover that your users like to see your products via Instagram Stories on Thursday evenings. You may start to construct a more sophisticated approach that meets marketing objectives like sales or brand awareness by grouping and scheduling your content.

Step 7: Continue to try new things…Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories are short-lived, yet they are crucial in making your marketing strategy even more effective. Stories have a lifespan of 24 hours, and users expect them to be adlib compared to the carefully prepared and curated posts. These stories help bring your customers/followers closer to you and build connections. An impressive story might cause non-followers to follow you. Keep your stories short and sweet, provide consistent content with your brand identity, and although its format is ‘in-the-moment,’ ensure there’s a message to it.

Keep in mind that, like most other social media platforms, Instagram’s algorithm is continuously being tinkered with and made better, which means your strategy should evolve as well. Marketing strategies are mostly perceived as a set of rigid rules. Social media marketing is different and challenging because it’s a fluid guide that should regularly be updated and experimented with.

Authors: Sritharan Chellachamy & Mohan Bharathi