If being able to showcase your products and services in a rich, visual context on a vastly popular platform with very little spend sounds too good to be true, think again. Instagram is an easily accessible avenue that is at the fingertips of every business. However, many still feel that the online photo and video-sharing serviceis too niche, filled with a world of food, fitness and fashion. That’s not the case, and for businesses, this targeted, visual marketing campaign is an invaluable asset.

Before you get started, here are some Instagram stats.

The key is to have your product stand out in the world of 80 million daily photos uploads. According to Instagram for Business, businesses do best when they share well-crafted content that’s on-brand and driven by a clear objective. For Instagram to really work for you, it’s important  to tell your story through captivating images, videos and captions.

When starting off, consider…

A CLEAR GOAL AND CONCEPT: Instagram posts that work the best have a strong and clear concept.

A STRONG BRAND CONSISTENCY: Ensure there is a connection between images and videos, whether that’s the colour palette used, or composition.

GET CRAFTY: For followers of Instagram, the pages with well-crafted content, imagery and videography are the ones that they’ll engage in. For example, this Chanel ad totted up over 80,000 double taps.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BCbJrDpAEsf/?taken-by=chanelofficial

Instagram now does an end-to-end advertising solution that drives real business results. These include photo, video and carousal.

Such ads can convert to clicks to the website, mobile app engagement, and page post engagement.

On Instagram, you can benefit from the sponsored posts, with Instagram matching businesses with relevant users.

It’s also important to include clear Calls to Action (CTAs), and an easy one, which will gain you more followers, is asking people to tag a person in the caption, such as this example from Innocent below.

Most importantly, don’t treat Instagram like a straightforward online catalogue for your goods. It’s much more than that, it’s interactive. It’s about showing images like behind-the-scenes, your locality, or a photoshoot, that wouldn’t appear elsewhere. Think about your brand’s unique identity, and how you can showcase that through imagery or videos. Get it right, and you’ll generate the clicks onto your website. To get started, take a look at Instagram’s Inspiration page, https://business.instagram.com/inspiration/.

This focuses on the brands that have the most  creative contributors to the Instagram community and will be sure to give you some content inspiration!

Post by Susie Horgan

Susie founded Springboard in 2011, and has developed the business into a leading, director-led communications agency. She has worked for over 20 years in senior marketing and public relations roles.