While traditional marketing revolves around finding the right avenues to reach a target audience to sell a product or service, “Instagram marketing” bridges you directly to your ideal consumer through the social media platform’s highly defined targeting. In this article, we break down what you need to know to harness the power of Instagram for your business.

Instagram Marketing 

Instagram marketing is the use of photo and video content uploaded on the Instagram platform to sell a brand’s products and services. It is also knowing how to tap similar brands or accounts who can help you with promotion and vice-versa.

There are two common ways to do Instagram marketing: you can either pay or not pay. Depending on how quickly you need results, you’ll most probably be combining both approaches.

Free marketing on Instagram

So how do you promote your account for free on Instagram? Here are a number of ways.

1. Get featured on the Explore page.

Users discover new content and follow new accounts when they browse through the Explore page, a feed that the Instagram algorithm curates and updates in real time. This is where you discover posts that are similar to the ones you publish or the ones you follow.

To get featured on the Explore page, you must always have a location tag. This also increases the chances of your content being featured when users search for your general location. Next, exhaust all of the popular or relevant hashtags related to your content.

Last, engage with your audience by reacting or replying to their comments. Or you can leave comments in other people’s posts to increase your own engagement rate with the app.

2. Tag famous brands / accounts in your IG Stories.

There’s a big chance that your Story will be reposted by famous accounts because user-generated content makes a brand look more genuine. So don’t skip this small but often worthwhile step to gain wider exposure for free!

Paid marketing on Instagram

If you have the budget, you can also set up these marketing strategies to get the results you want sooner.

1. Influencer marketing.

You shouldn’t miss out on influencer marketing because, nowadays, influencers have the capacity to sway decisions when it comes to what people purchase. By utilising creative and highly original content, influencers have become largely accessible, engaging, and credible endorsers of all kinds of products and services.

To do this, you have to find an influencer whose voice, story, or style matches your own. Then you can choose to “sponsor” content on their feed by paying them a certain amount per post or you can also send goods or special gifts for them to use when making their own content. In return, they’ll tag your account, use your official hashtag, and talk about you to their thousands, sometimes even millions, of followers.

2. Run a giveaway or contest.

Another way to strengthen your online presence is through contests, promotions, and giveaways. You can devise your own mechanics but the simplest way to run a contest is to ask users to follow you and tag as many friends in the comments for a chance to win a certain prize. Then a lucky winner or winners will be randomly picked and users can even watch the process of picking a winner on your Instagram Live. Or you can give away discounts through vouchers or promo codes!

Combine both free and paid techniques

There is no “one size fits all” formula for Instagram marketing. Understand what your brand needs and explore both free and paid techniques to maximise your reach!