The use of social media platforms for business especially digital marketing is now the hallmark of entrepreneurship in this 21st century. The relatively low costs and the broad and vast customer reaches that characterise the use of social media platforms make them potent. There are several social media platforms available some of which are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Pinterest. To get the best out of these platforms, you need to know some tips on how to use them for business. What works on one platform might not necessarily work on another platform so you must know certain things. This article focuses on some tips one must know or can use to effectively use Instagram for business.

Why Instagram?

Instagram is one of the most used social media sites just trailing behind Facebook. Despite that most studies have shown that more and more people are now opting to use Instagram for business. With the ever-growing trend of social media influencing or influencer marketing, you can see that being quite prevalent on Instagram. Instagram is so big that every month there are way over 700 million active users. In total, the platform enjoys a user base of at least a billion people. The coolest thing about Instagram is that there are less than 10 million active business accounts. What does this mean? This means that competition over luring customers isn’t that fierce. Let’s look at some tips that can help you in that regard.

High-Quality Visuals

If you just go through random Instagram profiles you’ll notice something. The images and videos posted tend to be high-resolution. This must tell you that the quality of your visuals must be up there if you’re to stand out. For you to get the best out of Instagram you must ensure your posts are made up of high-resolution images and video clips. To come up with high-quality image-based posts I would recommend that you use an application called Canva. It’s available as a web application or as a mobile app on the app stores. With Canva you can choose from tens of thousands of categorized templates that you can edit.

Leverage On Hash Tags

You’ll be amazed at the many people who don’t know the actual purpose of hashtags. It’s more than just about coming up with catchy hashtags; more than just a trend. Here are some things to know, for instance, you’re allowed to add as many as 30 hashtags on a post. Hashtags are there to help your brand or post discoverability to be high. There are chances that some people don’t know your business but they’re looking for products or services that you offer. That’s where hashtags come in because someone can search on Instagram using hashtags. So the trick in using hashtags is to use hashtags that easily identify your brand. The best way is to use hashtags made up of keywords or phrases that prospective customers would use to search for products or services that you offer.

Instagram Stories

This feature is quite popular now (no wonder the stories feature is now part of the Facebook platform). You can use this feature to avoid scenarios where you have to posts too many normal posts. The beauty lies in the fact that something is refreshing about going through Instagram stories. Many people love using this feature so as a business you must take advantage of it. It has several things that you can add namely hash or geotags, stickers, tagging other accounts and even outbound links. Considering that you’re limited from including clickable links on an ordinary post, this is a feature to use. So the basic principle is to not confine all your marketing efforts to just the posts and the profile, you can engage a lot of customers through Instagram Stories.

IG TV

There’s no doubt that video content is now the king of content. Ordinary posts on Instagram only allow you to post 30-second long clips. However, with IG TV you can either do live videos or you can post much longer pre-recorded videos without being limited to 30 seconds. This is a feature you must capitalize on in your quest to interact with your customers live or through videos. IG TV can help you make very convincing calls to action and to cultivate a rapport with your customers.

Your Profile

Most people don’t realize that with just your profile you can solely run your business operations in terms of marketing and engaging customers. You’ll see most people setting up their profile and in most cases, the clickable link they include is the business or company website. There isn’t an issue with that but don’t limit yourself. If you’re very familiar with many Instagram posts you’ll notice ‘link in Bio’ is a common feature. Take a cue from that because it’s one of the keys to driving traffic to where you want. Obviously, in business you want to realize sales so the traffic (i.e. people) that visits your site must be redirected to platforms that culminate into purchases. So the trick is to regularly change the clickable link in the profile (popularly known as Bio). Do this concerning either the rolling out of new products or services, specials or discounts or just calls to action (CTAs) in general. So use that clickable link feature of the bio to foster purchases or different types of calls to action. We’re talking about business so one other thing that you must do is to convert your profile into a business account. This will come with added features such as paid posts and data analytics.

I’m sure you’ll find these 5 tips most helpful in your business endeavours. Engagement rates are very high on Instagram. So with that in mind, you can see why it would be a smart move to use Instagram for business.