Instagram has evolved a lot since its launch in 2010. It now features pictures of adorable pets, delicious food and lots of selfies. Instagram has grown from a simple way to share pictures into a powerful marketing tool for businesses.
Consumers tend to judge the credibility of a company based on their presence (or lack thereof) on social media. Instagram has become a valuable marketing tool because of the addition of analytics that track ROI. Shoppable posts, Instagram stories, and even IGTV.
We’ll be focusing our attention on a platform that is incredibly powerful and popular, where businesses can reap many benefits. Instagram is Facebook’s younger faster growing sister.
Look at these proven professional benefits and decide if your business is ready to be on “The Gram.”
1. Instagram’s audience is more engaged than Facebook.
Facebook is still the leader in terms of popularity. Social media is constantly evolving and stats prove Instagram’s users to be much more engaging and impressionable.
What exactly does this mean? Recent reports show that Instagram has more engagement per user than Facebook. A study also shows that Facebook users are more likely to avoid advertisements than Instagram users. 32% of Facebook users engage regularly with brands while 68% do on Instagram. Instagram’s high engagement rate makes it a haven for companies looking to engage their consumers.
2. Instagram values creativity and originality.
Instagram’s newsfeeds are similar to art galleries. This social media platform is full of visually pleasing, colorful, high quality, and fun photos and videos. Instagram is a great way for businesses to get creative and promote their products, services and culture. Instagram is more interested in original content than memes or curated content. This is something that IG’s followers are aware of and they appreciate it for this. It allows a company to tell their story and give the public an inside look at what they do.
3. Instagram Offers Options
Instagram offers several options for sharing content: stories, posts, reels, live and IGTV.
Instagram posts are posts that appear on your followers’ IG feeds. The posts remain until the follower decides to remove them.
Instagram stories are a feature that lets users post photos and videos with their own customizations. These disappear after 24 hours. These stories appear prominently on a user’s newsfeed. Stories include even more creative features, including drawing and writing tools and augmented reality filters. They also allow users to add locations, hashtags and mentions from other users. Instagram recently added “featured stories” that can be displayed on a profile of a business and viewed after the 24-hour period has ended. Instagram stories have limitless benefits for businesses! Instagram stories are a great way to share behind-the scenes “footage” and fun, timely content.
Instagram Live is recorded live and shared with your fans. Viewers can like and comment on the live feed, which is a great way to engage your audience. Instagram provides information on how to create a live feed and the best practices that will ensure success.
Instagram reels allow you to upload music, sound effects and other creative elements. They are usually 15 seconds long. Instagram shares the step-by-step process for creating a Reel and posting it to your business account.
IGTV, the Instagram version to YouTube, was launched in 2018. Videos can only be 10 minutes long for regular users, unless they have verified business accounts with at least 10,000 subscribers. Your video can then be as long as 60 minutes.
4. Instagram allows you to shop and advertise.
Like Facebook, Instagram business accounts have the option to pay to promote their content. This is a very good practice, especially when you consider the statistics above that show how open Instagram users are to this type of advertising. Advertising on Instagram has the added benefit of being highly-targeted based on user location, age or gender. Businesses can include links to their promoted posts to allow users to click and learn more.
Instagram Shop is also available for retail businesses that want to sell their products. It’s relatively easy to create a business using Instagram Commerce Manager. Customers can make purchases right in the app.
5. Instagram syncs up with Facebook
Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion. The purchase of Instagram by Facebook had multiple benefits to businesses looking to balance these two platforms. The concept of Facebook and Instagram ads are very similar. Due to the fact that these platforms are owned by the same company, businesses can now run the exact same advertisement simultaneously on Facebook and Instagram, allowing for seamless integration. It means that when a business advertises on one of these platforms it can automatically increase its reach.
DISCLAIMER We don’t believe in posting the exact same content to both platforms. This is because IG isn’t FB and FB isn’t IG. The two are similar but not identical. You shouldn’t expect the same content to be successful on both platforms if you copy and paste it. Instagram hashtags, for example, are everywhere but Facebook is not. You can embed links on Facebook but not IG. You can post the exact same content on both platforms, but your FB post will be different than that of IG.
6. Instagram continues to provide useful analytics.
It is easy to measure success on Instagram. Businesses can track their followers and engagement statistics, such as views and clicks. But to take it one step further, the built-in analytics reports allow businesses to easily interpret results from their Instagram advertising campaigns. These analytics help businesses identify the best types of Instagram posts, allowing them to achieve sustained success. The benefits of Instagram for business are not covered in this post. This list will hopefully help your business decide whether adding Instagram to your social media platform (or being more active there) is a worthwhile option. For more information, you can always Contact us. You can also find out our complete list of social media services by clicking here.