Growing your business is challenging. You can have the best product, dynamic website, and everything SEO optimized, but you’re just not reaching your customers. Social media is a great way to close the gap between you and your customers so that your business starts to convert.

Between Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter, and the world of other social media platforms, Instagram stands out as one of the best sources to grow your customer base and gain new sales.

Why is using Instagram Important?

You may be asking yourself, what makes Instagram such a powerful tool? Everyone I know is on Facebook. Why not there? Those are great questions. Let’s take a look at what makes Instagram stand out among other platforms and how to use Instagram for business.

One Billion Monthly Users: Since Instagram has over one billion monthly users, chances are, you will be able to reach your customers directly in the palm of their hands. These users are primarily Millennials and Gen Z, so you will be able to better target your demographics without explicitly excluding some age ranges.

Purchasing Decisions: When polled, over 80 percent of all Instagram users said that they made their decision to buy certain products from an ad or product demonstration that they saw on the platform. So, of the one billion monthly users, 800 million of them made a purchasing decision based on something they saw on Instagram. That is huge.

50 Percent Follow Business Pages: It is not unpopular to follow a business account. If your content is relevant to your customers and enhances their life in some way, they will follow you. This is illustrated by how over 500 million (50 percent) monthly users follow a business account.

There are many other reasons why using Instagram for your business is essential. These few examples are reason enough to at least give it a try.

How to Use Instagram to Grow Your Business and Get Sales?

So, you have set up your business account on Instagram, your bio is filled out, and you are ready to start earning new customers. How can you start using Instagram for business and grow your sales?

Here are a few simple ways to transform your business account for Instagram:

• Professional Images: Instagram is all about posting images, right? Yes. The majority of all Instagram consists of posting images with a witty caption and hashtags so that Instagram can best deliver your posts to the right people. When considering Instagram marketing, these can’t just be any images. The images must have a professional quality that is appealing to the viewers. This will cause them to dwell longer and hopefully lead to an interaction that will gain your business account more reach. The more dynamic and engaging your post is, the more people will be able to see it.
• Stories: Stories are often an overlooked element when using a business account for Instagram. This is extremely bad, as this is the only place you can link products to, aside from your profile. On top of that, stories are placed at the top of the user’s feed, while your normal posts might get lost in the algorithm. Instagram users will more than likely see your story and further engage with your account.
• Streaming: Streaming directly to your followers, offering them a product demonstration, or directly engaging with them will significantly enhance your reputation among your customers. Reputation is everything among young customers, and the more they like you specifically, the more willing they will be to support your business and purchase a product that they may or may not have been interested in buying beforehand. They will also tell their friends and family about you through tagging, leading to more customers.
• Hashtags: This is Instagram’s way of categorizing your posts. This will allow your business account for Instagram to gain some visibility in the search tab and potentially earn you a spot as a suggested post after the user scrolls past all of the posts from those they already follow. Make sure that your hashtags are relevant so that Instagram shows them to the right people.
• Interaction: Interacting with those commenting on your posts can be simple, especially when your account is small. Business accounts tend to forget that they can reach out directly to potential customers by interacting with their posts. This doesn’t mean that you comment and say, come buy my product. Far from it. Interacting with posts on Instagram means commenting something meaningful on someone else’s post. They will see this as a contribution to their account and not a solicitation, and they may view your content and engage as well. This builds your reputation and can earn you sales.
• Advertising: You can advertise you or your products in many ways through your photos, videos, and carousels. This can gain your business more visibility so that your customers know where to find you and also gets your product or service in front of more people. You can also advertise through stories and gain new customers that may or may not already follow you.

This barely scratches the surface of Instagram’s potential. Getting started can help you expand your business today.

Instagram best practices:

Here are some things to note when operating your business account for Instagram

Links Don’t Work on Posts: Putting a link on your post does not work. It is a waste of characters, and Instagram may penalize a dead link.

Post About Your Brand: While following trends and posting funny videos might get reach, it will gain you the wrong type of followers if you are not targeting your posts to your brand. Participate in a trend but gear it toward highlighting your business.

Run Giveaways: Offer your followers an incentive to remain loyal and invite friends and family by running a giveaway. This can be a free product or sample of your services. This can also be an exclusive product that your customer can’t get at any other time.

Share Posts to Stories: Sometimes, your posts can get lost in a user’s feed or lost to the algorithm. A creative way to bypass that is to share your post directly to your stories for your followers to see.

Polls: Polls are instant engagement. Users love for others to know what they think, so it is more than likely that they will participate in your poll, earning you greater reach.

Reels: Instagram videos are often very short, but the reels feature allows for longer videos that you can use to demonstrate your products or services. It is a great way to get more information to your customers.

Deliver Value to Your Customers

By using a business account on Instagram, you are delivering additional value to your customers. This will lead to greater brand recognition and more customers for your business.

Take advantage of Instagram marketing and reach new customers for your business today. Create an account and start engaging with those who want what you are offering.