Yes its Working: A Beginner’s Guide to Instagram Promotion

This article is written with the input and assistance of digital marketing experts from AliDropship. Having first-hand experience in developing and running money-making online stores, AliDropship team members create beginner-friendly solutions for dropshipping businesses and share practical tips they discover and use themselves.

Arguably the most popular social network for business is Instagram.

Almost every company has an account on Instagram. An active Instagram account, especially for eCommerce businesses, increases your credibility and trust with customers.

People typically try to gather as much information as possible about a company before they purchase something from them. And if your Instagram account is rich in posts, followers, and positive feedback from your previous customers, you are more likely to be in your potential customers’ good graces.

So based on the idea that Instagram is essential when running a business and can be far more lucrative than you think, here are some expert tips for Instagram promotion.

How to make the most of Instagram promotion

There are various types of Instagram promotion. We have divided them into two groups – free and paid.

Here they are!

Free types of Instagram promotion

First of all, you should know that there are some measures you can take to promote your business account on Instagram for free.

So what exactly can you do to promote your business on Instagram for free?

Instagram posts and stories

This is one of the most basic tips on Instagram promotion. You need to create new posts and stories regularly.

What should you post?

There are lots of options for you. Nowadays it’s extremely popular to promote your business by means of posts showing it inside and out. You may provide your followers with reports on how your products are manufactured, how your staff work, how your charity activity is organized, etc.

Beyond this, publishing feedback from your previous customers is a must-have. In practice, people don’t like direct advertising. They rely on reviews of other customers. That’s why it is vital for your eCommerce business to post clients’ feedback and user-generated content since it can significantly enhance the credibility of your store.

By the way, don’t forget that all of your posts need to be customer-oriented. So don’t overload your audience with lots of technical insights and so on. Try to entertain them from time to time.

Well, how do you create posts and stories on Instagram the right way?

1. Draw up a plan of posts and stories for a particular period of time.

2. Choose the most suitable time for creating new posts. Analyze your audience’s peaks of activity and experiment with your posts’ timing to reach your followers efficiently.

In case you can’t upload a new post at the most convenient time, it’s not a problem! There are lots of content schedulers available.

3. Create your own unique design for your business posts. This is vital for your brand identity.

4. Consider using hashtags. Don’t forget that you can use only 30 hashtags in one post. But don’t ignore them because the right hashtags can assist you in reaching more people.

Instagram shopping posts

To sell your products directly from Instagram use shoppable posts.

Instagram shopping posts allow you to tag your products in posts. When your followers tap your post, they will see a product price and short description.

If they tap once again, they will see a full description of the product for sale.

And if they tap on the product itself, they will be redirected to your website. Considering that 75% of Instagram users hit different buttons such as ‘Shop now’, Instagram shopping posts are an essential tool for your eCommerce business promotion.

Paid types of Instagram promotion

If you want to make the most of your business Instagram account, you have an opportunity to use paid types of Instagram promotion, as well.

There are various types of paid Instagram promotion. The most credible of them are Instagram paid ads and Instagram shoutouts.

Instagram paid ads

Perhaps, you have already heard about launching an ad campaign on Instagram. But how does it work?

In order to launch an ad campaign on Instagram, first, you need to have a business account.

After that, you need to create the post you want to promote. There is no need to advertise this post right after you’ve uploaded it. You should allow time for it to collect organic traffic, first. Then tap the ‘Promote’ button under the post.

Next, you will see several settings to customize your paid ads. You will be able to choose the age and residence of your target audience, ad campaign duration, etc.

When you are done with an Instagram ad campaign, you need to assess its effectiveness. Fortunately, Instagram lets you do this without any difficulties.

Each promoted post is provided with statistics that tell you who your followers are, how effective the promotion was (reach, engagement, website clicks, and so on). To access the data, simply click on the Insights tab located under your post picture.

Remember that you can only see the Insights for posts and stories you published after switching to your business account.

Instagram shoutouts

Instagram shoutouts are a paid type of Instagram promotion that involves collaborating with other Instagram accounts who already have an engaged following.

An Instagram shoutout can be an Instagram post or story in which the products you sell are mentioned.

As a rule, it looks as follows. You contact the owner of an Instagram account that is closely aligned with your customers.

You inform them that you want to place an ad on their account. Then, you discuss the ad cost and format, publication time, etc.

After you make a deal, you then provide the Instagrammer with the images and other media files necessary for promotion. It is a great idea to give them the products to show to their audience and share their experience.

How many followers should someone have in order to pay them for a shoutout? Shoutouts can cost a lot. That’s why it’s a good idea for you to look at micro-influencers with 10-100 thousand followers. What’s more, it’s a lot simpler to make a deal with these smaller accounts on mutually beneficial terms.

Instagram giveaways

To date, one of the most popular ways of Instagram promotion is Instagram giveaways.

An Instagram giveaway is a time-limited contest that is organized by business owners to strengthen their brand identity and establish close links with potential customers.

All you need to hold a contest is to choose a prize from your product range and announce it’s started! What contest requirements should be established? Well, make the participants follow your account, like and share the particular post, or mention several friends.

When a giveaway is over (1-2 weeks is enough to collect a required number of followers), you simply need to choose a winner and send them their prize.

Wrapping up

In this article, we’ve mentioned the most effective ways of Instagram promotion for a business. Among them, there are both free and paid options.

You need to understand that, as a rule, free types of Instagram promotion are effective, but if you want to move the needle fast, then paid promotion is the way to go.

Guest author: Kirill Zhukov

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