iPay88 has previously written about ten reasons why your business should have a Facebook page and 10 wondrous reasons to use X (formerly known as Twitter) for your business.
Today, we continue our social media series and we’ll talk about Instagram.
Reasons to use Instagram
With over 500 million users, and 70 million photos being shared every day, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t use Instagram as a social media platform to advertise your business.
With more consumers relying on their mobile devices over a desktop, Instagram will offer more opportunities for businesses to expand their reach.
Why should you use Instagram for your business?
Instagram has recently rolled out a new feature called “Instagram Stories”.
At first glance, you might think this is an unnecessary feature, but do you know that this feature could improve your business engagement, visibility, content, and behind-the-scenes view?
Here are the six reasons why you should use Instagram to market for your business.
Reason 1: It’s easy to use
Instagram is an easy-to-use mobile application, that lets you capture pictures and edit photos/videos on your smartphone. You no longer need to open alternative applications to edit your photos, which would take your extra effort and time.
Now, Instagram is optimized for instant smartphone photography, with quick and easy cropping and filters. You can even upload videos of up to 60 seconds in length.
Reason 2: It saves time
You can share your post across multiple social media platforms. You can now save time in sharing your photos and videos on multiple social media websites such as Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, Foursquare, and Tumblr.
You must link your account to Instagram though. Moreover, Facebook advertising is now linked to Instagram, so if you have an Instagram business account, you can easily run Facebook ads on Instagram at no extra cost.
Reason 3: You could reach more potential audience
Instagram supports and encourages the use of hashtags. Not only does this make it easier to track your old post, but it also helps other people to find them.
If your business is within e-Commerce industry, you could use hashtags related to that particular filed. For example,
#ecommerce, #mcommerce, #paymentgateway, #onlinebusiness, #startup, #SME etc.
Instagram allows a maximum of 30 hashtags per post, and many users take full use of this. The right hashtags can expose your image to a larger and more targeted audience.
Reason 4: Show the human face of your business
Instagram is a great place to display the “behind the scenes” environment. Since Instagram is based on photographic material, it tends to portray a more human approach, showing the face of the company – its people.
You could try a friendlier approach to consumers by displaying your fun work environment, your unique products, your staff/colleagues or you can show the inside of the events that you take part in.
Instagram is a relatively informal social media, which has momentum due to the fact that the material uploaded can be easily found and is easily consumable by the audience.
Reason 5: Instagram is “Clean”
Another reason why Instagram is fast becoming the preferred social media platform of choice is because it’s clean.
What does that mean? Other platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook allow people to spam links and hashtags inside their posts without limiting it.
Many users prefer to look at a picture rather than read a passage full of spam links and hashtags.
Instagram has only one place for a clickable link, which you can find on your Instagram bio page. This cleanliness gives Instagram users an advantage, which builds users’ trust towards a brand.
Reason 6: Instagram drives sales
Instagram works well because it speaks the universal language of pictures. Image-based platform helps companies to engage with customers globally.
Instagram is generating higher average sales and boosts traceability because the only clickable link on Instagram is the one in the bio of your profile.
You could also drive sales using different Instagram influencers, who have more than 100,000 followers on their social media accounts.
You can market your Instagram posts on their account to capture their followers and drive sales to your Instagram page. The influencers usually do it by either reviewing the product or using the services and posting the pictures & videos on their account.
This type of marketing has been becoming more and more popular lately and is called “Influencer Marketing”. Influencer marketing can be a great way to build a large number of followers in a short period of time.
A picture is worth a thousand words
With millions of users and millions of photos being shared each day, by having the highest engagement of any other social media platform, there is little doubt that your business should be on Instagram.
If it is not there yet, you are losing against your competitors. As the old saying goes “A picture is worth a thousand words, and what is a better way to tell your story than a thousand words at a time”.
