Instagram has been around for a while and although you may use Instagram to share visual content with friends, much of the endorphin hit stems from gaining followers as a direct result of your viral posts or stories. Besides being an awesome way of entertainment and connecting with new people, Instagram is an extremely powerful marketing tool for businesses who are looking to promote their brand to a wide range of audience. Used in combination with other digital marketing strategies, guaranteed, your Instagram account will grow with the right followers.

To date, there are more than a billion registered users using Instagram, which gives you the upper edge of allowing your brand to visually excite other followers and to build up that trust amongst your followers, for them to become your next customers. We often hear people say “Oh, but Instagram is only for Generation Y” - but you may be forgetting that’s where you can target the younger audience with your products and service offerings.

According to a 2018 post by the Bangkok Post, here in Thailand, Instagram had a growth rate of 24% year upon year. It’d be interesting to see the figures for this year of 2020 as a lot of users were home-confined due to the lockdown caused by COVID-19. Our Bangkokian SEO clients are all using Instagram to promote their business which indicates that visual connections is the utmost priority when it comes to social media marketing. Not to mention, Thailand is amongst the top 10 countries globally for social media usage. Through Instagram, our Thai clients target people with all sorts of products at a much higher efficiency when compared to Google Merchants. It’s a sign of things which are quickly changing. Down below are some ways that you can learn how to best promote your business on Instagram.

1. Set Up An Optimised Business Instagram Account

   Source: https://www.instagram.com/dm.australia/

     Always setup a business account on Instagram if you are going to promote your business. If you are using a personal account you can always convert it over to a business account, simply just hover over to Settings and there will be an option for you to change it across. With a personal Instagram account you won’t be able to run ads. There are a couple of things that you should do on a business account.
   1. Make sure that you have a creative photo and name of your Instagram account as that will form the basis of people attracted to you. 
   2. Include some interesting information about your company in the bio section. It doesn’t have to be very complex, it can be very simple but the key here is CTA (Call to action). The bio should be written in a compelling way to attract people to interact with your profile. 
    
2. Only Share Interesting Content

   The great Neil Patel said over a live video on Instagram that he will only upload interesting and compelling content. For the days which you don’t have such content perhaps just sit it out until you do. That’s some interesting advice as we found that top influencer Instagram profiles only share content when it’s relatable, preferably in your niche or industry. This is to ensure you attract the right volume of followers, and not just an empty follower who will contribute nothing to your profile. Having the right resources is key also so if you don’t have someone who can help you generate the content, do consider hiring Digital Muscle to create content and manage your social media handles.

   In this regard at least you can be sure that you can focus on the business, and not in the business - which would be a time wasting event. As much of the content curation requires solid research, brainstorming and creativity. Posting generic content will only bring upon zero success, with zero followers and engagement which ultimately harms your brand. If you're going to sustain all upcoming new followers, then be adamant that your content stays interesting, otherwise you will find a lot of followers will disengage from your profile and it’ll be hard to earn their trust and follow again.

    
3. Increase those follower numbers!

   Accumulating followers is always at the forefront of every Instagram business owner. Getting natural followers over time requires an organic strategy albeit a proper one. You will find that as you curate more interesting posts and stories with the right hashtags, you can then engage with more people, thus growing those follower numbers. Hashtags are highly recommended for each post so that your content can be discovered. Instagram currently allows for a maximum of 30 hashtags to be used with each post however we would recommend somewhere between 5-10 hashtags and make sure you use the hashtags which have plenty of engagement. When you have thousands and perhaps millions of followers, you can then use your brand hashtag further accentuating on your logo and business. But that’s for later. Don’t think too much now - start with the smaller stuff first. A great awesome strategy is to approach your clients and ask them to tag your profile and perhaps share some photos so that your content can appear in their feed as well. This further affects the Instagram algorithm allowing for them to associate you with more users. We found that with our Bangkokian SEO clients, this works extremely well with e-commerce, so if you are selling clothes, what they have done is approach their clients and ask them to share a photo with their clothes on with you being tagged in it.

    
4. Include video content

   You don’t always need a videographer to assist you. You can always take a video by yourself using your smartphone however, a lot of planning is required as if you shoot the video with poor lighting and an inappropriate background, it will damage and ruin your brand and authenticity. Videos uploaded onto IGTV these days are all high definition with quality sound and little background distraction unless that was the intention. By abiding by these basic fundamentals you can ensure followers will be engaged with your video content.

    
5. Allow people to buy what they see

   Some simple house keeping work here. If you are running an e-commerce type of business you need to ensure that all your products are available, and if they’re not, simply remove it. This saves the embarrassment of losing a potential customer because many might just move on to your competitor. With the way you structure your posts, always try to visually connect with your buyers. That’s bringing out the best product photos in your own profile so that it is easily accessible by any potential buyer. A lot can be done in your bio link as well, to connect that to your online store. If you are running coupons or offering discounts make that be heard, loud and clear! Design posts and short stories which forces people to use coupons or take advantage of discounts. If you don’t do that then rest assured your competitors will! And again, always come up with compelling content to entice your buyers. The right visuals with the right content will always win, especially in the most competitive sector.

    
6. Use tools to see if you are succeeding on Instagram

   What’s a better way to measure your success on Instagram? Through the usage of tools, so you can track the popularity of your profile and implement ways for improvement. We won’t be able to list the tools openly here but if you reach out to us via email, we’ll be able to let you know some tools that we use inhouse which is able to tell you the metrics. These tools will also allow for you to track reciprocity to hunt down more loyal followers, followers who are in tune with your content and industry, since they offer great value to your posts and stories. The important thing here to retain these loyal followers is to give them a shout out from time to time. This is crucial as it shows your appreciation for them. They are after all human beings as well and a bit of love goes a long way. It also enhances your brand over time as they may share your content as well, on their respective platforms.

    

   Did you know that the intensity at which you share your content is also important? How often should I share on Instagram? These are all valid questions you should be asking yourself as sharing too little posts and videos may lead to fewer followers in the long run. If you're looking to enhance your brand on Instagram, we recommend no less than 6 or 7 per week. These are statistics taken over the past 5 years by our Thai SEO clients who have also told us, they received far little engagement when they upload anything less than 6 per week. The time at which you post is also vitally important which influences on your engagement and virality. We strongly encourage you to do some A/B testing, to find out which times are optimal for you. In the beginning stages feel free to post at random hours of the day. Eventually through your Facebook account (which should be synced with your Instagram account), it will tell you the exact number of viewers at any given time of the day. The SEMRush Social Media Toolkit does this perfectly. What we have learnt personally, and this may not apply to your geographic location, is that the optimal days to post are on the weekends according to Thailand. That’s when people are most relaxed, and at homes, just surfing the internet on their smartphones.

7. Use other social media platforms as well.

   Just because you are constantly posting on your business Instagram account, that doesn’t mean that’s the only social media platform you should use. You should also consider running advertisements through Facebook, which connects on to Instagram. Both the platforms are inter-related to a certain degree so if your post is seen as popular on Instagram (for argument sake) then there’s a high chance that particular content will appear more prominently across the follower’s feed over on Facebook. Ads are after all a great way to reach people that you can’t normally reach via hashtags and is a valid strategy to further strengthen your brand.

    

   You can always look at doing a collaboration with an Instagram influencer. Often there’s money being discussed but if that’s a major influencer in your industry, it would be worth it if they can give you a shout out from time to time as they probably have thousands, if not millions, of followers. But it’ll only be relevant if that influencer participates in your industry and niche. There’s probably no point approaching Cristiano Ronaldo to give a shoutout on your.. Bracelet business. Different matter though if he has bought from you before but what are the chances?