8 tips for utilising Instagram as a marketing platform

When it comes to marketing online, social media advertising and corporate promotional campaigns are some of the fastest-growing avenues for businesses across the world. There’s a whole arsenal of social media platforms to choose from now: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram.

You’ve definitely heard of Instagram and you might even be using it already – but there are hundreds of hidden or hard-to-find features on the platform that could change your corporate promotional plan forever. Not only does Instagram offer a versatile and adaptable platform to experiment with and to reach potential clients across the globe, but it offers real-time marketing insights and engagement statistics so you can monitor a campaign’s success. 

It's important to use a social media platform such as Instagram to its full extent to reap all of its rewards. The beauty of social media, especially Instagram, is that you can combine this marketing campaign with others and build a comprehensive network of advertising for your company.

Here at iGo Group, we’ve put together a full guide to effectively utilise Instagram for marketing purposes.

1. Switch to a Business Profile for all the free benefits

If you haven’t already coded your corporate Instagram account as a business profile, you can do this easily by clicking on the three horizontal lines icon in the top right corner of your profile page. Scroll down to the Account tab and click Switch to Business Profile.

When you’re a business account, your followers can see your website, address, and contact information right there in your bio. It also means that you’ll be able to create ads and access marketing insight analysis tools.

2. Boost your follower count with a #Giveaway

These are events where you offer a free reward (e.g. a physical or digital gift card, staff rewards, B2B rewards, corporate incentives, discounts) that will be given to a randomly-selected follower from the entrant list. To enter, Instagram users must follow your account, like your post, and tag 3 friends in the comments.

If you develop hype for the giveaway over a week, you could be looking at anywhere between a 20 to 200% follower increase. If your post achieves a lot of engagement (likes, comments, saves, and sends) then it will also boost your profile onto more users’ Discover pages.

3. Keep regular records of Instagram Insights

You can view everything from follower demographics to content engagement by clicking the Insights button on your profile. These are private to those who have the login for your account but can prove useful and accurate depictions of your marketing success on Instagram. 

Make weekly or monthly reports with this data to influence future marketing and campaign decisions.

4. Generate hype with product teaser posts

Being too pushy or too artificial on Instagram is a good way to lose followers and content engagement. The way to balance this is by posting product teasers – don’t directly try to sell your products but post some of your more engaging or interesting photos on there.

Photos with people tend to perform better on the algorithm while posts with watermarks or company logos in the corner can be interpreted by the eye as an advert and the user will scroll quickly past.

5. Collab with influencers to spread your brand

Want to double or even triple your reach with little to no effort on your part? There is no better way than by getting in touch with influencers who might be interested in your product. Influencers are accounts on Instagram (usually unmanaged individuals) with over 100k followers.

You can find relevant influencers by scrolling through who your followers also follow. Consider offering an influencer some of your products to post about and you can get your brand in front of their thousands of followers.

6. Make full use of the sponsored ads feature

The best part of Instagram ads is that you can control how much you want to spend on these by setting an ad budget in the app. You can also browse the different packages and services available to find the most effective and appropriate one for your business. 

Find this feature by clicking on Ad Tools on your profile or through Settings > Business.

7. Increase retention figures with carousel posts

There are a few small changes to your regular posting that could drastically alter where you appear on users’ feeds. The Instagram algorithm pays extra weight to posts that users look at for longer. By including a long caption or several photos on the same post (in a carousel), you can increase the time users look at your post and bump it up in the algorithm.

8. Develop follower engagement with interactive story features

On your Instagram story, you can swipe up (after choosing/taking a photo) and add a number of interactive buttons. 

• Location and Mention buttons allow users to go directly to the profile for a place or account. 
• Add Yours is a new feature encouraging users to repost your story with their own photos. 
• Questions let users ask you a direct question that you can then repost on your story – these are great for FAQs.
• The Rating Scale allows users to drag an emoji along a scale – you can get creative with these by using them for a polling story. 
• Poll is a two-option poll that will calculate the percentage vote for either side of the poll. 
• Quiz gives a maximum option of four potential answers so it can be used for both opinion polls and quizzes. 

Ready to get started?

For all of your promotion and rewards needs get in touch with iGo Direct. 

We offer a comprehensive suite of marketing, insights, and promotion services. We also run three smaller brands that offer promotions for corporate clients, digital gifting platforms for digital gift cards, and a site focused on gift cards. 

Find out more about our services for gift cards, employee incentives, staff rewards, corporate incentives, and B2B promotions here.