Since Instagram’s creation, it has grown into the ultimate platform for sharing photos. Over 1.16 billion monthly users are active on the site. Daily users spend about 8 minutes on the app and 500 million use Stories daily. There’s also a large number of influencers on the site with a massive amount of followers. And …
The post 10 Powerful Instagram Marketing Tips (That Actually Work) first appeared on Online Web Store Site.
Since Instagram’s creation, it has grown into the ultimate platform for sharing photos.
Over 1.16 billion monthly users are active on the site. Daily users spend about 8 minutes on the app and 500 million use Stories daily.
There’s also a large number of influencers on the site with a massive amount of followers. And with the right plan, you can become an influential brand, too.
You need to post the right kind of content to stay relevant to current followers while also bringing in new ones.
But it can be hard to know which kinds of posts work best for growing your audience.
Here are ten powerful Instagram marketing tips (that actually work) that you can use to milk the popular platform for all that it’s worth.
Before you start thinking about your Instagram marketing plan, be sure that you have an Instagram Business Account.
It’s easy to switch your current profile to a business account.
Just head to your settings and click on “Switch to Business Profile” to get started.
There are some clear benefits to having a business profile.
For example, followers can click on your contact button to get in touch with you right from your Instagram page just like they would from your website.
A business profile allows you to create and publish Instagram ads without needing to use Facebook’s advertising tools.
You can also access Instagram analytics tools, called Insights, that provide stats about the impressions and reach of your posts.
Once you’ve unlocked the free perks that come along with a business profile, you need to start using them to track metrics and understand your audience.
Business profiles on Instagram aren’t all that different from Facebook business profiles.
Through Insights, you can view statistics like impressions, engagement data, and more.
You can even get a breakdown of the demographics of your followers, includinginformation on their age, gender, location, and most active hours.
Insights aren’t just generalized, either. You can get specific insights on posts for the week that show you how many impressions you earned for that time period and what your top posts were.
These free tools are priceless because you can use them to understand exactly how users are interacting with your content.
The more that you know about how users are interacting with your posts, the better you can adjust your content to boost engagement.
One category of posts that is almost always attention-grabbing is product teasers.
What if you could sell more products just by posting product teasers on Instagram?
Well, you can.
Instagram is a great place to advertise your products. And if you play your cards right, you won’t annoy users or scare them off with advertisements, either.
If you’re too pushy, followers will drop like flies. But product teaser posts are a simple way to talk about your product and increase excitement without looking like you’re trying too hard.
Here are two posts from Gilt Man’s Instagram page that don’t directly try to sell a product, but offer a free app where users can shop all of the brand’s inventory.
The brand offers a 70% off discount while showing you photos of some of the items that are available to purchase.
And the posts received thousands of likes each, which is huge in the advertising world.
The ads work because they aren’t pushy. They’re laid back. They tease users with the discount and product image to download the app and shop around.
This works for almost any industry. Starbucks teases its audience by announcing seasonal drinks with sharp imagery and without trying to force people to buy them.
When you tease people about products they are interested in, and you don’t push them into buying anything, they’ll be more likely to pull the trigger and actually buy something.
If not, they’ll at least engage with your post by liking it, commenting on it, or sharing it with a friend.
So don’t be afraid to show off the goods by posting product photos. Just do it gently.
It also helps to create some sponsored ads.
Instagram ads have become commonplace on the platform. The best part? You can control exactly how much you want to spend on them by setting an ad budget.
You can showcase just one sponsored ad or multiple ads with the carousel feature.
This gives brands the ability to target their audience in a whole new way. Before sponsored posts, only users following your account could see your updates and photos.
Now, brands can promote their photos to anyone that fits their target audience to increase their reach further than ever before.
For sponsored ads, use content that is engaging while also appealing to the target demographic you want to put the ad in front of.
You can turn existing posts into sponsored ads, too, so keep an eye on your top posts.
You can push these high-performing posts out later to potential customers in the form of sponsored ads.
Run multiple posts to different audiences simultaneously for even more engagement. Keep in mind that there are many different forms of sponsored ads that you can post, such as:
Instagram Stories, sponsored or not, are another great way to connect with followers.
If you want to generate leads, Instagram Stories are here to help.
Instagram stories differ from regular Instagram posts because they come in a “slideshow” format.
They’re only live for 24 hours, but Stories can be saved to any of your devices and reused at a later point.
This feature is very similar to Snapchat Stories (and is even a direct competitor).
Rather than appearing in the news feed, Instagram Stories appear in a small area above it.
Once a user clicks on your photo at the top, a window will pop up where they can view your Story.
The benefits of Instagram Stories for brands are truly endless. For starters, Stories are displayed at the top of follower timelines where users already look daily.
Brands can use stories to capture behind-the-scenes insider posts that may not be as “high-quality” as regular posts.
And you don’t have to worry as much about posting content that aligns with the “aesthetic” of your brand or your Instagram page when it comes to Stories.
Instagram also makes it easy to experiment with different types of content in the Stories feature, like photos, short video, rewind video, live video, or Boomerangs. You can use tools like Canva and InVideo to create amazing images and videos for your stories.
Boomerangs are GIF-like images that play on a loop.
You can also tag other accounts in Stories, which is great if you’re collaborating with another brand or influencer.
Face filters, text, or stickers make it easy to edit images or create fun, eye-catching visuals.
Every photo and video you add will play in the same sequence that you added it.
The amount of posts that you can add to Stories at any given time is unlimited, and the feature is available to all businesses globally.
Stories are only available on the mobile Instagram app, and it’s not currently possible to send Instagram Stories as direct messages.
But since most Instagram users access the site via the smartphone app rather than the website,this isn’t really something to worry about.
If you haven’t partnered with influencers who are already making a killing on Instagram, find a few that you want to work with and reach out to them.
If you want to reach potential customers on Instagram, the fastest way to do that is through influencers who have already built an audience with a large following.
More and more people are buying services or products based on what they see in their feed from the influential people they follow. They trust them.
If you partner with the right industry influencer, you can get your brand out in front of those users.
The first step is to try and identify a few influencers that have an audience that is relevant to your product or service.
Here’s an example of how Gravity Blankets used influencer Jessi Smiles to promote their product on her Instagram page.
The post has thousands of likes.
The brand sells weighted blankets for sleep and stress. Their Instagram page has over 77k followers.
But Jessi’s page has over 400,000 followers that will likely trust her recommendations.
That means that the brand just exposed itself to thousands of potential customers (and new followers) through one post.
If you throw aside the short-term gains and direct sales that you can make from an influencer campaign, there are even more long term-benefits.
If you build a relationship with each influencer, you’ll build lasting brand awareness with a new audience.
And if you play your cards right, you could even work with a top influencer in the future to gain millions of likes, like Coca-Cola did with this post from Selena Gomez.
Your existing customers might not be influencers, but you can still use their posts to influence people to buy your products by collecting user-submitted photos.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to create great content for your Instagram page without doing any of the hard work?
Through user-submitted photos, there is.
You already have an engaged audience. Whether it’s hundreds of people or thousands, you can leverage your audience to generate useful content for you.
And your followers will probably enjoy user-generated content even more than they enjoy yours because it’s authentic and unpredictable.
Cosmetics brand MAC uses tons of user-generated content that they promote on their Instagram page to show off products.
Here’s a photo one of their users posted that they then added to their Instagram page. Notice how they used the hashtag #regram and tagged the user in the image.
You might be wondering exactly how you can get your users to create engaging content without being pushy.
It’s actually fairly simple. Your audience probably wants to grow their own following, just like you do.
Just let them know that you’ll tag them in your post if you choose their photo to regram, then they’ll have an incentive to post user-generated content on a consistent basis.
It’s a win-win for you and your customers.
GoPro is notorious for this. The brand chooses a #FeaturedPhotographer every week.
The brand (and their followers) treat this like a weekly competition.
If you try something similar, you’ll probably be surprised at just how eager your followers will be to participate.
Remember to choose the photos you want to post wisely. This can be difficult, but try to remember these things when considering a winner:
When you’re running a business, you have to be sure that everything you post is in tune with your brand’s message (and audience). Even on Instagram.
If someone shares a user-generated image with a large following, those followers will probably be interested in checking your page out, too.
Look at how this user-submitted photo from Boosted Boards aligns with the brand’s aesthetic. It’s high-quality, intriguing, and unique.
Choose images that successfully mimic your brand’s tone, like this one.
That being said, try not to be too biased about the content you want to post. Mix it up and watch your follower count and engagement grow.
It also helps to come up with some kind of branded hashtag that encourages Instagram users to be more interactive with your company.
If you’re looking to create instant engagement, interactive hashtags are a great way to get it.
Red Bull has racked up over 299,612 posts featuring their tag, #itgivesyouwings.
Customers can then use the tag to post user-generated content. This allows users to search through all posts relating to your brand.
It also lets you easily search through images that you might want to consider re-posting on your own page.
Creating a hashtag that your company (and other users) can search for is essentially free advertising.
Every time someone posts a photo using the tag, they’re exposing your company to their followers.
If you already have a popular brand slogan or phrase, consider making that your branded hashtag. Coca-Cola successfully accomplished this with their hashtag, #ShareACoke.
But no matter what you’re posting, you need to post at the right times and refrain from over-posting.
Over-posting on Instagram is a surefire way to turn off your existing followers.
If all they see is your brand on their news feed, they’re probably going to unfollow you as fast as possible.
But you want to post on a consistent basis so that you stay in their news feed regularly.
One of the best ways to do this is to only post during peak days and hours when your followers are online.
According to SimplyMeasured, the worst days to post on Instagram are Wednesdays and Sundays, while Mondays and Thursdays are the best days to post.
And according to research from CoSchedule, the best times of day to post are between 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM, as well as 2:00 AM.
The hour between of 8:00 and 9:00 AM correlates with the time of day when people are getting ready for work or commuting to their jobs (and checking social media for the day).
And 2:00 AM is the time of day when most folks are up scrolling through Instagram when they should be sleeping, so this makes sense as a second most popular time to post.
You can find when your followers are most active in Instagram Insights, so your best days and times to post might be a bit different depending on your specific audience.
Schedule your posts to go live during these days and times with a tool like Hootsuite, CoSchedule, or Sprout Social.
The research also shows that you should post between one and two times per day, but no more or less.
If you’re tempted to post more, then use Instagram’s carousel album feature to post multiple images or ads in a slideshow format.
That way, you won’t overwhelm your followers’ feeds.
After you’ve made these changes, track your metrics to keep an eye on areas where you can improve.
You can’t improve your Instagram performance and optimize it unless you know how well your page and posts are performing (or underperforming).
When you have measurable results, you’ll know exactly what works and what doesn’t.
Begin by tracking your follower growth rate.
The total amount of followers you have is commonly seen as a vanity metric. And it is.
But your follower growth rate isn’t.
When you keep an eye on what the growth rate of your followers looks like, you can see how the kind of content your posting (or your posting frequency) is affecting things.
Next, measure engagement rates. This includes likes and comments.
You want to find out the average engagement percentage of your total followers as well as the average engagement rate of each post to get a clear picture of how your page is performing.
If you’ve got a smaller following, your engagement rate should be higher. Here’s what your rates should look like based on your follower count:
Finally, you need to track your URL click-through rate.
If you don’t already have a link to your website in your Instagram bio, add one ASAP.
Then, measure how many people are clicking through to your URL.
The average CTR on Instagram is 0.94%, according to Conversion XL.
The more effective your Instagram marketing techniques on your audience, the higher your CTR will be. If it’s low, work on improving your approach.
A tool like Sprout Social will measure just how many clicks that your link is getting in comparison to impressions and engagements.
Instagram has dominated the social media world. It’s the go-to place for image sharing, with over 800 million monthly users.
Billions of likes are handed out each day, so you need to do your part to scoop some of them up.
First, switch your profile to an Instagram Business Profile if you haven’t already. This will give you tons of free tools and insights.
Next, start taking advantage of those free tools. Check out your audience’s demographics, like their age or top locations.
Post product teasers to urge people to buy your products or services without being overly pushy. They’ll be more likely to buy if they don’t feel pressured.
Turn your posts into sponsored ads to reach target audiences that may not be following you yet. One post might just have them hooked.
Use Instagram Stories to post behind-the-scenes photos or videos. Followers will appreciate the insider posts, which builds your relationship with customers.
Partner with influencers that have a wide reach in your industry. Their followers trust their recommendations.
Be sure to leverage the power of user-generated content by reposting images that your customers share. You can turn this into a contest with an interactive branded hashtag.
Choose a photo to share every week or every month that aligns with your brand’s message.
Post at the right times and avoid overposting. Post one to two times every day and check out when your followers are most active. Schedule posts to go live during those days and times.
Finally, be sure that you track the right metrics to see how your Instagram marketing efforts are paying off.
Keep an eye on follower growth rate, engagement rate, and your URL click-through rate.
If you need help with your Instagram ad campaigns, reach out to our agency to help!
What Instagram marketing techniques work best for you and your brand?
Instagram is extremely popular. The image-heavy platform is the fifth most-used social media network in the world, with over 1.2 billion users. If you don’t have a presence on Instagram, you’re missing out on building an audience and increasing your sales. To get the most out of Instagram, you should create a solid Instagram bio …
The post 10 Small Business Examples of the Best Instagram Bios first appeared on Online Web Store Site.
Instagram is extremely popular. The image-heavy platform is the fifth most-used social media network in the world, with over 1.2 billion users.
If you don’t have a presence on Instagram, you’re missing out on building an audience and increasing your sales.
To get the most out of Instagram, you should create a solid Instagram bio so users can get a clear, concise idea of who you are, what you’re about, and, most importantly, what you can offer them.
Here are ten of the best Instagram bios for small businesses and explain why they’re excellent. We’ll also include tips for crafting a strong bio and what must-haves to include on your company account.
Here are several small-business Instagram bios that hit the mark and why. We’ve also included takeaways you can use for your own company.
Ellevest is a digital investing platform. CEO Sallie Lee Krawcheck co-founded the company to empower women to take greater control over their financial future.
The Ellevest Instagram bio works because it clearly states who the business is for (by women, for women), the industry it’s in (financial services), and the type of business model it uses (membership-based). This gives the reader a good idea of the target audience and what they’ll achieve through the service.
The company also includes a Linktree link in its bio, a platform allowing you to showcase additional links to content you want to share with your followers. This link points users to multiple brand blog posts and membership webpages.
You can borrow this for your own small business. After all, a Linktree link isn’t just a content-sharing opportunity: You can walk people directly to your landing pages via Instagram, cutting through the noise so they can more easily buy from you.
Pura Vida, which translates to “Pure Life,” is more than just a bracelet retailer. The company has a community of over 800 artisans in countries such as Costa Rica, El Salvador, and India who earn money crafting homemade jewelry.
First off, the Pura Vida Bracelets Instagram bio is structured with various emojis, which saves space and gives off a fun vibe. “Fun” works here because the company features tons of colorful images of smiling people modeling the products—it’s on-brand.
Second, the emojis-as-bullet-points help clearly state the bio’s main areas of focus, particularly “FREE SHIPPING.” This is good for small businesses to highlight, especially if your main competitors don’t offer it.
Lastly, the branded hashtag, #PuraVidaBracelets, is a nice touch. Small-business retailers should consider implementing a personalized hashtag as a way to social-listen and reshare UGC across social while getting their brands’ names out there.
Created by lifestyle blogger Natalie Freeman and her husband Luke, The Freckled Hen Farmhouse is both a brick-and-mortar and online shopping destination. This general store has everything from home goods to local products to garden supplies.
The Freckled Hen Farmhouse Instagram bio doesn’t cater to one audience over the other. Instead, it caters to both in-person and online shoppers.
The bio includes its store hours, local delivery options, and phone number. Additionally, the company plugs its rental cottage in the bio, adding more opportunities for loyal customers to spend money on the brand. Finally, it includes a Linktree link leading to its store website, newsletter sign-up page, and seasonal and year-round category pages.
If you’re a small business with an online and offline space, it’s a smart idea to speak to all your customers in your Instagram bio.
Lush is a values-driven brand. Founded in London, the cosmetics company prides itself on fresh products, no unnecessary ingredients, and cruelty-free testing.
Unlike our other examples, the Lush Cosmetics Instagram bio keeps it short and sweet, saying, “We’re creating a cosmetics revolution to save the planet,” followed by two emojis, its branded hashtag, and a Linktree link.
The message is direct, and words and phrases like “revolution” and “save the planet” feel bold and exciting coming from a makeup brand. Similarly, small brands can, and should, experiment with how they describe their company, as long as it feels relevant—otherwise, it will come off as confusing, or worse, inauthentic.
This bio is a good reminder, too, that just because you have more space doesn’t mean you need to use it. That in itself is a departure from jam-packed bios and even a bit surprising. Our brains like novelty, so don’t be afraid to do things a little differently for your business.
Later is a leading Instagram marketing platform. The company boasts millions of users, and social media professionals, brands, and influencers can use the tool to manage content across Instagram, Pinterest, and even TikTok.
There are a lot of things working for the Later Instagram bio. First, the company does a great job expanding the copy beyond its name to better reach users on the platform who may be looking for this type of service (social marketing platform).
By improving its Instagram SEO with relevant keywords, the brand increases its chances of being found. Plus, “Later” is a common word, so it’s good to add more context for searchers.
Next, the company states it’s the “#1 Marketing Platform for Instagram.” Piggy-backing off SEO, this is good to market to potential users.
Small businesses can optimize their bios with applicable keywords and feature brag-worthy accomplishments to get readers’ attention.
ALOHA produces USDA organic, vegan, and gluten-free protein powders, drinks, and foods. The brand shares plenty of recipes and UGC on its site and social media platforms.
Taking a page out of Later’s book, the ALOHA Instagram bio asserts the company as its industry’s leader. While the brand keeps the copy to a minimum, it focuses on the keywords its customers care about, like “organic” and “plant-based.”
ALOHA also changed its profile picture to showcase it was named a Certified B Corporation. These companies must meet strict social and environmental standards, among others. If your small business has a prestigious distinction or won a big award, it’s worth highlighting it in this space.
A husband-and-wife duo created the Lokal Hotel after dreaming up ways they could improve the Airbnbs where they’d stayed and the hospitality experience in general. This home-away-from-home brand offers hyper-local lodging in the Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey regions.
The Lokal Hotel Instagram bio covers a lot of ground. It includes a specific category, “boutique hotels | cabins” instead of just “hotel,” so those seeking this particular experience can find it, and expands on this with “apartment suites & homes.”
On top of the location and branded hashtag, the bio points out the Linktree where guests can book their stay, sign up for its newsletter, and more.
Other small businesses, especially those in this space, can take a few cues from this bio. By keeping all this information centralized, you could keep potential guests engaged and on your page longer.
GOODEE is a top online marketplace. Designers and entrepreneurs Byron and Dexter Peart founded the company to curate brands that not only looked good but sparked good too. As such, they only work with artisans who prioritize positive environmental or social impact.
The GOODEE Instagram bio lays out what the business is (a curated marketplace) and its focus (good design meets good purpose). Like ALOHA, pointing to the company’s B Corp designation and 1% for the Planet certification aligns with its mission and signals to consumers what’s important to the business.
This is both sincere and savvy: 72 percent of U.S. consumers believe it’s important “to buy from companies that reflect their values,” according to Retail TouchPoints.
So, if your small business is values-driven, don’t shy away from including that in your marketing and messaging. After all, the customers you seek are also seeking you.
Rumpl operates in the outdoor-industry space and helps keep campers and adventurers warm. After a successful Kickstarter launch, the company continues to grow and expand its inventory.
There’s beauty in the simplicity of the Rumpl Instagram bio. It mentions its best-known item—blankets— and gives a brief, relatable description of the materials in them. The company also mentions its “Shark Tank” appearance and includes a branded hashtag and link to a current giveaway.
Instagram contests are popular and can help accelerate your brand growth. This is especially true if you partner with another company and can leverage each other’s audiences. It’s something your small business should consider (and then promote in your Instagram bio, of course!).
This home-decor biz produces letter boards, tile sets, paper goods, and more. A married couple founded Letterfolk, and the company has developed a big following thanks to its thoughtfully designed products and national press hits.
Instead of using the company’s Instagram bio to direct followers to use certain hashtags, Letterfolk invites its followers to check them out, saying, “See LF products in the wild,” followed by relevant hashtags. Using this hashtag, consumers can view how other people use and display their products. By making this tweak, it feels more community-oriented right away.
Another notable distinction: It’s stated in the bio that Joanna and Johnny are not only a husband-and-wife team but also a small business.
Since some shoppers specifically look to buy from smaller companies, this is an excellent way to get in front of potential shoppers. If you don’t call-out your small-biz standing in your bio, consider adding it and see if there’s an increase in engagement.
Now that you’ve seen examples of some of the best Instagram bios for businesses, let’s recap the top ways to make yours stand out.
Some brands add emojis to the mix in their Instagram bios. Aside from highlighting your brand’s personality, these icons can help influence readability. This could help your messaging stand out. So, you might want to try cutting back on copy and increasing white space by including emojis.
Brands can also change up font styles in their Instagram bios. This adds variety. However, be careful to make sure the script is readable, and don’t overuse it.
You want to capture your brand’s personality in your Instagram bio. Experiment with copy, emojis, and other creative ways to show it off.
Don’t be afraid to play around a bit and have fun with your followers, either. Drizly’s Instagram bio comes to mind:
Be careful not to mistake “social media” as an excuse to depart from your familiar brand voice, though. For example, a hospital using laughing emojis in its bio wouldn’t be a fit—and might even make patients nervous! Alternatively, seeing emojis on the BarkBox Instagram bio feels completely in-line with the company’s fun reputation.
Bottom line: Know your brand and know your audience.
You don’t need to develop a campaign to create a hashtag—though it doesn’t hurt. Creating a hashtag unique to your small business is a good way to create brand awareness and help build your community.
Craft a hashtag that includes your company name or captures your ethos. For instance, if you think #JustDoIt, chances are, your brain goes to Nike.
From there, you can encourage your customers to include your hashtag in their social posts and reshare that user-generated content (UGC) on your channels.
You can also repurpose UGC for stories and other content. Incentivize users to share posts with your hashtag for discounts, contests, or just the opportunity of possibly featuring them on your platforms.
You only have so many characters to work with in your Instagram bio. Use this space to clearly state what your small company does and be direct in your ask. For example:
Whatever your goal, be clear about it.
You have a hard stop when it comes to characters within the bio itself. However, there are options to expand on more details about your business and even cross-promote your other companies or personal pages. Consider including the following:
The best Instagram bios authentically match your brand and serves your users.
Checking out the bios of the pages we’ve listed can help you get a feel for what’s working across the board. Also, see what your competitors are doing, and don’t be afraid to experiment with different formats.
Social media is an important aspect of digital marketing. Our agency can help if you are having trouble developing a social media strategy. We also offer assistance with content marketing and SEO.
Once you’ve polished your page, Instagram can be a powerful marketing tool for your business. So don’t skimp on putting the work into it.
What do you like about your favorite brands’ Instagram bios?
If you run an e-Commerce brand, there’s a good chance you have an Instagram account. How much time do you spend on your Instagram bio, though? You probably spend far more time crafting great-looking posts and engaging stories.
How long should E-commcerce companies spend writing their best Instagram bios?
It’s important to have an excellent bio since it’s one of the first things a user sees when they visit your Instagram profile. Often, however, it’s often an afterthought for brands that care more about their posts than their profile as a whole.
That’s a mistake. Bios aren’t user’s first impressions of your brand and set the tone of the whole account. Your brand’s bio needs to grab the user’s attention and get your core USPs across as quickly as possible.
Doing so is far from easy, however. That’s why I’ve drawn up a list of 10 of the best Instagram bios so you can see how it’s done.
When in doubt, I find it best to look at what’s working for the top brands in the industry. As they say, good artists copy, great artists steal.
Below, I’ve compiled some of the best ecommerce Instagram bios out there right now and highlighted what makes them so effective.
BarkBox is a monthly subscription box of dog treats and toys serving over one million dogs across the country. You knew that already, though, from their very descriptive Instagram bio.
That’s one of the reasons this bio is so good. Even if you’ve never heard of BarkBox before, you know exactly what they sell as soon as you read the first line.
That’s not the only reason I love it. BarkBox also does a great job of pointing consumers to other profiles they might like. Parent company Bark gets a shoutout, as does Super Chewer, the company’s extra tough toys. It’s topped off by a hashtag that shows users how they can get involved by posting their own content.
MVMT sells premium yet affordable, American watches, sunglasses, and other accessories. They have a big Instagram following, and for a good reason. Not only do the brand’s posts look cool, but almost all of them are shoppable with the click of a button.
MVMT begins its bio with an emotive call to action that sums up what the brand stands for. Like BarkBox, MVMT uses hashtags to encourage audience engagement and point users to a sister brand. Most important of all is the call to action at the end of the bio, which tells users about their brand new watch range.
Pela Case makes the world’s first compostable phone case, along with several other accessories like sunglasses, watch straps, and AirPod cases.
Sustainability is key for this brand, and they use the globe and seedling emojis to make that point very clear. They also use emojis to highlight their CTA link as well as bullet points to give the bio a clear layout.
The succinct way that Pela sum up their USPs also makes this bio stand out. The most important facts about the brand are made clear in the first two lines. If that weren’t enough, they also update the bio regularly. In the screenshot above, for instance, they’ve got an International Women’s Day-related CTA.
Supply is a razor and grooming company that was featured on Shark Tank. Humor is the order of the day for Supply. Their bio lists a series of real-life reviews by well-known organizations and ends with a self-deprecating one-liner that shows the brand doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Supply doesn’t stop there, however. Their CTA also uses humor and intrigue to increase the likelihood that users click on their URL significantly. This brand knows their target audience loves this kind of humor, and they execute it perfectly.
Who Gives a Crap sells bamboo and recycled toilet paper. It also donates 50 percent of its profits to improve sanitation in the developing world.
Who Gives a Crap is another brand that uses emojis to grab user’s attention and structure their bio. In doing so, they’re able to get across a huge amount of information in a small space. You know what they do, why they do it, and the product’s USPs. You even know where they ship, too. It’s not even a struggle to read it!
Brooklinen is a DTC brand selling luxury bedding. They put comfort and quality before everything else and that shines through in their stylish bio and account.
At first glance, Brooklinen’s bio may not look particularly special. There are no emojis, for instance, but that’s because they aren’t on brand. Instead, there is a very specific call to action, which is to visit their store in person.
This is what makes Brooklinen’s Instagram bio so good, in my opinion. While other brands focus on driving you to their online store, they show they aren’t just an ecommerce store—you can see their products in person, too.
Haus Laboratories is the beauty brand from Lady Gaga and that’s not something they hide in their Instagram bio. That’s a good thing since it’s probably the brand’s biggest selling point.
Next, the brand sends a powerful and emotive message to readers, showing they aren’t just a faceless make-up brand. Finally, they use emoji to capture Lady Gaga’s tone of voice and point users in the direction of their CTA. A Gaga-reat job all around.
MeUndies sells what they claim to be the most comfortable underwear in the world. Their branding is fun, bold, and colorful, and they make a point of getting that across in their Instagram bio.
A clever pun in the first line gets the bio off to a great start and is quickly followed up by a cheeky peach emoji. The heart emoji is in an on-brand color and highlights the fact that a new design is on sale (a common feature of MeUndies). If that weren’t enough, another emoji points users in the direction of the CTA link where users can shop. Peachy.
The Sill sends indoor potted plants directly to your door. Their offering is all about making your home look great and their branding reflects the elegance plants can add to your home.
Their Instagram bio drives that brand promise home in the first line. Selling “the best looking plants on the internet” is a bold claim, but it’s the kind of claim that will make users spend time browsing their posts to find out. That’s a win right there.
The Sill also uses a hashtag to let consumers browse user-generated content for added social proof and uses an emoji to break up the copy. A beautiful job all around.
American Giant is an American clothing brand that aims to make better clothes right here in the U.S.A. This belief in making better quality products, with better materials, and better techniques is one of its core USPs.
No wonder their tagline is mentioned in the very first line of the bio. They reinforce that tagline with a crystal clear message about making high-quality clothing in the U.S. and back that up with an American flag emoji, in case there was any doubt.
The bio is topped off with call-to-action encouraging users to create their own content with the brand’s hashtag and a link to their store.
You’ve seen how the biggest brands in the industry do it; now it’s time to create your own. Here are a few tips to help you get it right.
Is it a piece of marketing material if it doesn’t have a call to action? I don’t think so, and your Instagram bio definitely is one.
Instagram followers shouldn’t land on your profile and ask “now what?” Instead, give them a clear and obvious action to take. It’s even more important on Instagram because your bio is the only place in your profile where you can place an outbound link. Don’t waste it!
Calls to action for E-ommerce brands could be to visit your store, shop your profile or sign up for your email list. You don’t have to stop at one CTA, either. You could recommend users follow your sister brand’s account (like BarkBox), visit your store (Brooklinen), or get in touch with support (The Sill).
Hashtags are a great way to encourage user-generated content (UGC). Encouraging UGC should be one of your top goals on Instagram. User posts featuring your products are great at generating buzz and providing much-needed social proof.
Adding a hashtag also gives consumers a way to quickly search your own and other users’ posts about your brand, which is great for users who aren’t familiar with who you are and what you sell.
Trust me, when you look at dozens of Instagram profiles a day, the creative ones really shine through. The more your bio stands out from the crowd, the more likely users are to stick around, view your posts, and maybe even hit follow.
It could be how you layout your profile, what you say, how you say it, or the emojis you use. While you should definitely learn lessons from the brands above, please don’t copy them completely. Forge your own path. 3.
One of the best ways to be creative is to let your brand’s personality shine through in your bio. You’ve worked hard to develop your brand’s unique tone of voice, so make sure you use it when crafting your copy.
It won’t just give new users insight into the kind of brand you are, it will make regular customers feel at home.
You only have 150 characters to work within an Instagram bio, so brevity is essential. Don’t waste time explaining who you are. That’s what your name and profile image are for. The focus should be on the what and the why.
You need to explain what sets you apart from competitors and what your brand stands for if you want users to hit follow. If it’s not obvious to users, they won’t waste time trying to work you out.
While you may not have many characters to use in your Instagram bio, you do have plenty of space to play with. Make sure you use it.
Rather than write two or three sentences in a row (however witty or concise they are), try adding line breaks or emojis into your bio to make it as easy to read as possible.
A bullet point list of short, punchy sentences is much easier to read. Don’t forget to prioritize your layout for mobile devices, either. Very few people, if any, will be looking at your Instagram page on a laptop or desktop computer.
Emojis are a great hack to make your bio both readable and concise. They may not say one thousand words, but they can save a few dozen characters when used well.
They are also a great way to break up your copy and help users see what your brand is about.
Emojis don’t work for every brand, however, especially if you sell serious or business-orientated products. Even brands that don’t rely on humor (like American Giant) can use specific emojis in a subtle way.
I can feel you raising your eyebrows about using keywords on Instagram, but hear me out. While your profile name and handle help people to find you, Instagram will also use what you write in your bio to determine what your page is about.
That makes it essential to have your most important keywords in there somewhere. Look at BarkBox, as an example. They have “toys, treats, and chews” in their bio for that reason. Pela Case has “compostable phone case” too.
The good news is if you create a succinct and concise bio, you’ve probably included keywords already. If not, pick the one or two that are most important and include them in your first line.
Instagram is probably the most valuable social media platform for E-commerce brands, but bios are regularly left as an afterthought.
Not your brand, though.
You’ve seen some of the best Instagram bios and understand what features make their bios stand apart from the rest. Now it’s time to craft your own powerful bio that captures users’ attention and directs them to your store.
Be concise, show your brand’s personality, and don’t forget to include a clear call to action.
If you need help for developing your social media strategy (and content marketing and SEO), reach out. We can help you!
What steps are you going to take to improve your Instagram bio?
Instagram accounts that hold contests can achieve up to 70% faster follower growth than accounts that don’t hold contests.
If you want a popular Instagram account, coming up with and executing some Instagram contest ideas is a great start.
In this post, we’ll explore how you can use Instagram contests to raise brand awareness for your business.
We’ll also dive into some of the best practices to keep in mind when running your contests.
By the end, you’ll know how to run a successful Instagram contest that will bring your business the attention it deserves.
There are other ways to get more Instagram followers, of course, but few other methods can increase your follower numbers so quickly, and with such minimal effort.
Not only that: Instagram contests can also help you achieve more engagement.
Posts that are related to Instagram contests tend to earn roughly 64x more comments and 3.5x more likes when compared to ‘normal’ content.
On top of that, 91% of the posts that have achieved 1,000+ comments are contests.
All of these stats show that running Instagram contests is one of the best ways to improve brand awareness.
If you’re worried about being stuck in a cycle of constantly churning out contests, all in the name of boosting brand awareness, don’t worry; you don’t need to continuously run contests to reap the benefits that good Instagram contest ideas can offer.
That’s because you’ll notice a trickle-down effect on the rest of your normal content as a result of running contests. People will feel a greater affinity toward your brand due to the goodwill you’ve generated with your contests.
As a result, they’ll be more likely to share and engage with your normal content.
Plus, because contests generate more followers, there will naturally be more people exposed to your content. This increases the likelihood that share and engagement levels will be higher than ‘pre-contest levels.
Before you run your first contest, you need to be aware of some important best practices. Failure to follow some of these best practices could mean that you’re going against the rules of Instagram.
It could also lead to your contest producing lackluster results, which can amount to a lot of wasted effort.
What are these best practices?
The first is to make sure that you write a clear and detailed description for your contest.
When writing the description for your contest, be sure to cover:
Doing things this way makes it easy for you to stay on the right side of the promotion guidelines provided by Instagram.
It is important that you don’t stray from the guidelines, as doing so could put your account at risk.
Here’s a great example of a contest description.
They’ve done a good job of making this detailed, so it’s difficult to fit into one image.
Here’s the first part, which helps establish a reason for the competition while also describing what’s on offer.
This second part does a good job of letting people know what they need to do to be eligible to win.
The next bit tells people how they can gain an extra entry. The terms of the contest are clearly shown, while also indicating how the winners of the contest will be announced.
By studying how others are writing their contest descriptions, you’ll learn a lot about what separates a bad description from a good one.
You also need to ensure you’re giving away relevant prizes that your target audience will feel compelled to have.
If you focus on giving away prizes that are relevant to your target audience, your contest will generate better results.
If the products you’re giving away aren’t specific to your target audience, you run the risk of attracting followers that don’t care about your business or the products or services it provides.
In the long term, this arguably does more harm than good.
Such individuals may unfollow your account after a contest, or simply not engage with your profile in the future.
By picking the right prizes, you can reliably attract the right kinds of followers and generate brand awareness among the best demographic for your business.
All of which helps increase the odds of you earning a return-on-investment from your efforts.
As you might have guessed, giving away items of high value tends to produce higher levels of engagement.
The chart below shows that prizes worth $1,000 or more generally achieve 5.8 engagements per 100 followers.
This figure is quite high when compared to the 1.7 engagements that brands enjoy when they give away prizes worth $99 or less.
If you want to give away a high-value prize, but you don’t have the funds to invest in one, consider arranging a partnership deal with another brand. Provided that you have a large enough follower count, there will be brands that are willing to provide a prize for your contest in exchange for some promotion.
The way you promote the brand that provides the prize should be low-key. In the description of the contest, simply mention that the contest is sponsored by a particular company.
This Instagram post shows how you can pull this off.
You also need to put some thought into how you’re going to announce the contest.
It’s a good idea to use a custom image within the post that announces the contest.
Here’s an example of how you can do that.
As shown above, there’s also the option of adding the terms of the competition to the image, too.
With all of that out of the way, let’s check out some of the contest ideas you can use.
The tag-to-win contest idea is nice and straightforward.
All you’re doing is asking people to tag a friend in the comments section so that they can enter the contest, as well, and become eligible to win the prize.
This contest format does a great job of improving your profile’s organic reach.
That’s because once people are tagged by someone, they’ll likely receive a notification.
These people will then check out your profile and potentially become a follower.
They may also tag others. This will create a viral feedback loop, bringing more people into the competition.
To increase the impact of this feedback loop, you can also ask people to follow your account in addition to tagging someone.
Here is an example of a brand that uses this strategy.
If you want to be brave, you can ask people to tag two people. This, again, increases the potential reach of your contest.
The contest below shows how this can be done.
Once the competition is over, pick someone at random from the comments section. You can use an automated system to do this so that the contest remains objective.
If one of the entry conditions is to follow your profile, cross-reference the winner’s account with your follower list to make sure that everything is in order.
An alternative take on this format, the ‘nominate a friend to win’ contest, can work equally well.
Instead of asking people to randomly tag someone, you can instead suggest that they tag someone they believe deserves to win.
With this kind of format, the winner of the contest will be the person who has been tagged, and not the person who left the initial comment.
With this Instagram contest, you ask people to like your content if they want to enter the contest and have a chance of winning.
You can even use the phrase ‘double-tap to win’ since, on the Instagram app, double-tapping a photo automatically likes it.
There’s also the option of asking people to like your brand on Facebook, making it easy to increase the visibility and, therefore, the impact of your contest.
If you want to boost your follower count, mention that people also need to follow your profile if they want to be eligible to win.
Here’s an example of how that can be done.
This profile has used the combination of asking people to follow and like, thereby increasing the potential engagement this contest can produce.
Instagram is arguably the home of selfies, so this kind of contest is a great match for the platform.
It’s a type of contest that works particularly well with products.
With a selfie contest, you ask people to post a picture of themselves while they’re using your product, or with the product somewhere in the background.
This contest format is especially useful for a business because it helps show potential customers how a product can be used. It’s an excellent form of user-generated content.
When writing the description for a selfie contest, create a unique hashtag and then ask people to use this hashtag whenever they post their photos.
You can find the pictures people have uploaded for this contest by searching for the hashtag on Instagram.
At the end of the contest, pick the picture that you think is best.
Make sure that, when you create the rules for a selfie contest, you add that you might use the content at a later date.
User-generated content can provide an excellent source of social proof. Long after the contest is over, you can repost the content that the contest generated.
Here’s an example of how you can do a selfie contest.
Similar to the ‘like-to-win’ example from earlier, you can combine the format of the selfie contest with the other contest formats we’ve already covered.
You could mention that people need to like the post that announces the contest as well as posting a selfie.
The photo contest is closely related to the selfie contest we just covered.
The difference, however, is that you’re not asking people to take a selfie. Instead, they can take any type of photo they wish.
Like before, you ask people to submit photos using a relevant hashtag that you create.
You then search Instagram using this hashtag so that you can find a winning photo.
With this kind of contest, you don’t always have to offer a physical prize for the winner.
You can just let people know that the prize is that you’ll feature their content on your profile.
Here’s an example of a photo contest of which relates to a Boston News channel.
Here’s another one from the Empire State Building Instagram account.
It may be that you have a product or niche that is perfectly suited to photo contests. GoPro is an example of such a product.
If so, you should place a special focus on running photo contests.
That’s because this format will be especially easy to pull off while also providing you with an abundance of user-generated content that you can feature on your Instagram account.
A voting contest revolves around the following steps:
This contest format is great at generating engagement because you’re asking people to take a lot of social actions. Plus, the people who enter the contest will promote their own entries through their social channels.
However, you could argue that such a format is potentially asking too much from people.
Because of this, you may want to use this contest format only when you have a highly-engaged audience that cares about your profile and its content.
With that being said, another way you can run this contest is by having people submit photos first, and then only you find them using the assigned hashtag.
Based on what you find, you pick 3-5 finalist images and host them on your own profile.
You then ask your followers to like the one that they think is best, and the photo with the most likes wins.
This approach can help you achieve great results with a voting contest without asking too much of your followers.
Here’s an example of a profile that is doing something similar, but instead asking people to submit the photos to the host’s account directly.
Here’s a bit more context.
Here’s an example of how someone might post their own content in the hopes of obtaining a vote.
When running this kind of competition, you can also ask people to post their contest content to Facebook, as well.
Then you can count the likes that people have gathered on that platform and combine them with what they’ve achieved on Instagram.
Doing things this way can help expand the reach of your contest, improving your ability to generate brand awareness.
A caption contest is a contest in which you ask people to caption a photo that you’ve uploaded.
From that point, you can either:
The caption with the most likes is the winner.
While the second option can be a good way to engage your audience, the first option can help prevent people from artificially inflating their likes.
Here’s an example of a caption contest:
You may want to edit the image you use to announce the contest so that it highlights the fact that you’re in need of a caption.
The speech bubbles in the above post are a good example of how this can be done.
If you’re in a position where you need to put together a contest in a short amount of time, a challenge contest can work wonders.
With this contest format, you just need to come up with a simple challenge for people to meet, and the person who solves the challenge wins.
The challenge doesn’t need to be complex. In fact, simpler contests generally draw more social engagement and participation.
The post below shows how this can be done.
All that’s being asked of in this contest is that people guess which number the account owner is thinking of.
It’s simple and fun. The spontaneous feel helps to increase the authenticity of the profile, too, which helps boost long-term engagement.
Here’s another example, this time using a ‘guess the marbles’ challenge.
This contest format is simple and low-effort, making it a good choice for anyone who is new to running contests on Instagram.
You should now understand how to use Instagram contests to grow brand awareness.
As soon as you run your first contest, you’ll find that the whole process is a lot of fun. It’s also probably much easier than you expected.
Decide on a contest theme, create the rules, and establish a dedicated hashtag. Increase user engagement by cross-posting the contest on Facebook.
If you’re feeling nervous about setting up your first Instagram contest, get in touch and we can help you strategize (and assist you with your other digital marketing efforts).
If you can encourage people to invite their friends to participate in the contest, do so. The more people who see your contest and content, the better.
Do you have any tips related to running Instagram contests?
One billion – that’s how many people use Instagram each month.
With such a huge, highly engaged audience, you can bet the competition between brands is tough. This is why small details can make all the difference, and Instagram filters could play a part in making your social media campaigns more successful.
Everywhere you look, marketing advice says you need high-quality images to succeed on platforms like Instagram. But what if you’re not a professional photographer?
This is where Instagram filters can be a game-changer for your marketing and particularly your paid social media campaigns—they can make your images look as sleek as if they’d been professionally shot.
Here’s an example of an unfiltered image vs. its filtered twin:
Not only do Instagram filters make things look cleaner, but they also allow you to edit your image with one click. Where most editors make you alter contrast, saturation, and so forth individually, Instagram lets you pick a pre-set filter that suits your image—though you can tweak them if you’d like.
While these filters have been around since 2011, they’ve taken off in recent years. With the added capabilities of augmented reality (AR) technology—which adds imaginary images to those of the real world—they can significantly impact your social media campaigns.
Social media platforms are competitive, and standing out from the crowd isn’t easy. If you’re going to get the best cost per click with your paid social media campaigns, then your brand needs to grab attention and drive engagement.
When you run an Instagram ad, you don’t have much real estate to work with, so you’ve got to find ways to draw your audience in with the limited space you have.
If you can combine innovative use of filters with creative images and excellent text, then you could achieve exceptional results— as Opel did with their “Opel Adam” campaign. In just two weeks, the campaign achieved a 2.5x increase in registrations and significantly lowered Opel’s cost per registration.
It’s possible to achieve the same results for your business, but you’ve got to make the most of the tools available to you.
If only 18% of Instagram posts use a filter, this means you’ve got an opportunity to make your content stand out over the other 82%. Research shows that AR filters have an average dwell time of 75 seconds, which is four times that of even video content—so using it can make a huge difference.
Social media platforms crave engagement, and if your advertisements give them that, you may find you reach more people for less—and Instagram filters are one of the best tools to help you achieve this.
Turning your posts into paid campaigns through the Instagram app couldn’t be easier. All you need is a business or creator account, and then you can get set up with your paid ads.
To create a promotion through the app, you need to have already created your post or story. Luckily, Instagram makes it exceedingly easy to snap an image on the go, add a great filter, and promote it within seconds.
The right Instagram filter might be a quick way to give your images the professional touch, but the wrong filter can have the opposite effect. When you’re choosing your filter, keep these three points in mind:
Your images help define your brand, so the filters you choose matter. Your filters should reflect the mood of the product or service you’re promoting, and you need to stay consistent with this.
A great example of this is JetBlue’s Instagram account. You can easily spot how consistency has allowed them to develop their own simple yet effective style by using similar image styles, colors, and more.
While the right filter can make things look amazing, “over filtering” can have the opposite effect. You don’t want to alter things so much that they look surreal. Instagram filters are optimized to please, so it’s often worth sticking to the tried and tested rather than over-editing.
If you’re looking for inspiration, Canva studied the most popular filters, and Clarendon, Gingham, and Juno came out on top.
Adding filters to your Instagram posts couldn’t be easier. In five simple steps, you can post amazing images that grab your audience’s attention.
Instagram stories allow you to post photos and videos that vanish after 24 hours. One-third of the most viewed Instagram stories are created by businesses, so they are an excellent way to make your posts go further.
The process of posting stories with filters is just as simple as with posts, but you’ll notice a lot more options when it comes to AR filters.
If you’re scrolling through Instagram and see a filter you like, you can save it to use on your own stories.
When you created your first story pin, you likely noticed there are a lot of things you can do to your face with AR.
AR allows you to add computer-generated effects over the live image you see on your camera. For example, if you want to see what you look like wearing sunglasses, there’s an AR filter for that. The sunglasses appear on your face and follow you as you move.
There are endless Instagram filters with AR, which gives you more options to engage your audience. However, as with any Instagram filters, it’s essential to find the ones that suit your brand.
Some companies have had great success with AR filters on Instagram, such as this one by Ray-ban. But if you’re going to use these filters, then you’ve got to make sure you stay on-brand.
To create a story with AR filters, simply follow these steps:
One of the reasons Instagram is so popular with advertisers is because it gives you lots of tools to give your paid campaign extra oomph. The beautiful thing about it is it’s so easy for anyone to add filters, gifs, text, and music to their images.
While a recent study found that images without text overlay generally perform better than those with text, marketing is all about finding the message that engages your audience, so it’s worth experimenting to find the formula that works for you.
These Instagram features give you added options when it comes to reaching and engaging your target audience.
Gifs provide a great middle-ground between static images and video. They were talked about as a big marketing trend, and while AR has taken over somewhat, they’re still a handy tool for your paid Instagram campaigns.
A gif is a quick and easy way to add something extra to your story, and once again, Instagram makes it exceptionally easy to do:
Instagram might be a very visual platform, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t use for text. The right use of text can help give your posts and stories context, grabbing people’s attention and linking the image to your brand.
Text is a vital part of Instagram because this is where you make use of one of the most important features: hashtags.
Hashtags not only help people find your posts, but they also boost engagement and allow you to zero in on what’s popular in your industry. The statistics show that Instagram posts with even just one hashtag can see an increase in engagement of 12.6%. So with only a little extra text, you can give your campaigns a better chance of success.
You can also use text overlay on your stories. You’re in control of your text’s font, color, and look, which means you have another way of giving your images a professional look.
To add text overlay to your stories, simply:
Music has always played an important part in advertising. Music helps make advertisements more memorable, evokes emotion, builds the story, and accentuates the brand, so it can be an essential tool.
While some people will use Instagram with the sound off, Instagram makes it so easy to add features such as music that you don’t lose anything by using them.
Again, make sure whatever you choose fits your brand and is going to engage your audience.
Here’s how you can add music to your Instagram stories:
You might be thinking, “I want my Instagram posts to stand out, so why would I use the most common filters such as Clarendon?” While many brands find success with Instagram’s filters, you have other options if you choose to go that route.
To help you with this, there are lots of photography apps that have curated Instagram filters you can pay for or give you the ability to create your own, including:
You may have to invest some time in finding or creating the perfect Instagram filter, but once it’s saved to your Instagram account, you can add it to all your posts and stories in seconds.
The right Instagram filter can immediately improve your images and give your brand an identity. When you’re running paid media campaigns, you want to give your images and videos every chance of standing out from the crowd, and filters can help you achieve this.
Instagram makes it incredibly easy to add this extra element to your posts. Turn your images into posts that people want to engage with and share, then watch how they may improve your paid social media campaigns.
What’s the go-to Instagram filter for your brand?
The post How to Use Instagram Filters in Paid Social Media Campaigns appeared first on Neil Patel.
Instagram is known mostly for engagement. But how do you track it? Let’s cover some Instagram analytic tools you need to be using. Here’s the deal: People love interacting with brands and other individuals. Without engagement, social media doesn’t exist, and engagement matters more on Instagram than most other platforms. In fact, Instagram’s engagement has …
The post 7 Instagram Analytics Tools to Grow Your Audience first appeared on Online Web Store Site.
Instagram is known mostly for engagement. But how do you track it? Let’s cover some Instagram analytic tools you need to be using.
Here’s the deal: People love interacting with brands and other individuals. Without engagement, social media doesn’t exist, and engagement matters more on Instagram than most other platforms.
In fact, Instagram’s engagement has been measured anywhere from four to twelve times that of other social channels.
So while you can sell on Instagram, this channel is better known for its benefits at the top of your sales funnel.
The problem with that is your marketing efforts don’t always link back to sales.
That means you’ll have to develop other ways to measure performance to justify all of the time and money spent on Instagram.
So, how do you do it? Luckily, there are a few tools that can help.
I’m going to show you some of the best Instagram analytics tools and why they are worth your time.
Owlmetrics is basically a one-stop-shop for all things Instagram analytics.
This Instagram analytics tool tracks all of your Instagram account’s key data points, such as follower growth, engagement, hashtag activity, competitor accounts, and click-through rates, while giving you real-time insights in an easy-to-use dashboard.
But that’s not all it can do. It offers a wealth of data beyond Instagram Insights’ underwhelming offerings.
When it comes to tracking engagement, everybody knows that it’s the details that matter.
You’ll get insights on things like the most engaging photo and video filters, top tags by interactions, the best time to post, posts that have received the most engagement, sources of the most engagement, and so much more.
Plus, you’ll be able to keep close tabs on your hashtag performance. Hashtag usage is critical to a good Instagram strategy, so you’ll need to keep a close eye on how they’re benefiting (or hurting) your brand.
Altogether, their insights generate a goldmine of information for content strategizing. You’ll get daily data regarding your post engagement rates, top posts by engagement rate, and the best-performing types of posts.
With these real-time details at your disposal, you have all the information you need to post dynamite content every day.
You’ll also know exactly where your followers are spending the most time through click rates. You can find your total clicks, average clicks per post, and your clicks change rate.
Of course, the tool shows you these ultra-useful numbers in easily readable graphs, so if you’re not a numbers person, you’ll still be able to see areas of change.
As you can see from these visuals, there’s no shortage of details for your clicks. You’ll see clicks by language, clicks by browser, clicks that are referred from another source, and clicks by location.
All of this contributes to gaining a better, more complete view of your audience.
And since you need an excellent connection with your audience if you want to make it on Instagram, the Owlmetrics audience insights can help you achieve just that.
It gives you all the details regarding your followers, including their age, gender, language, city of origin, and other basic demographics that paint a clearer picture of your audience to help you form better posts.
You also get definitive numbers that help you set and track goals for follower growth. You’ll see your total followers and the growth of total followers.
There’s also info about the followers you’ve gained and lost, with insights into your top gained followers and top lost followers. This will help you better curate your content to keep your existing followers and attract even more.
One of the most beloved Owlmetrics’ features is its competitor tracking. You can learn a great deal about executing a quality Instagram marketing strategy by spying on the strengths and weaknesses of multiple competitive Instagram accounts.
As you can see, it gives you a detailed overview of the Instagram insights for competitors you choose in numbers and graph form.
These insights are updated in real-time, so you’re getting the most accurate numbers for high-performing businesses to compare to your own.
To top it all off, you can schedule exports of any data to CSV, PPTX, and PDF for easier reporting, not to mention it integrates seamlessly into Slack so all your team members can be on the same page.
Your Instagram insights are clear, detailed, collaborative, and always in real-time.
There’s going to be some analytics overlap in a few of these tools.
Iconosquare kicks off by helping you understand how your posting frequency relates to or drives either new followers or lost ones daily.
Iconosquare also gives you a Buffer-like tool to manage how you post across several different accounts at one time.
That makes it a perfect tool for freelancers or agencies that want to save time when managing multiple clients (or even multiple departments within the same company) from the same dashboard.
Iconosquare will even show you comments and interactions on each post so you can keep the conversation going without ever leaving.
But that’s not even the best part.
My favorite Iconosquare feature is that they offer a library of awesome content that you can pull from at the ready.
You can quickly search the media library and grab beautiful, high-resolution images to use within seconds.
Iconosquare also features an editorial calendar view so that you can schedule posts out ahead of time. It’s easier to manage social media when you plan out content in advance.
Next, you can use it to search for influencers who might help you get the word out about new campaigns and posts.
It will even let you compare influencers based on their own follower and engagement metrics, so you know what you’re dealing with before reaching out to them.
All of this sounds great, right?
But we haven’t even touched on their Instagram analytics yet.
You can measure tags and mentions and get access to in-depth engagement insights.
You can also see how your individual hashtags are performing, view the best days and times to post, and benchmark your engagement rates against the competition.
Iconosquare has a 14-day, no credit-card-required free trial. Play around with the analytics before you commit to it with your cash.
Sprout Social is similar to Iconosquare in that it combines Instagram analytics with content creation and management tools. They also have a powerful Instagram analytics platform.
It has a fully-featured editorial calendar for scheduling new content across multiple social account platforms (including Twitter and Facebook).
Sprout Social is perfect for larger organizations with rigid guidelines, too, because it has a centralized media library to manage with built-in editing tools.
When a piece of content is ready, you can use the push notification tool to update the person responsible for taking the next step (like moving it from draft to preview and from scheduled to published).
Sprout’s tool set includes a social CRM that will funnel conversations into a central ‘smart’ inbox. Gaining access to this feature can help you boost conversions over time.
You can also dive deeper into individual hashtag performance or even locations that have been geotagged. Pay careful attention to how your performance compares across each.
Then you can compile all of this insight into “presentation-ready” reports that can be exported or downloaded by clients and bosses alike.
You can also take a spin with the free trial to preview all of these features before paying a single cent.
Each Instagram analytics tool we’ve looked at so far will give you daily reporting features. You need those metrics to track your progress.
However, Keyhole prides itself on giving customers real-time feedback. For example, you can drop in a specific hashtag, keyword, or account to see what trends are starting to emerge.
Keyhole will also help you figure out which of your own internal trends provide the best results, giving you at-a-glance data into what activities are driving the most follower growth over time.
You can also create a feed that will automatically track your competitor’s Instagram accounts to see what’s working for them versus what’s not (then capitalizing on the former while avoiding the latter).
Plus, you can save time by selecting a few predefined KPIs to track. Keyhole will automatically report on those, organizing your data into an easy-to-read dashboard that you can share with team members.
SquareLovin (spelled like McLovin) combines both aggregate data (like overall views and follower counts) with individual metrics on each post (by ‘scoring’ the overall engagement).
One of my favorite features, though, is the deep dive it gives you into the best-performing times to post.
Like some of the Instagram analytics tools on this list, Keyhole tells you the best time frames for posting based on metrics. However, this tool also explicitly lets you know when you shouldn’t post. This data can be just as valuable, especially if you’re posting all the time.
You might want to constantly test a few of the ‘best’ times to improve performance. However, this way, you’ll always know exactly what hours of the day to avoid like the plague.
Many of the Instagram analytics tools already featured give you information about how your Instagram account or your individual posts perform based on your specific KPIs.
Minter.io takes the next step by providing tactical insight into the content decisions you’re making.
For example, this tool can help you figure out which photo filter performs best among your audience based on a comparison of multiple metrics. Instead of using a single piece of data to decide which filters to use, compare several data points.
I also love how this tool can break down your post engagement into performance rates.
Here’s what I mean.
If you see that you have 1, 10, or even 100 comments on a post, you’re probably pleased with yourself. But when you stop to think about it, there’s not a lot of actionable insight to draw from comment numbers alone.
Let’s say one account has 100 followers, and another has 1,000 followers. Each account gets 10 comments on a single day.
Now, which one is performing better?
The first one, right? That’s because it’s getting a 10% engagement rate on that post instead of only a 1% engagement rate. That makes a huge difference at the end of the day!
Minter.io helps you track these performance metrics over time and create benchmarks to see if your audience’s quality is growing as quickly as the quantity.
All social platforms use internal algorithms to determine how many of your posts will be seen by your audience.
That means that, if your engagement is low, the social network might artificially ‘restrict’ how many of your own followers end up seeing your content on a given day.
That’s why we constantly talk about the importance of engagement in social media.
Minter.io will also help you pinpoint big players who are already part of your audience. It’s a great way to identify potential influencers who might amplify your brand message.
For example, followers are split down into several different ‘buckets,’ including:
Finally, this Instagram analytics tool also gives you insight into how active your followers are on the platform.
For example, you can see how many posts each of your followers push live each day so that you can mimic the frequency you know your followers are comfortable with.
If you’re only posting twice a day, but the bulk of your audience posts four times per day, you can easily start increasing your posting frequency without fearing any backlash from your community.
SocialRank provides detailed audience metrics for both Instagram and Twitter.
Many of the other Instagram analytics tools listed above focus on hard data or your posts’ individual performance metrics.
SocialRank will do some of that, but it’s more concerned with identifying follower patterns so that you can better tailor your content updates to your audience.
That means it will provide details like the most popular words used in your followers’ bios and posts. You can even see the most popular emojis among your target market.
Let’s say you’re trying to find certain types of people, like bloggers or influencers. You can search prospects’ bios based on keywords.
You might also use it for local marketing. Filter your target users by location so you can reach out to potential candidates for local live events and other engagements.
Follower filters help you narrow down the audience into small segments based on some criteria, including the number followers they might have, specific companies, gender, and any combination of those.
Once you pull up a segment, you can then rank or prioritize these people based on their own engagement with you or their own popularity (by follower count).
These filters come in handy when you’re trying to pull precise lists of followers.
For example, let’s say you’re opening a new location in a new city (or simply just visiting a new area for an upcoming conference).
You can overlay these filters together to find people who’re using certain hashtags (such as #craftbeer) and located within a specific city (like San Diego).
Then you can pull these follower lists into an Excel or PDF document for easy sharing with your team.
It’s incredibly powerful but not among the cheaper options listed here. I’d recommend using it for larger influencer or PR campaigns. It works best when you need deep audience insight to build buzz around your latest launch.
Social media is fairly simple at the end of the day.
First, you need to understand what your audience wants and is looking for. Second, you need to give it to them consistently.
In reality, it’s a lot tougher than it sounds.
But not if you’re using the right Instagram analytics tools to tell you what your audience is already interested in, talking about publicly, and reacting online.
Instagram is a powerful marketing tool to reach new audiences, increase your brand visibility, and deepen relationships with the people you already know.
Unfortunately, you can’t always track those things back to new Goal completions inside Google Analytics.
They’re ‘soft’ goals used to move people along your sales funnel instead of ‘hard’ goals that result in a new lead or sale.
That doesn’t mean they’re any less important. It simply means that you need to look for different ways to measure progress and results.
While Instagram’s built-in analytics are helpful, the Instagram analytics tools listed here go far beyond those metrics. You’ll be able to quickly identify your target customers, figure out what they’re interested in, and learn how to better serve them with new stuff.
After all, that’s what Instagram analytics tools are for, anyway. Not long, in-depth reporting that takes you hours to compile. You’re often better off with quick insights so that you can take action, update your marketing campaign, and grow faster.
What are your favorite Instagram analytics tools to track metrics?
The post 7 Instagram Analytics Tools to Grow Your Audience appeared first on Neil Patel.
Are you looking to boost your social media sales and get the most out of your digital storefront?
Updates to Instagram Live have made it one of the hottest sales trends right now, and Instagram’s e-commerce features plus the high success rate of social media marketing have made digital sales easier than ever.
If you’re ready to start using Instagram for business and start tapping into organic reach, we’ve got the strategy to get you started.
Read on to see how you can get the most out of Instagram Live for e-commerce.
You’ve heard about Instagram for business. Maybe you’ve even started playing around with some of their sales functions. If you’re smart, you’ve already got an Instagram business profile and perhaps even a few product tags.
Is it worth all the hassle?
Let’s check out the numbers. According to Hootsuite:
Social media is about being seen. Instagram Live moves your content to the top Stories in your users’ feeds. Plus, followers get notifications telling them when you go live, meaning they’ll immediately be able to see your content in their Stories tabs.
Instagram’s co-founder and CEO, Kevin Systrom, once said, On average, people miss about 70 percent of the posts in their Instagram profile feed.” That means getting to the top of your users’ feeds should be a top priority.
Instagram Live also saw a 70% increase in views from February to March in 2020, making it one of the fastest-growing e-commerce hubs on the internet today.
How can you start making e-commerce sales on Instagram?
With the launch of its online shop, Instagram has pushed further into e-commerce.
Instagram Shop has streamlined the way users can find products by making a designated “Shop” tab and other new features for businesses to generate sales.
The new Instagram Shop tab features a “Brand Collections” page that shows curated collections put together by Instagram’s @shop team.
With the addition of Instagram Checkout, US shoppers can simply tap “Buy on Instagram” to make a purchase without ever leaving the app. That means your conversions are quick, precise, and frequent.
Instagram has also been testing replacing the “Activity” tab with a “Shop” tab, which would mean even more daily clicks than before.
Like any social media selling machine, quality content and a killer Instagram following are essential. The best way to continue selling on Instagram is to make sure you’ve got a product people like and the right marketing strategy to sell it.
To get the most out of your e-commerce experience, Instagram suggests posting regularly, revealing the process behind your product creation, and showing variation in your products.
Here are a few more easy tips for marketing your Instagram content.
Instagram marketing is a powerful tool. With engagement rates going through the roof, it’s time for your brand to get on board and start making sales with the added ecommerce features across the platform.
This feature allows you to make sales while in the middle of a live broadcast.
If you’ve set up your Instagram Shop, you can start promoting and selling your products directly from your video stream with the Instagram Checkout tab. Featured items will appear at the bottom of the screen, and viewers can simply tap to purchase any of the items shown.
Instagram Live broadcasts can now also be viewed on desktop, making them more accessible and wide-reaching. This feature allows you to take center stage and grab your audience’s attention. It can also help you tap into new markets and expand your content’s reach.
How do you get started?
When you’re on Live, you’ll be able to display your products through some of Instagram’s built-in features, which we’ll talk more about down below.
Live videos are great for forming honest and personable audience interactions. This unedited, raw content can help you connect with your audience and build brand integrity.
Instagram Live also lets your audience submit comments and questions in real time, allowing for natural and immediate interaction on an otherwise one-sided platform. This kind of audience connection enables you to gather feedback straight from your customers.
Using the Instagram Live feature can also help your discoverability, as users will be notified when you go live, and your video will be featured at the front of their Stories tab.
Instagram Live videos stay on your page for 24 hours after you end the broadcast, ensuring more people can see your content in more places.
The benefits of using Instagram Live for e-commerce range from increased brand integrity to real-time sales possibilities, and beyond. We’ve seen more and more brands gravitating towards this platform in recent years because it works.
If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to connect, convert, and curate content, Instagram is the place to be.
Instagram Live has completely changed the ways brands communicate with their audiences online.
With new, customizable features and add-ons, there are many ways to connect and convert.
If you’re interested in tapping into influencer marketing, or if you want to leverage a brand ambassador’s following, you can invite co-hosts to join you in your live broadcasts.
You can also impose filters, stickers, and custom content directly onto your live video. You can either use Instagram’s presets or create your own branded versions and upload them to your live settings.
You can share images and videos on screen while you broadcast. This allows you to showcase product images or show the product in action, making the purchase more appealing to your audience. You can even add multiple videos and create a slide show while you present.
You can add comments and questions directly to your video broadcast. You can also pin them to the screen for all of your viewers to see. This way, you can let your audience know you’re listening and make them feel seen.
All of these features make your content more inviting and exciting for viewers, increasing the possibility for conversions as you dive into Instagram Live for e-commerce.
With a little bit of skill and a whole lot of personality, your brand could be the next big thing on Instagram Live.
When you use Instagram Live for e-commerce, you can forge connections with your customers, create lasting sales funnels, and boost your online conversions while staying true to your brand.
If you’re going to go live, make sure you do it right and attract people to your products beforehand. No one wants to go live to an empty audience, right?
Here are a few tips to get you started.
Promoting your content will ensure people have time to plan to watch you and make sure you get the most out of your live experience.
One way to do this is to share Instagram Stories that tell your audience the details of your Instagram Live experience. You could even use an Instagram Stories countdown sticker to mark the event. This allows others to share the countdown as well, expanding the reach of your audience.
Avoid directing traffic to anything that isn’t relevant to your content. Promoting your website instead of a product page is an excellent example of this. You must ensure your audience can easily find your products and purchase quickly. This will increase your chances of selling once you go live.
It’s also important to focus on the quality of your content. If your audience members find your stream boring or uninteresting, they might move on to the next piece of available content. Make sure whoever is hosting your video is practiced, inviting, and uses a breadth of exciting features to keep your audience watching.
When using Instagram Live for e-commerce, shorter videos work better. Audiences like easy-to-consume content. You can even post multiple short videos to keep your audience coming back for more.
Once you go live, speak slowly, speak clearly, and don’t make things too complicated. Like any spot on the internet, Instagram content has fierce competition. If you want to maximize your Instagram Live e-commerce possibilities, you need to be able to hold your audience’s attention for as long as possible.
Using Instagram live for e-commerce, you can position yourself at the top of your audience’s feeds and keep their attention longer.
The more you use Instagram’s built-in features, the better chance your brand will have of ranking on the platform.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, using Instagram Live for e-commerce opens up many new possibilities in the world of social media sales.
Instagram’s latest Shop features let you sell your products directly from the app, instead of fighting for placement in user feeds.
What’s more, e-commerce updates to Instagram Live have paved a whole new way for brands to engage with consumers and get their products into the market.
By tapping into your live-streaming market, you could not only drive conversions, but you’ll have a chance to speak to a bigger, less saturated audience.
Get creative, get live, and start converting!
Have you had success with Instagram Live marketing for e-commerce? Share your tips in the comments.
The post How to Use Instagram Live for E-Commerce Sales appeared first on Neil Patel.