Should your business be on Instagram?

Read time: 5 minutes

Over the last few years, Instagram has proven to be a powerful marketing tool for businesses looking to engage and connect with their customers. In 2019, Instagram is being used for this purpose more than ever. With over 500 million active daily users, Instagram has quickly become a ‘home’ for brands; In fact, when analysing the top 100 brands in the world, 90% of them have an Instagram account! So, if you’re not already on the Instagram bandwagon, you might be thinking, why Instagram? And is it right for me and my business? Instagram certainly isn’t the most suitable social media platform for every business. But, for some, it’s the core marketing tool for sales and customer relations.

Keep on reading if you’re curious about the benefits of using Instagram and whether it’s right for your business.

Why Instagram?

The big audience base

Currently, Instagram has over 1 billion active monthly users, with more than 500 million users active daily. The average amount of screen time each user is expected to spend on Instagram is estimated to be 53 minutes per day. Instagram users are hungry for new and exciting content, making it a great platform for brands to use if they are trying to connect with customers.

You can effectively engage with customers

Another major benefit of using Instagram is that you can see a lot of engagement on your posts without having to pay for it. In fact, engagement with brands on Instagram is 10 times higher than any other social platform, with Instagram users ‘liking’ 4.2 billion posts per day. These kind of engagement rates can almost ensure your business will observe interactions on every post.

Additionally, the more transparent and responsive a brand is with their followers on Instagram, the more trust is built between that brand and its potential customers. This is important, given that we know the more trust a consumer has with a brand, the more likely they are to purchase from them.

Instagram generates sales

More than 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile per day, with over 30% of users purchasing something from Instagram using their mobile device. In fact, 80% of Instagram users use the platform to help them decide whether to buy a product or service.

In addition to this, Instagram users are highly likely to take an action after looking at a brand’s Instagram post, such as visiting a website. Even if these people do not purchase on the first click, the action is still valuable because you can retarget them using Instagram advertising from that point on until they do purchase!

Instagram is a visual platform

Brands of all sizes are now seeing the importance of using visual content to connect with their customers. Unlike other social media sites, Instagram is comprised solely of photos and videos that can be accompanied with text. This is beneficial because most consumers connect with visuals more strongly than anything they read or hear! Photo content posted to social media receives more likes than any written content that is unaccompanied by a visual.

You can partner with influencers

Instagram is full of social media influencers, and therefore the most common social media platform for brands to pay influencers to promote products on. Influencers can bring your company’s customer base to a whole new level just by posting something about your brand. This can give your brand access to customers who are likely interested in your products that you may not otherwise be able to reach. To read more on influencers, head over to our other blog ‘how an influencer can help your business’.

Is Instagram right for my business?

The benefits of using Instagram for business are sounding great, right? But is it right for your business? Not all businesses get great results from using Instagram. All businesses should absolutely have a presence on the social media app, but not all businesses should be investing all their marketing budget into maintaining an engaging Instagram feed. Ask yourself these questions when determining how much effort you should be putting into your brand’s Instagram:

Is my target market over the age of 35?

71% of Instagram’s target market is under the age of 35, and mostly used by 18 – 29-year olds. If your target market is outside of this age group, then they are likely not actively using Instagram. Therefore, using Instagram as a platform to market your product or service might be less effective in gaining a return on investment.

Can I create ‘Instagram worthy’ content?

Instagram is a photo sharing platform. Profiles that perform the best (ie. gain the most followers and engagements) always feature fun, bright, aesthetically pleasing photos that inspire users or showcase something that users desire. If you don’t have aesthetically pleasing or ‘Instagram worthy’ photos relevant to your products or services to post, your brand might go unnoticed. As Instagram is a visual platform, it is often hard to post aesthetically pleasing and inspiring photos of products or services that are just simply plain, unexciting or hard to photograph. For example, an accounting firm may find it difficult to post photos that excite people to do their taxes. A picture of someone doing bookkeeping is unlikely to get a lot of engagement. On the other hand, a cosmetic company could be posting photos of their products being used by real people, short video tutorials on how to use their product or even just flat-lay images showcasing their packaging in a nice setting. The cosmetics company can inspire their followers to use their products in a certain way and showcase their products that are to be desired.

Do I have the time and the budget?

Instagram works best if you can consistently post lots of engaging content so that you keep your brand top-of-mind. Many successful Instagram accounts post daily and interact to comments and messages from their followers in a timely manner. If you have little time or are not willing to put in the effort to post regularly and monitor your posts, then you may want to reconsider using Instagram as a marketing tool.

Instagram is great for businesses who want to connect with young consumers. If you’ve got the time and the budget to post lots of engaging content with beautiful imagery, we absolutely recommend it! But if you’re not sure that the platform will work for your business, focus most of your marketing efforts elsewhere. There’s a way to market every kind of business, and Instagram isn’t the most suitable social media platform for every type of business.

Still not sure if Instagram is for you? Or want help getting your business’ Instagram profile running? Contact us today!

Follow Redsteps on Instagram for more tips and insights into social media marketing! @redsteps

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