How to Promote Your Business on Instagram: 7 Simple Steps (2024)

Instagram is gaining more and more popularity every passing day and was ranked as the 4th most commonly used social media app with 1.16 billion monthly active users. An average Instagram user spends at least 28 minutes a day on the platform, and its user-generated content has a 4.5% higher conversion rate. Instagram has definitely become one of the leading social media marketing platforms to generate leads and increase sales. If you’ve had thoughts about promoting your business on Instagram, let me tell you, there wouldn’t be a better time than now.

As of July 2021, India stood as the leading country with 180 million Instagram users followed by the United States with 170 million Instagram users.

Source: Statista

A lot of companies are looking to shift towards digital marketing, as marketing on social media platforms like Instagram, seems to be a foolproof formula to success. It’s easy to get started, super addictive, and a total hit among Gen Z and millennials.

Many small business owners have started to realize the importance of Instagram marketing and have started promoting their business with an Instagram Business Account. It’s a great plus for businesses with a tight budget, as Instagram helps them build their brand in a cost-effective way.

So, are you ready to promote your business on Instagram and take your business to the next level?

Feel free to take a look at this guide, which takes you through all the crucial steps. Instagram has definitely become one of the leading social media marketing platforms to generate leads and increase sales.

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1. Start With Creating a Stunning Instagram Business Account

If you run a restaurant, wouldn’t you invest some good time and money in making it look visually attractive to draw customers in?

You would, right?

Consider your Instagram Business Account to be the digital footprint of your store. Invest in the aesthetics of your Instagram Business account just like how you would invest in a physical store, and experience the enormous benefits it has on your business.

You have the option to draw customers in with stunning photographs and delightful aesthetics. Why miss out on this wonderful opportunity? There are so many themes to start experimenting with!

Let’s start with the basic steps first.

i) Set Up Your Account

Before starting out, you need to understand the difference between a normal Instagram account and an Instagram Business Account.

A normal Instagram account might suit a normal influencer, but if you have a business, you should definitely consider creating an Instagram Business Account.

Get started by adding your brand name, an interesting photo, and add a short and sweet description of what your business is about, in your bio.

Don’t forget to add a link to the bio. This is the only active link that can serve as a lead to your business site. You can also change the link to some exclusive offers or deals of your products during specific launches.

Tip: You can always customize this link according to your needs based on where you want to direct your followers.

ii) Make Use of the Paid Advertising Tool

Instagram has added a paid advertising tool that helps add a phone number to your bio, so making use of it to promote your business is a no-brainer!!

Optimizing your account with important keywords, for your Instagram business account to show up in the search results is super important. But we’ll address that later.

2. Make Sure Your Posts are Exciting and Intriguing

Are these fears stopping you from taking action?

“What if I run out of worthy content ideas?”

“What if I’m boring?”

“Oh God, what do I post today? I have nothing interesting to share.”

Trust me, at times, our mind complicates things way too much.

As a result, we tend to limit our actions and try to stay within our comfort zone. We fail to experiment and miss out on a lot of the wonderful opportunities out there.

Please, remember, that it might be challenging for any normal person to always try and come up with something interesting.

It’s normal!

Even the greatest content creators having more than a million followers experienced these doubts when they started out. But, they didn’t let these fears prevent them from taking action. They never failed to try and experiment.

So, throw all the negative thoughts away and go ahead in your journey with a positive attitude. You might take some time to understand the online marketing world and get used to it. But, it’s not unachievable. If you keep doing it consistently, you will get the hang of it, and even before you realize it, you’d have already become a pro!

Some key points that would help in crafting interesting posts:

i) Draft a Powerful Content Strategy

In order to promote your business effectively on Instagram,

You need to draft a powerful content strategy where you will have to decide on your content type, theme, style, hashtags, etc.

A quick research of successful competitors’ profiles will give you an idea about-

->What types of posts have increased engagement,

->How often to post,

->What time to post to have active user interaction, etc.

(Note: Please ensure you don’t copy the strategies, just use it to draw a little inspiration to help you understand and analyze your target audience.)

☆  Be Creative

Think out of the box, and make sure you post lifestyle photos and videos relevant to your brand, showcasing your products.

Experiment with click-worthy images and play around with funny or intriguing captions.

Try adding inspiring quotes, success stories, how-to videos, tips, list posts, trending reels, etc. to keep the target audience amused and engaged.

☆  Make Use of the Instagram Story Feature

Instagram stories are a great hit among users. The best part is, it disappears after 24 hours. Pique the curiosity of your target audience by taking funny behind the scene shots.

Your Instagram stories also allow you to make use of features like multiple filters, gifs, etc.

☆  Make Good Use of Stickers

These are interesting graphic elements that can be added to your photos, videos, stories, reels, etc to nudge your users to engage better on your posts.

☆  Post High-Resolution Photos

The power that high-level photographs have in elevating your brand is often underestimated. You definitely wouldn’t want to make that mistake.

Your Instagram profile is all about photos. So, it wouldn’t hurt to invest some money in getting yourself good photographs to showcase your products.

You can also use Instagram editing tools to polish and add some finishing touches to the photos and videos.

ii) Have a Content Calendar

It’s super important to plan and strategize your social media marketing consistently. Having a content calendar will help you organize your plan of action throughout your content marketing journey, thus making the process of promoting your business on Instagram more consistent.

If you’re too busy to draft one on your own, worry not, as there are many social media content calendar templates available online.

3. Optimize Your Instagram Business Account for SEO

You have already gone through the steps to create a stunning Instagram Business Account and have taken note of all the interesting elements that needs to be added.

Now, you just have to optimize it with relevant keywords in the necessary places. A lot of people stress out and start sweating when they hear the word SEO.

Fear not.

Because, once you get familiar with the process, implementing it and tweaking it according to varying needs becomes easy.

But, why is it important to optimize your Instagram Business Account?

Well, the answer is simple.

Optimizing your Instagram Business Account might help you rank higher on the search engine page, generate more prospective leads for your business, and help build a large community of followers.

Some actionable tips you should take care of are,

i) Research and Identify the Keywords

a) Research and identify the keywords that your target audience might search in the search bar.

b) Check whether you’ve chosen primary, short-tail, and long-tail keywords.

Primary keywords are the primary keywords that your target audience will type in their search bars. (Think about the main ones you’d like to rank for.)

Short-tail keywords are keywords not more than three words and are usually very generic and short. It may or may not derive accurate results whereas, long-tail keywords are lengthier keywords that mostly derive specific results in the search bar.

ii) Pick Relevant Hashtags

Hashtags could also be optimized for keywords, as hashtags help tag your content under a specific category.

However, try not to add more than 30 hashtags in a single post, as too many might look cluttered.

iii) Add the Keywords and Hashtags

Once you’ve chosen the keywords you’d like to rank for, be sure to implement them in the following places.

☆ Your Name and Username

Make sure you add the primary keyword in your name, username, and profile name.

☆ Bio

Go ahead and add primary and secondary keywords in your bio with relevant hashtags.

☆ Captions

Try implementing these relevant keywords and hashtags in your captions as well. These help your Instagram Business Account rank higher on Instagram’s Explore page, as it recommends content based on the user’s previous activity on the platform.

☆ Alt text

An alt text is a small text description of your photo. Though Instagram automatically generates this text based on its object recognition technology, optimizing it with the necessary keywords would help you boost the overall performance of your post.  

To write your alt text,

Go to “Advanced settings” -> “Write Alt Text” and add your text.  

Note: Don’t stuff too many keywords all at once, in a single post or paragraph. The optimum range of keyword density is 3%. So the same keyword should not be repeated more than 3 times in a paragraph that is less than 100 words.

iv) Post Content that Encourages Users to Save

Instagram has enabled a “Save button” that helps users to download any posts or photos they like. Having people download your content will help them remember and interact with your posts more.

v) Avoid Black Hat SEO

You might be tempted to take the shorter route ahead and adopt some Black Hat SEO techniques like ‘Link Scheming, ‘Sneaky Redirecting’, Automating Content’, etc to increase your followers.

But, try to stay away from these practices, as they are not advisable.

Always stick to increasing your followers organically.

4. Build a Large Community of Followers

Building a large community of organic followers is definitely not going to happen overnight. It might take some time to reach your ideal target, so have some patience in your journey and try to experiment with different strategies occasionally.

Although optimizing your Instagram Business Account would already help in increasing your followers, it wouldn’t hurt to try these other techniques as well.

i) Connect to Your Other Instagram Accounts

Connecting your Instagram Business account to your other personal accounts will help you get visitors from your own circle. You never know, sometimes people you know might also be in need of your services/ products. So, leaving your circle of friends, family, colleagues, etc out of this journey might not benefit you.

ii) Try Paid Shout-Out and Unpaid Shout-Outs

But, what is paid shout-outs and unpaid shout-outs?

Let me take you through quick examples.

Unpaid Shout-outs

For unpaid shout-outs, you partner with brands having a similar follower count and ask them to promote your services (aim for brands that have your target audience).

Then, you do the same for them as a way of thanking them.

This strategy is usually adopted to boost the chances of increasing the number of followers for both brands.

Paid Shout-outs

On the contrary, paid shout-outs can be carried out if you can afford to spend some money by hiring influencers, who help in advertising the product to a large community of followers.

For example, if you own a skincare brand, you look for influencers who have your target audience as their followers.

In this case, it could be any fashion gurus or make-up artists who have a decent number of followers.

Finally, you pitch these influencers, inquiring them if they’d be willing to promote your skincare products.

iii) Encourage Users to Tag

Users usually click on tags to surf more content that falls under that specific category.

When you tag effectively, you increase your chances of reaching out to new people. It simply helps you find new prospects under that category.

An interesting example:

You might have seen various celebrities post different challenges encouraging their users to participate on their social media handles during their film launches.

Famous Indian celebrities like Hrithik Roshan, Akshay Kumar, Samantha Akkineni, Sonam Kapoor, Anirudh Ravichander, have marketed their films/songs by posting such challenges on their social media handles. They ask people to participate, thus encouraging their followers to share these challenges under the relevant hashtag.

Some famous challenges that went viral include

#bangbangchallenge,

#padmanchallenge,

#highheelschallenge,

#dontrushchallenge,

#vaathistepuchallenge, etc.

All these challenges encouraged tagging and were a successful way of making these tags go viral, spreading the word about the film. An interesting thing to be noted though was, while the film got its reach, the stars got to interact and engage with their followers in an interesting way.

This is the power of effective digital marketing strategies. It has a huge reach if it’s tried and done in a strategic way. That’s why this social media marketing strategy is very popular and continuously adopted by many celebrities.

iv) Engage on Profiles That Has Your Target Audience

Try to hang around where your target audience might hang out. This is a sneaky way of promoting your brand and will give your account visibility across the platform.

The only thing you need to remember though is to try and be genuine in your approach, unlike a pushy salesman trying to push his products across the platform.

5. Engage and Collaborate With Followers

There’s always a big difference between brands who take their customer’s criticism and reviews into account from brands who don’t!

Let me tell you, your frivolous attitude is not going to help here. You’ve got to communicate with your followers.

Consider these simple steps.

i)Reply to Your Comments

Make it a habit to reply to queries and comments within a day or two.

ii) Tag Loyal Followers

Tag loyal followers to some of your posts and thank them for their tags.

Allow them to contribute by letting them post photos, product reviews, or feedback.

They might feel valued and be loyal customers if you reward active followers with a little prize money by conducting interesting contests. This way, the followers feel more connected and happy.

iii) Don’t Forget to Add a Call-To-Action

Call-to-action phrases are phrases that gently nudge the user to take action. For, example, “Order now”, “Get up to 50% off joining now”, “Register now”, are some good call-to-action phrases.

Always post captions by adding interesting questions and clever call-to-action phrases.

iv) Try Posting Surveys

Surveys help in drafting and delivering the type of content that users want.

This strategy could also be used while trying to craft products that align with your target audiences’ needs.

You never know, as sometimes, your followers can help with valuable suggestions too.

v) Make Use of Instagram Live

Depending on the services you offer, you can see if you can use this feature to your advantage.

Going live and interacting with your followers on Instagram will help you connect and engage with them, helping you establish a strong bond. It also builds trust and helps in creating a loyal fan base.

For instance, Instagram Live can be of great help for tutoring services, where tutors can clarify student’s doubts, give students a small description of the courses, etc.

5. Monitor and Analyze Your Growth

e try implementing different techniques every now and then. But what’s the use if we don’t know what worked best for us. That’s why it’s always important to measure and track your growth.

Implementing these simple steps will help you in analyzing your account.

i) Conduct Regular Audits

Remember promoting your Instagram account and generating a substantial amount of prospective leads is a consistent process and not something you execute once and relax

Auditing your Instagram account is required to gain a clear understanding of what’s working and what’s not.

▪ Make a note of the number of active followers who constantly like and share your posts.

▪ Track what kind of posts get more engagement. For instance, if you notice your reels have more engagement on Instagram, you get the idea that your audience enjoys reels more. So, you try and add different styles of trending reels in the future.

▪ Analyze at what time your posts get more clicks, likes, and comments.

ii) Utilize the Comprehensive Analytics Tool

This tool will measure your account’s performance by providing you with valuable inputs like a detailed study of your account’s ‘reach’, ‘impressions’, etc.

You can also get the aid of social media management tools that help track your growth.

Some free Instagram analytics tools are,

• Iconosquare
• Pixlee
• Union Metrics
• Crowdfire
• Instagram Insights, etc.

6. Consistency Is The Key

In order for your Instagram marketing efforts to produce results, you have to try and be consistent. It involves some key steps like nurturing your followers, providing value to them, and improving content visibility.

Let’s discuss these steps in detail below.

i) Nurture the Relationship You Have With Your Followers

Once you’ve built a healthy relationship with your followers, it’s important to nurture and pamper that relationship. 

Unfortunately, a lot of business owners fail to do this and lose the opportunity of turning their followers into successful customers.

Followers feel special to get access to exclusive content. Therefore, consider announcing exclusive deals, offers, etc. on your Instagram page, and remember to pique the audiences’ interest by releasing a short teaser or a video description of products.

Build a trustworthy relationship and engage with them consistently.

ii) Provide Value to Your Audience

Another key point to be taken into account while building trust is to provide your followers with some kind of value. Consider this a way of giving something valuable in return for their time and loyalty towards your brand.

Your Instagram business account shouldn’t be a boring one that pushes their products to their customers without effective strategies.

• Come up with cool ideas to market your content (like creating intriguing teasers of your products before launches).

• Talk about how your products/services stand out and what value you bring to the table.

Remember, Instagram is mostly dominated by the younger generation who like fun, engaging, and interactive stuff.

iii) Improve Content Visibility

Post on a time that’s suitable for your audience and sticks to that timing.

iv) Try to Upload Content Regularly.

Consistency matters, as it increases engagement and helps build your brand presence to a larger audience. But, make sure you’re not compromising on quality.

Maintain a limit and don’t go overboard by posting too many posts in a day. A decent limit would be to post 5 -6 posts a week.

So, what are you waiting for, mate? 

A lot of leading brands have already joined the bandwagon, and have started using Instagram as a marketing platform to generate leads and grow their business.

Trust me, you definitely wouldn’t want to miss out on promoting your business online as digital marketing is considered to be very effective and only expected to grow in the coming years. You wouldn’t want to be left behind, right?

Go ahead and implement these simple steps stated above and promote your business on Instagram effectively.

Happy Instagramming!

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