Instagram is a great way to expand the engagement and reach of a brand or business. Since its inception in 2010, it is a powerful marketing tool catching people’s eyes through product visuals. Recently, the platform switched into photo-and-video sharing. It makes Instagram even more effective in promoting products and services.
A digital marketing speaker Hong Kong notes that starting an Instagram page is free. From here, brands and businesses can build a significant number of followers without spending a dime. Then come paid ads and sponsorships. They are how brands and businesses can monetize their IG content. If you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon of Instagram marketing yet, here’s how to turn your followers into customers!
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO TURN YOUR INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS INTO CUSTOMERS?
A social media agency Hong Kong highlights that most brands and businesses heavily emphasize building large numbers of followers on Instagram. They focus more on getting comments, likes, and shares. But these types of engagements are just vanity metrics. It means that they never contributed any direct revenue or sales to the brand or business. They are the reasons why it is very vital to convert your Instagram followers into customers. That means revenue and sales to sustain your operations.
Today, Instagram has around 1.41 billion monthly active users. They share millions of photos and videos on the platform every day. Even though they initially intend to connect with others and find ideas and inspiration, Instagrammers have provided more than $24 billion in revenue last 2020. It means that there is lots of opportunity among brands and businesses to grow their assets on Instagram. This, they cannot do if they focus on run-of-the-mill tactics. The key is to get your message in front of your target audiences to set yourself apart. That means converting them as followers and eventually as loyal customers.
GROWING YOUR INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS
Gary Vaynerchuk is a Belarusian-American serial entrepreneur. He is considered one of the leading global minds in digital marketing. Gary is also the author of The $1.80 Instagram Strategy to Grow Your Business or Brand. In this book, Gary laid down a better approach to grow your custom audience on Instagram. He suggested that doing these three steps daily can create micro-connections that can help brands and businesses build active and engaged Instagram followers.
- Find 10 relevant hashtags for your brand, product, or service.
- Search the top 9 Instagram posts for each hashtag.
- Target each post by leaving meaningful comments or your two cents ($0.02) of thoughts.
These three steps boil down to 10 relevant hashtags multiplied by 9 top posts divided by $0.02 of thoughts is equal to the $1.80 effort of building a community on Instagram. Doing this regular action on Instagram can reap 2x, 5x, or 10x growth results. They also continuously engage like-minded people who then go on to become brand evangelists and customers. The $1.80 Instagram strategy is also 50% to 100% cheaper than regular ads spent to grow warm audiences on Instagram.
HOW TO TURN INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS INTO CUSTOMERS?
To turn your Instagram followers into customers, just follow the lead you have implemented in growing your audiences – the $1.80 Instagram strategy.
Create a Custom Audience for Your Instagram Engagement. Under the “Audiences” dashboard of the Ads Manager, click “Create Audience” and select the “Custom Audience” window. The next step is to choose “Instagram Account” as your audience source and select the Instagram professional account you want to use. Make sure that you tick “Everyone Who Engaged with This Professional Account in the Past 365 Days.” You can also choose a name for this group of audience for future reference and then click “Create Audience.” It may take up to 24 hours before you will know the size of your custom audience for your Instagram engagement. Once it is revealed, jot it down as a reference point. Track the growth of such custom audience weekly to assess its growth.
Find 10 Relevant Hashtags for Your Brand, Product, or Service. As you track your retargetable engagement, you will need to find 10 relevant hashtags for your business. Set up a spreadsheet and list all hashtags you are using on your Instagram posts. Navigate Instagram’s Explore tab and start by searching each hashtag. Identify the top 9 relevant Instagram posts for each hashtag. To do so, click each full post and analyze.
- Check the number of followers of the Instagram page.
- Measure their engagement rate (comments, likes, and shares).
- Never include content that is extremely promotional, misleading, or spammy.
- The last thing to do is to know if the post is something you would naturally engage with.
Target each post by leaving meaningful comments or your two cents ($0.02) of thoughts. After getting the top 9 relevant posts on Instagram, you can start engaging in these posts by leaving your two cents of thoughts in the comment section. To make your comments more meaningful, you can ask open-ended questions or share relevant experiences. People who liked, replied to, or share your comments will serve as your captive community. They will fuel the organic growth of your Instagram posts. As you continually engage with them, you can retarget them as audiences in your Instagram ads. Most likely, they will convert as customers when you send them a DM or post visual content.
Reference: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-grow-instagram-following-strategic-plan/