6 Easy Ways to Grow Website Traffic From Instagram

WITH its stunning visuals and easy-to-use platform, it’s no wonder why Instagram is the fastest growing social media app with over 300 million users. When it comes to generating website traffic, Instagram is the perfect solution.

Want to start using Instagram for your business or blog, but aren’t really sure how to go about it? Check out these 6 easy ways to use Instagram to increase your website traffic:

1. Brand consistently across all social media accounts

Brand consistency is essential when it comes to building your business and its website. Why? Because it adds strength to your brand if people are able to recognize it right away. Use the same photo (such as your logo) as your profile picture on all of your social media accounts.

If you have a personal brand, rather than a company brand, consider using an image that is clear and consistent with the message you wish to convey. Headshots, a picture you have taken, an example of your work, or a behind-the-scenes photo – the possibilities go on and on.

2. Pick a username that matches your business name

It’s great to get creative with your branding, but it’s important to use a username similar to your business name to make it easy for people to find you in search results. You may certainly like “WemakethebestcoffeeEVER”, but that really won’t do much for your business. It would be confusing to some people, and it would not stand out in search results as being YOUR business.

Your username should match the username associated with your other social media profiles and branded website. Use the company name (or your name, if you are your own personal brand) for the name. Make sure to include the URL to your website, along with a 150-character bio. You want to get your message across, but not seem too stiff and serious. If you have branded hashtags, this is a great place to include them.

3. Get creative with captions

The captions for your uploaded content should tell a story that engages your audience, and compels them to find out more by clicking through to your website. Get creative with your captions, since they allow you to really give some insight into your image, make it relevant to your followers, and (hopefully) make your followers smile or become interested in what you have to offer. Plus, it’s the best way to tie things back to your business, since you can always include a URL at the end. Learn how to incorporate emjois for added emphasis and to give your captions a more personal touch.

4. Connect with other users

Just like blogging builds a business’ customer-brand relationships, so does engaging with followers on social media.  Since consumers are far more likely to go with a brand they know and trust, you want to engage with other users as much as possible.

There are numerous ways to interact with other Instagram users. Options include everything from tagging other accounts, to sending private messages. Interacting with others will build your brand, increase your audience reach and, boost your website traffic:

Tag others:

Instagram allows you to add tags before you share your content. You just tap the Tag People option, tap on the photo to add a tag, and then type in the user’s name. Once you have tagged other accounts in your content, other users are then able to tap on that photo or video to see who was tagged. This increases audience reach and builds brand-to-brand relationships with others in your industry and/or niche.

Mention others:

This is similar to mentioning on Twitter, and is a great way to generate website traffic and increase your brand’s reach. Type in the @ symbol, followed by the first letter of the user’s  name. This will bring up a list of people to choose from, but you can also just type in the name on your own. You can do this to give a “shoutout” to another company, customer, or brand, or to reply to someone’s comment.

Like the content of others:

Liking other users’ content is a super simple way to connect with other businesses and consumers. Just double-tap the image, or tap the heart button under the post. The user will get a notification that you have done this, and they are likely to check out your profile and return the favor. If you have listed the URL to your website on your profile, this will generate more traffic to your site.

Leave comments:

Leaving a comment is also a great way to connect with others. Just type in a comment hit Send, and you’re good to go! Leave something thoughtful, helpful, or long, and this will ensure your comment and username stands out among the rest.

Share across social media:

One of the best ways to increase your audience reach, while still connecting with others on Instagram, is to connect your profile to your other social media accounts. For example, if you share an Instagram post on Twitter, you can add tags and hashtags to increase your reach and connect with other brands. Not only does this build relationship, but it makes your brand seem more approachable and “in touch” with the popular technology being used by today’s consumers. This is especially important to do if your demographic is in the 18-year-old to 34-year-old range.

5. Develop a unique aesthetic for your brand

Your Instagram is basically a visual portfolio for your brand. How would you describe your business? Before you post a picture, think about whether or not that photo is consistent with your branding. It’s even better if you are able to upload pictures that contain your brand’s colors on a regular basis.

Take a look at the Instagram profiles for large companies, like Starbucks. The branding is consistent, their logo is prominently displayed, and they keep up with the fun-loving, carefree attitude that really sells their product. Whether you have a day full of paperwork, or one that just revolves around Netflix and relaxation, their brand gives the impression that buying one of their delicious drinks will perk up your mood.

Instagram is a visual-based platform so you will need to plan out a consistent, recognizable brand aesthetic. Choose the best filter (or several filters) to use for the majority of your photos. By going with the same look each time, you will establish a recognizable visual identity that will stand out to your followers. The more your brand stands out, the more traffic will be driven to your website.

You will also need to figure out what type of content you want your photos to focus on. A fashion retailer would obviously want to upload pictures of clothes, a café would upload pictures of their coffee or food, and a tattoo shop would upload pictures of their artists’ work. But, what happens if your content is not so obvious?

Think about what you have to offer your customers and/or clients, and find a way to incorporate that into your branding and visual aesthetic. Come up with consistent posting schedules, but stick to only posting 1 to 3 times per day. Be sure to include the name of your business or URL in all of your photos and captions!

6. Use hashtags

It may seem like hashtags are only used by beauty bloggers or twenty-something-year-olds trying to get more “likes” on their selfie. However, if you’re trying to use your Instagram for your business, then using hashtags is an absolute must.

Hashtags originated on Twitter, and have spread to every other social media channel. The hashtag density on Instagram is actually far greater than that of Twitter, because the success of marketing on Instagram depends heavily on effective use of hashtags.

These hashtags organize and catalog the content that is being shared, which furthers the process of people finding content and contributors. For example, a coffee company may post an image of a fancy latte in San Diego, and then use the hashtags “#latte” and “#SanDiego” when they upload the image to Instagram.

By doing this, that image is then cataloged to allow it to be found by users searching for images of lattes and San Diego. This is how users discover new content, new contributors, and new websites – like yours. Once they find this image, they may decide to share it on their own Instagram or other social media platform, and may add some other tags to it. This would further expand the audience reach of that post and, ultimately, increase your website traffic.

As a rule of thumb, include a caption with every bit of content you upload to Instagram, and include hashtags. While Instagram allows you to include up to 30, it’s best to stick to somewhere between five and twelve. In fact, statistics show Instagram posts with 11 or more hashtags have a higher rate of interaction than those with fewer hashtags.

Putting It All Together

Instagram is an incredibly important social network for business owners and bloggers alike. Not only is this visual app great for retailers, restaurants, and agencies, but it’s also great for individuals building a reputation and personal brand. It fits in well with every type of business, and proves to be a great way to generate more website traffic.

In fact, since Instagram is so popular these days, brands without an Instagram presence risk being ignored, thought of as irrelevant or considered outdated. This is especially true among the younger generation of consumers, a demographic that shouldn’t be ignored.

With so many people using Instagram, it’s important to go through the above list of tips for building an Instagram account that will give you the website traffic generation you’re looking for. Implement these tips, and watch your business boost!
What are YOUR favorite Instagram tips? Have you tried anything in particular that has really stood out as a great way to generate more website traffic? Let us know in the comments below!

Source

Instagram Dominates Twitter! How to Use Instagram for Business

 If you're tackling the social media arena as a part of your business strategy, you've probably set out on Facebook and Twitter, and possibly either Google+ or Pinterest. Sound familiar? It's just the way it's been done across the board thus far. 

I'm going to cut right to the chase, and make some hefty claims. Instagram has surpassed Twitter, and the way it's growing, it looks to have its eye on global social media domination. It's getting to the point where you almost have to feel foolish if you aren't using it for your business. 

Hashtags are social megaphones, great for extending exposure. But everyone knows that spamming them on Twitter just leads to less engagement, which is what you should really be after. I'm going to show you how Instagram allows for more exposure without having to sacrifice engagement.

This will be important for all marketers, but if your niche values a younger audience in any way, this is especially important for you!

Part One: WHY Should I Use Instagram for Business?

I'm going to run you through some of the top reasons for why you'd want to Instagram for business. Then, in part two of this post, I'll cover the how of tackling this social arena. 

1. Instagram Surpasses Twitter in User Count

Instagram claims 300 million users while Twitter sits on 288 million. The extreme growth rate of Instagram can't be ignored! 

First things first: The basic user numbers. If you look at the stats that the social networks themselves put out, Instagram has reached 300 million users, while Twitter claims 288 million. 

Monthly users is one thing, but social media moves so much faster than that. So what about users who are active daily? Gregory Ferenstein of VentureBeat has shown in a recent study that Instagram has indeed surpassed Twitter with the percentage of American users that are active daily. 

In fact, only Facebook beats out Instagram for daily users:

I know that 10 percent of Americans using Instagram daily might not seem like a high percentage, and Twitter's 7 percent might not seem like much of a difference, but when you consider how many hundreds of millions of people live in America, these are some weighty numbers to consider! And that's just America, think of all the other Instagram users worldwide. 

In a nutshell? There's a lot of people on Instagram, just waiting for you. Every. Single. Day.

2. It's Not Just User Count: Engagement is Higher Too

On Twitter, any more than 1-2 hashtags per tweet means a drop in engagement. On Instagram, more hashtags usually mean more engagement.

Hashtags are more than just a (somewhat silly sounding) trending phrase, "Hashtag OMG!" They're a way of reaching a much larger audience with a topical post. You don't have to be friends with thousands of people in order for them to see your updates. You just have to add a popular hashtag.

Here's the thought process I went through when considering hashtags...

1. Hashtags show all the people interested in that topic what you've posted.
2. What a great way to spread reach for my posts! I'll use ALL THE HASHTAGS ON TWITTER!
3. People on Twitter don't respond to posts that are spammed with hashtags. I can only use 1-2 per Tweet.
4. My reach feels so limited. If only there was a way I could use lots of hashtags AND increase engagement. 
5. Instagram comes along, and is all: "You can do that here, you know..."
6. #MindBlown

Want some proof? A graph in a post on Buffer by Kevan Lee really shows that "the more the merrier" attitude towards hashtags on Instagram will indeed get you further.

1-2 hashtags? Try 30.

Kevan Lee: "His finding is quite interesting: The more hashtags you use, the more likes your photo will get."

3. Instagram is the Best Network for Reaching a Younger Audience

If any part of your target market is within the 18-29 age group, then Instagram is the best social media choice for you. An interesting post by 19-year-old Andrew Watts, "A Teenager’s View on Social Media, Written by an actual teen" really depicts the social climate for a younger audience:

This point is reinforced by a study done by Business Insider. In this chart, you can see the incredible downward slope of Facebook with US teens, the half-hearted rise and fall of Twitter, and the epic popularity growth of Instagram.

Going forward into the future of social media marketing, this is your audience. The up-and-coming generation is set on Instagram. 

I'd just like to say, this doesn't mean that there aren't people older than 29 on Instagram. It's just that you're most likely to find a solid audience in that age group.

Part Two: HOW to Use Instagram for Business

As with any content or social media guide, your audience is the focus at all times. If you can't give them what they're looking for, they won't look for you.

1. Assess Whether Instagram is Best for Your Brand

When you think about the target market for your brand and the general audience of Instagram, is there any crossover?

You need to think about the compatibility between your website and the user base of Instagram. It could be helpful to ask yourself these questions...

• What do I know about my average site visitor?
• Are they generally older than 30? Or do I have at least some success with people in their 20's or even teens?
• What products do I promote? Are there many images on Instagram based on that type of topic?
• Do my competitors use Instagram? (More on this in the next section!)

If your audience is distinctively over 30, then Instagram might not be worth targeting. You can save time and effort with that tidbit alone. Go to another social network instead.

If, however, you have any audience in their 20s or even teens, then this social environment could very well be important to your brand. Age isn't everything, though! As this is a home of visual media (as opposed to text updates) there are certain niches that thrive more than others. 

A good example of this can be seen in the statistics on Brandwatch. It seems that Instagram is great for fitness sites with a male-majority audience, and also for cosmetics with a female-majority audience.

Once again, that's not to say that these are the only niches that it's good for. You'll have to think about your website audience specifically to figure out whether Instagram is the best for you.

2. Study What Your Competitors are Doing

If your competitors are on Instagram, what do their posts look like? This could be a good place to start planning your own social content.

Studying your competitors on Instagram will give you a fairly good indication of the type of content that's trending in your niche. When I asked freelance writer and social media expert Kristi Hines about the most important element for anyone wanting to use Instagram for business, this point was the focus. 

"The best thing to do when starting out on an Instagram marketing campaign is to see what your competitors are doing first.

After visiting a few of your competitors' profiles, you'll get a good sense for the types of images and videos that get the best response from your target audience.

You'll also see if they use branded hashtags, contests, and other strategies to engage their audience.

I'd also highly recommend a tool called Rival IQ.

It will allow you to quickly research the best your competitors have to offer on Instagram (and other social platforms)."

- Kristi Hines, Freelance Writer

So that's definitely worth looking into. See what your competitors are posting, figure out how effective that reach would be for you, and think about how difficult it would be to create similar media. If it seems worth it, why not give it a go?

3. Try Posting. Measure Success. Adjust Tactics. Rinse and Repeat.

Yep, trial and error. Once you've got an idea of what you're competitors are doing, it's the only way to set out with your own content.

Start small, and try one or two things. Build a list of trending hashtags in your niche (ones your competitors commonly use or similar that have a large following), and then create a couple of images or an easy-to-make short video that target those hashtags. Put them out there, see how it goes. 

There are a lot of tools you can use to track the success of your Instagram campaign, such as Iconosquare. 

Try one that appeals to you, and use it to figure out what works well, and what you could ditch without loss.

I'd love to know: Do you use Instagram for business? Have you found it useful in your niche? Comment below if you do, or if you would like to know if anyone else in your niche has found it to be successful.

Source

How to Grow Your Instagram Following from Zero to Thousands Organically (10 ideas)

According to eMarketer, Instagram could have 26.9 million more US users by 2020, overtaking Facebook, Twitter and every other social media network on record. The social media platform also seems to be enjoying an unprecedented adoption and engagement rates among young adults, resulting in increasing mobile revenues.

If you want to make the most of this social platform, you need to grow your following. Here are 10 ways to grow your Instagram following organically.

Note: The easiest way to execute all of these ideas is by using a social media management tool such as DrumUp that simplifies publishing.

1. Work with locations to maximize exposure

Instagram’s geolocation feature has revolutionized local marketing. Using this feature, users can check what’s happening in any given location, giving local businesses an opportunity to catch their attention. Social media marketers can work with Instagram’s geolocation to maximize exposure for their brand’s content.

Instagram’s geolocation works in different content formats, but before you use any of them, ensure that your store or spot has a labelled location. If it doesn’t have one, you can “Create your location” on Facebook. Once you have, you can use geolocations in hashtags and stickers (on stories), apart from using them typically, as part of every Instagram post.

2. Target low competition hashtags to get featured

When working with keywords and hashtags, it’s not always the best idea to go after the most popular hashtags. For instance, words such as #party and #summer may be more popular, but they won’t do much for your content or Instagram account in the long run. Instead, you can earn more exposure and engagement in your community by using more niche hashtags.

If you’ve noticed, Instagram has a “Trends” section that gets a lot of attention. You can make that section by trending for a specific hashtag. This is more likely when you target a more achievable, less sought-after hashtag. If you aren’t able to identify such opportunities, you could use a tool like Ink361 to do it.

3. Craft the perfect bio describing your unique value proposition

Instagram allows you 160 characters of space to introduce your account to potential followers and win them over. This space can make or break your first impression, so yes, what you say in it matters. Most businesses stick to plain and boring descriptions of what they do, but it’s those who go beyond the basics that stay in followers’ minds.

What do you do? What drives you to do what you do? Why should followers invest any time on you? Answer these questions in a personal, compelling and memorable manner. You don’t have to commit to a particular bio, you can experiment with different ideas and stick with the one that earns you the most attention and compliments. You could use some humor on your bio like Maker’s Mark has.

4. Select an Instagram name with SEO value

It may be tempting to use your own name and make it popular, but don’t do that unless you already have a following on other social networks. Instead, think of keywords related to your niche that people are already searching for. Your account is likely to get a lot of free traffic if you can identify keywords that are also decently popular hashtags.

Getting keywords as Instagram names can be tough, but it’s not impossible. Try and get creative and look for long-tailed keywords or phrases that are a combination of one or more shorter keywords. You can change your Instagram name, so keep testing different names until you find the perfect one.

5. Network and build an Instagram pod to amplify reach

Instagram pods are small, closed groups of pro Instagrammers who help each other boost reach and engagement for Instagram posts. When you publish a post on Instagram, you have a defined window of time to get more exposure for the post before it becomes dated and disappears from all feeds. Pods can help you accomplish that objective.

Many Instagrammers are networking and tieing up with other pros in the same niche, to help each other get access to a large number of Instagrammers. When a participant of the pod publishes a post, he or she DMs the rest of the group requesting them to like/comment and share the posts. The resulting organic engagement improves the individual’s chances of reaching more people and growing their Instagram following.

6. Use hashtags targeted by curator accounts

There exist several Instagram accounts whose sole purpose is to curate content related to certain areas or topics. These accounts typically discover the content they curate by following a bunch of hashtags. You can catch the attention of these curator accounts by consistently using those hashtags on your Instagram posts.

It can be super-hard to get features on the accounts of large curators, who already get thousands of submissions on a daily basis. The key is to find smaller, active communities that are both accessible and worth building relationships with. You can identify such communities by following hashtags yourself and observing the activity of other small Instagrammers in your niche.

7. Run exciting giveaways on a regular basis

Giveaways have always worked wonders for brands who want to grow their email lists. You can use giveaways to get new followers, increase engagement and brand awareness or get exposure among local businesses and like-minded people. The first thing that you should do is decide which giveaway would be enticing enough to your target audience.

However, running a giveaway contest involves a lot of factors that you should consider. Successful giveaway contests have the right hashtag, an attractive prize, means to monitor entries, factors to decide the winner and the right promotion plan. So each of your giveaways should ideally have the right strategy.

8. Identify and participate in trends

Trends attract a lot of attention, which is why it makes sense for Instagram marketers to track and participate in them. When there’s an opportunity for you to align your content with trends, you should, because doing so can dramatically improve your engagement and reach. A good way to do this is by marking events on your calendar in advance, so you never miss participating in one.

If you’re not sure which trends to hop on, start with holidays like #NationalCoffeeDay. It’s important to join these conversations in a meaningful way, else your target audience may make you out for trying too hard to get more eyeballs.

9. Connect your Facebook & other networks to Instagram

If you have a Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn page, or a blog with a following, you may assume that people following you there are already following you on every platform. Here’s news for you – they probably aren’t. By connecting your Facebook and other networks to Instagram, you can get your Instagram posts exposure among all of your followers across platforms.

There are many ways to do this. The simplest would be to connect your Facebook and Instagram, and add social media plugins for all social networks on your website and blog. Once you have, you can cross-post content from one social network to another, depending on what’s possible and not.

10. Work with a marketable theme

This strategy is particularly pertinent to Instagram marketing, because your followers don’t just see your latest post but see all of your posts in grid form. That’s why it’s critical for Instagram marketers to design a theme for each of the brands they manage. The theme can be anything, but it’s best if the theme is visually appealing.

Some Instagrammers use multiple spaces in their grid to create larger images, like pieces of a puzzle. This feature gives you a lot of room for creativity and experimentation. You can use your grid to create something completely fresh, giving your Instagram account visitors something amazing to see.

Wrap

Instagram is probably the best visual social media platform for engagement, and to make the most of the opportunities it provides, you need to step-up your Instagram marketing game. This post provides 10 new ideas that you can use to grow your Instagram following and skyrocket your Instagram marketing results.

Feature image via Freepik.com

Source

5 Experts Share How to Market on Instagram (with Tips & Actual Examples)

According to predicted social media and content marketing trends for 2018, Instagram will overtake Facebook with brand engagement. If you’re a social media manager planning your marketing strategy for 2018, this is the perfect place for you to be. To understand the best ways to market on Instagram, I asked 5 Instagram marketing specialists the following questions.

1. Which 2 content marketing tactics would you suggest to Instagram community managers?
2. Describe 2 of your best Instagram marketing campaigns.
3. Share your 2 best time-saving tips for Instagram marketing.

Apart from suggesting the use of aesthetically pleasing images and relevant hashtags, experts on our panel also suggested employing a reliable social media management tool to save time on Instagram management.

Read further to see what else they had to say.

Deborah Sweeney
CEO
MyCorporation

Expert advice:

Engage with other followers outside of the ones in your feed. Check in with some of your favorite hashtags to find new users. Like their photos, comment, and follow them to develop a rapport together.

“Here are some tips I recommends for successful Instagram marketing:

-Be mindful of where you place hashtags. Rather than clutter a post caption with tons of hashtags, hide hashtags in a separate comment or use line breaks after your comment that look like this: […].
-Use images that are aesthetically pleasing (not salesy or obviously stock images) and credit the photographer of the image if you did not take it.
-Engage with other followers outside of the ones in your feed. Check in with some of your favorite hashtags to find new users. Like their photos, comment, and follow them to develop a rapport together.

We recently started an Instagram Series called “Meet Our Team Monday” where we share a few pictures of a randomly selected employee and write a bio about them in the caption.

Our social media coordinators love interviewing the weekly candidates and have found that the office enjoys getting to know fun facts about their co-workers as well! It is also a great way for the employees to stay engaged with our social media channels and get excited to see who the next pick may be!

In order to save time while Instagram marketing, we encourage you create content in advance and schedule it to be posted through a social media management tool! this will decrease stress and help you to stay organized.”

Lexi Carter
Digital Content Coordinator
Southern Utah University 

Expert advice:
Curate more user-generated content to make your profile genuine and authentic.

“Follow Inspiration Accounts
Instagram can be used in such diverse ways depending on your industry. To discover the right tone for my captions and get ideas for content, I follow over fifty other university accounts. By dissecting other universities’ highly engaging posts, I am able to adapt and implement certain ideas into SUU’s Instagram strategy. Plus, I can quickly calculate engagement rates and compare SUU’s top posts to nationally-recognized universities.

Engage/Utilize Your Audience
Along with following accounts I want to be like, I follow my community and engage with them frequently. I’ve identified key influencers who organically promote events/programs/locations at SUU and around Cedar City and utilize their photography skills for our profile.

By curating user-generated content (and always crediting them in my caption), I cut down on the amount of original content my team needs to create. Our profile is also stronger because the photos are more genuine, organic, and relate directly to my audience.

Here are 2 of our best Instagram marketing campaigns –

School Pride & Location
In almost every post, we try to connect SUU to our beautiful surrounding locations or promote school pride. Our followers on Instagram range from current students, prospective students, alumni, faculty and donors, so by focusing on these broader themes we can reach our entire audience.

Here’s a snap of SUU’s football team winning the Big Sky Championship

Here are our engagement rates for this campaign

(higher education industry standard = 3.5%)
Cedar Sunrise: 15.5%
Big Sky Champs: 18.7%
Aviation Football Field: 10.7%
Campus Sunset: 14.6%
Thor Street Paint: 11.7%
Zion Student: 8.8%

T-Bird Takeover
Instead of partnering with student influencers on our main account, we have created an influencer account called ‘T-Bird Takeover’ (@tbirdtakeover).

Each week, a different student takes over, giving followers a glimpse into their life as a T-Bird. Students highlight their major and academic experience, campus events, study abroad programs, clubs, athletics, study strategies, jobs, etc.

The account gains dozens of new followers each week, mainly students watching their friends takeover or their department represented.

Here are 2 tips to save time while Instagram marketing –

Track hashtags to find content. People who are posting quality photos want them to be found, and so they include various hashtags. If you can identify what those hashtags are, you’ll easily gather user-generated content that you can schedule to post.

Utilize the bookmark feature. I have several folders I save posts to as I’m scrolling. The folder I use most is my SUU-specific posts. It’s so much easier to sort through the content I find and compare photos when it’s all gathered together visually instead of just by URL.

The other folder I use on a daily basis is my ideas folder. I save posts from other universities, companies, and influencers to inspire my photos or captions. Especially for holidays or trending yearly hashtags, it’s so helpful to be able to look back on the best ideas from other people and incorporate them into my strategy.”

Shana Haynie
Co-Founder, COO
Vulpine Interactive

Expert advice:
Post videos and stories regularly. This is a more interactive approach that allows you to be more authentic with your audience.

“While every company has slightly different goals concerning their social media presence, two content marketing tactics I would suggest that Instagram community managers can use are:

a. Using a mix of original images and lifestyle pictures from high-quality stock photography websites.

If you are looking for high levels of engagement, professional photos often receive a lot of likes. While this is just a vanity thing in terms of business goals, Instagram’s algorithm likes engagement and will lift the rest of your account if you continuously receive a high ratio of likes to audience size.

b. Posting videos and stories regularly. This is a more interactive approach that allows you to be more authentic with your audience.
In an Instagram Case Study I recently published, I went into detail about how my agency gained 11,060 targeted followers, 933,000 impressions, and increased website traffic from Instagram by over 300% in 7 months for an eCommerce company (SixThreeZero).

The strategy wasn’t too crazy: we did a deep dive into the brand, their audience and their goals, and came up with a plan to shift their following towards an older audience to align with the people who are actually making purchases from their website.

At the time, they weren’t seeing much traffic from Instagram and they were targeting a much younger audience. But, by the time we parted ways, they were seeing 300% more site visitors and the follower age group had shifted by 10 years.

To do this, we focused heavily on the content, the hashtags, and the posting frequency.

1. We had our client create images with older people in them, and used the description to create engaging content that spoke directly to our main target personas. We also came up with an “every third post” schedule where we alternated between product, user generated content, and lifestyle posts, and this created a really cool column effect on their feed.

2. We did research into the most relevant hashtags to use for the industry, our brand, and reach / engagement, and used these in every post.

3. We kept the posting frequency to 2x per day, every day of the week, in our highest engagement time slots.

Another account that we’ve seen some really great results is also an eCommerce company that sells men’s and women’s sneakers. They came to use with a strong Instagram presence, and in fact, we didn’t take over any of the engagement, posting or content strategy. We just advise on content and run Instagram and Facebook paid ads to help them sell their product, drive traffic to the website, and grow their audience.

For a Halloween ad campaign we ran for them, we launched a slideshow and series of image ads aimed at selling a 50% sale for select shoes on the website. Based on $1,354 in ad spend, we generated $7,874 in revenue across both platforms.

While Facebook did generate the majority of the revenue, our Instagram followers grew rapidly during this time, and we had heightened engagement as well. Our top performing engagement Instagram ad received 17,000+ impressions, 113 link clicks, and 18 add to carts for around $50 of investment.

No one ever said that building an Instagram presence was going to be easy! Here are two ways to save time:

a. Use a social media scheduling tool. My agency uses one to help us plan out content weeks in advance. This is great if you have a strong strategy and have a ton of content that you want to get out there on a consistent basis. It also has some analytics included in the platformto help you figure out your best times to post, which hashtags are being used on your top performing posts, and lets you repost content that you find to your feed without leaving the platform.

b. Hire a virtual assistant to work on your account while you are busy doing other things like content creation. You can set a virtual assistant up with a process and instructions for targeting, and they can search out the appropriate accounts to follow and engage with. You can even supply them with templated messages to send out to specific groups of people depending on the goal you have in mind (follows, event attendance, website visitors, etc). I like to use hashtags and locations as a place to start, but the targeting will depend on your business.”

Harry Hugo
Co-owner
Goat Agency

Expert advice:
Ensure that you have engaging content that resonates with your audience.

“Engaging content should be the top priority for Instagram community managers, so they should create content that is both entertaining and evokes emotional responses.
Content should also be posted regularly, across the newsfeed and stories to ensure you are a sustained voice in your followers feed.
The Malibu Campaign: We curated a ‘Summer Squad’ of 80 influencers to become brand ambassadors for Malibu. These influencers posted multiple times throughout the summer and created an always-on activation for Malibu. Influencers created high-quality, engaging content with Malibu merchandise integrated – positioning Malibu as the go-to drinks brand for the summer. As part of the always-on, summer activation, we had key spikes of activity around the festival season and ‘Pina Colada Day’.

This campaign drove:

152 influencer posts, 94,023 engagements, 2,300,743 reach, 1,241,881 impressions

The Jacobs Creek Campaign: We used a combination of Mummy Bloggers and lifestyle influencers to target the very specific audience. We ran the campaign on Instagram with two hero pieces of content hosted on YouTube to give Jacob’s Creek an abundance of aspirational and aesthetically pleasing content for their own channels. All influencers were carefully briefed to integrate Jacobs’ Creek into their very own Summer Moment to make the campaign look as organic as possible.
This campaign drove:

55 posts, 2,350,394 reach, 113,152 engagements, 697,415 impressions
Saving time is not always a priority for us, ensuring we have good content that resonates with the audience is of higher importance. However, pre-planning the content that will be posted and getting several shots that can be taken at the same time, but posted at separate times can save time on content creation.”

Julia Kennedy
Audience Development Marketing Champion
Museum Hack

Expert advice:
Reply as though your response could go viral.Don’t Treat your followers like a nameless, faceless mass. Take care of your audience by acknowledging their responses, answering their questions, and making them feel important.

“Reply as though your response could go viral. This is the Internet — anything can be shared to the whole world at any time. It’s better to go viral for a stellar customer response than a snippy retort. Take your time when crafting responses. Social media feels like it should be fast, but it’s easier to take a moment to proofread your post and say it right the first time rather than correcting a mistake once something’s already published.

Don’t Treat your followers like a nameless, faceless mass. Take care of your audience by acknowledging their responses, answering their questions, and making them feel important. Create relationships! Don’t over-do it or spam your audience. Your fans and followers are more likely to engage with or share things they find important or informative – and no one likes it when you blow up their newsfeed.

Instagram takeovers can be cheeky and creative. They show a different perspective not only to your followers but your employees will feel like what they do is being valued. Do you have a group jetting off to an important conference? Is the sales team demoing a product in an interesting place? These are perfect instances to hand the Instagram account over to your employees. Let them post photos of their adventures and activities – whatever they think your audience will enjoy. This not only engages your followers in a unique way but allows your employees to show-off a little. Encouraging them to be proud of the work they do, makes all the difference.
Our SF Team took over our Instagram for Halloween to have fans pick the best costumes

We take tons of photos on our tours! To show them off, get some social proof, and to build the relationship with our tour-goers we re-post user submitted photos on a dedicated day, #TourPhotoTuesday. While a big part of the museum experience traditionally requires visitors being physically present to see exhibits and collections, audience engagement is no longer dependent on actually being in the museum. Social media gives organizations the freedom to extend the museum experience to a digital space and break down the physical walls, offering the opportunity to create their own communities of museum-lovers.

Save time by planning – set aside time to create a plan for the week, gather images, and create copy. Use whatever social media planner you use (we love Buffer) for easy quick reminders to post.”

Feature image via Pexels.com

Source