As we enter 2024, it is time to abandon the same old strategies from last year. But don’t worry, we’re here to help. We’ve put together a list of the 08 coolest marketing strategies that will boost your Instagram follower count.
From Instagram videos to Stories, we’ve got all the tips to help you grow your brand, build community, and build loyalty.
A brief overview of Instagram marketing
Instagram marketing uses in-app content such as photos and videos to spread the message about your company and products, engage with your target audience, create connections with them, and increase their interest in yours to awaken the brand.
Given Instagram’s popularity as a marketing channel, the platform continually helps businesses and customers connect and discover, research, or even purchase products through the app. Instagram marketing is also about leveraging various business-specific features like clickable links, product tags, in-app checkout, and much more.
Now that you know everything about marketing on this platform, it’s time to take a look at 08 Instagram marketing strategies that every business can try in 2024 for better results.
08 Instagram Marketing Strategies
Understand your audience’s wants and needs
First things first: To develop an effective Instagram marketing strategy, you need to understand the wants and needs of your target audience. Your Instagram content should resonate with your followers to increase engagement and reach a wider range of potential followers who can ultimately become your customers.
Once you tailor your Instagram content strategy to your followers, you can achieve better results. Instagram Analytics can simplify the process by helping you measure the performance of your posts and your overall account.
To understand what you’re tracking, you can access Instagram Insights in the app or use third-party tools that offer users advanced Instagram analytics. However you choose to measure it, monitoring the performance of your content is the best way to understand whether it is delivering the desired results for your audience.
Stand out from the crowd with stunning visual content
Focusing primarily on visual content, Instagram has quickly become one of the most popular social networks among visual learners.
Users of the platform download 95 million photos and videos every day. To have a chance of standing out, it’s important to create stunning visual content that stands out in a busy feed.
Use your Instagram Stories wisely
When Instagram introduced an alternative to Snapchat Stories in 2016, this post format quickly became very popular among users. As of January 2019, 500 million people create or view stories on Instagram every day.
With a lifespan of 24 hours, Instagram Stories not only create a sense of urgency among users but also help businesses achieve their goals faster. For example, you can add links to stories or create compelling surveys to better understand your audience. That’s why using Instagram Stories should be part of your Instagram marketing strategy.
There are many ideas for creating featured content for your business profile, such as:
- Announce the launch of a new product
- Show a typical working day in your company
- Publish short interviews with employees
- Report user-generated content
- Offer discounts and limited-time offers
- Organize a contest on Instagram
- Share posts in feeds to increase visibility
- Organize a cover story with influencers on Instagram
- Create compelling Instagram highlights
Want to know the best? You can work on temporary content and story planning to ensure your stories go live when your audience is active and engaged.
Promote products using Instagram Reels
Instagram’s video content is easy to understand and engaging. So it’s no wonder that 91% of Instagram users watch videos on the platform every week.
Since people generally prefer to hold their phones vertically, short but engaging vertical videos like Instagram Reels grab their attention. Additionally, Instagram has introduced Reels as a tactic to compete with TikTok. For this reason, the platform favors Reels in the news feed algorithm, making it a perfect post type to maximize reach and achieve higher engagement rates.
The platform allows users to create videos consisting of multiple clips with audio and effects, making Instagram Reels a great solution for companies looking to attract attention and generate interest in their products.
Optimize your business profile for discoverability
No matter how effective your Instagram marketing strategy is, it doesn’t matter if your content isn’t reaching your audience on the platform. That’s why it’s important to optimize your Instagram profile or business account so that it’s visible.
Once you know how to increase visibility and implement these tactics, you have the opportunity to expand your reach and reach new audiences of potential customers.
Here are some tips to help you optimize your business profile visibility:
- Include keywords in the “Name” and “Biography” sections
- Add an eye-catching profile photo
- Add hashtags and geotags to posts
- Partner with the right influencers and companies to gain visibility
Add social proof with user-generated content
When your customers create content to promote your business or products, you can not only get new content for your business profile but also add social proof and increase brand trust. This is why companies incorporate user-generated content into their Instagram marketing strategy.
For example, you can take inspiration from Levi’s products and repost user-generated content in your Stories. You can then create a highlight album on Instagram Stories where interested followers can see more of your customer content.
Turn your profile into a showcase
Instagram is no longer just a content-posting app; It is a powerful channel for increasing direct sales, especially for e-commerce brands. For what? People spend a lot of time on the platform and enjoy using it to discover products and make purchases.
According to metadata, 83% of users discover new products or services, 81% of them conduct research, and 80% of people use Instagram to decide whether to buy a product or not. It has become an important part of the lead generation funnel.
Knowing its potential, Instagram has many intuitive features that help e-commerce businesses sell and customers buy on the platform. By turning your profile into a storefront, you can influence purchase intent and convert your followers into paying customers.
Here are the steps you need to take to make your profile an effective showcase:
- Link your product catalog to your Instagram profile
- Create shopping posts on Instagram by uploading product photos and videos
- Show your products from different angles
- Add product labels and stickers
- Bring branding to your Instagram shop
Expand your reach with influencer marketing on Instagram
Word of mouth has always been one of the most effective tactics for generating interest in a company or its products. With the rise of social media influencers, 72% of marketers consider Instagram to be one of the top influencer marketing platforms.
Almost all Instagram users follow at least one influencer and we trust their recommendations (assuming it’s an original post). When promoting your products on Instagram, it is a good idea to partner with the right influencers as they can help you achieve the following goals:
- Increase brand loyalty and trust
- Reach a larger group of potential customers
- Recruit new subscribers
- Find more customers on social media
- Create original content on Instagram
