Oh, social networks... what would we do without them? Many people consider them a waste of time, however, they also consume them. Nowadays, social networks are our way of existing and communicating with others even if we do not know each other personally.
Precisely because of this, they are a very useful tool for brands as users can get to know us through them and they will help us reach more people. Would you like to know how you can use Instagram to grow your business? And do it without spending a single euro? Then, stay and read this post.
how to grow on Instagram?
According to the study carried out by We are Social in 2020, Instagram has more than 1,000 million users globally, making it the fourth most used social network in the world. It is also the social network that gained the most new users between March and April 2020 in Spain due to the quarantine by Covid-19: 49% more users.
However, growing on Instagram does not happen overnight. One day you don't create a profile on Instagram and the next day you have 10,000 followers organically and naturally. It is a process in which you have to work, get involved and dedicate time so that your brand gradually positions itself more strongly on social networks.
It is clear that you can grow on instagram in a fast way: buying followers. But it is not advisable because in the end, it won't do us any good. The main intention of social networks is that the followers we have on them end up becoming customers of our brand. Therefore, it won't do us any good to buy 5,000 followers so that people see that we are relevant if none of them will become a future customer.
The main moral of this is that it is preferable to have 100 followers on instagram that can become customers or that the vast majority of them are customers than to have 10,000 fake followers that will not help generate profits for our brand and, therefore, will not grow our business.
The process that we can follow to get a profitable audience on instagram is none other than applying the basic principles of inbound marketing to social networks. You didn't think that these concepts could be related? Well, you were wrong.
When we create an inbound marketing strategy, the three main pillars will be: attract, interact and delight. And this is exactly what we are going to do on social networks:
- Attract new users and convert them into followers of our brand profile.
- Interact with our audience so that followers become customers.
- Delight our new customers so that they feel satisfied and end up recommending our brand (and therefore, our social media profile) to new users.
Now that you know how to gain a profitable audience for your brand, it's time to learn some tips that will help you gain users and interact with them.
Tips to grow on Instagram
- Take care of the quality of your content: Instagram is a social network that focuses mainly on the dissemination of photos and videos through the stories or feed. Therefore, it is important that we take care of the quality of the images we publish as they will mainly be images of our products and must be attractive to our followers. In addition, it is important to know the size in which we are going to publish and adapt our images to it so that when we publish them we do not have to cut a part of them.
- Focus on your subject: It is important that our social network is known for being related to the field we work in or the service we provide. The publications should be in line with our brand, the products we sell, the services we offer and any information related to it. If we start publishing all kinds of content, it will be difficult for the user to know what we do and they will not start following us.
- Create stories with value: Instagram stories have been gaining strength and have become more important than the feed itself. That is why it is important to know how to take advantage of them as they are also a channel that allows us a lot of interaction with our followers. We must know how to choose the content we publish well and do it in a creative way. In addition, although they only last 24 hours on our profile, we can save them in the featured section so that they are kept forever and followers can continue to see them.
- Use hashtags (#): Lately they are less used but it does not mean that they are not equally useful especially when we have a public profile and company. By using hastags related to our brand will help followers every time they search for content related to these searches, we appear. For example, if we have a brand of makeup free of animal testing to use the #maquillajenatural #maquillajevegano can help users looking for something with these characteristics to find us.
- Interact with others: Don't just focus your strategy on your own profile. You can comment on other users' posts, like them or share them on your profile. This way your followers will see that you're there and that you're up to date with the latest trends.
- Create a good description: Just as it is important to put hashtags on your posts, it is also important to put a good description: something short, with a touch of humour (allow yourself to use emojis) and that is relatable to users.
- Respond to your followers' comments: Both in stories and in posts, followers will want to interact with you and they will do so through comments or replies. You have to respond! If you don't, the user will feel that they are not interested in you and therefore, they will also lose interest in your brand.
- Create sweepstakes: Oh, the famous Instagram sweepstakes: let those who have not participated in any of them cast the first stone. If you have done it as a user, now you should know the benefits of creating them as a company. When raffling a product, you can set as conditions to participate that people comment by tagging a friend or share the publication in stories in addition to having to follow your profile. This will help you a lot so that followers who mention other users feel interested in your brand.
- Change your public profile to your company profile: If you haven't done it yet, it's time to take the step. This will be a very useful tool for you as it helps you to know what your audience is like (ages, gender), at what time your followers connect the most and you can publish content, insert the call button to your company from your own profile, etc.
The importance of positioning yourself on social networks
You already know the tips that will help you reach your audience, you already know how to gain followers... Now you just have to get down to work. Positioning yourself on social networks is important because many studies indicate that 50% of Instagram users follow brand accounts or company profiles. That is, half of the people who use Instagram follow their favourite brands or those they find interesting to know the content they publish and keep up to date with all their news.
Therefore, you have to know how to keep up to date with the latest trends and help users to get to know you and to know how to communicate with them because: what is not communicated, does not exist. Go for it!
