Marketing to 2 billion average monthly users shouldn’t be hard, correct?…..
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WRONG.
B2B brands find it hard to execute a solid, ROI-centric Instagram marketing strategy. For most, having an active Instagram account for business is just like “eating oatmeals” — stale, boring, and repetitive. It’s healthy if you can sustain, but it won’t fatten you up on your marketing reach and engagement if you fall short of a hyperactive Instagram marketing strategy to show for your ideas. For us at Marketing Technology Insights, an Instagram Marketing Strategy in 2024 can be summed up in an “A-B-C-D-E” framework.
A, for Activity: How frequently do you post on Instagram?
B, for Branding: Do you have a strong brand image that people can connect to?
C, for Consistency and Creativity: Do you have a creative Instagram content management team that consistently publishes on the platform?
D, for Data Insights: How do you analyze the trends and keywords relevant to the Instagram audience?
E, the most important, for Engagement: Are you engaging with your followers and audience?
One of the most impactful ways in which you can market your business digitally is by using Instagram. With over 1 billion active users, Instagram provides a huge audience base for businesses of all sizes to reach their audience and connect with them on a personal level. But the key to good business lies in using the platform efficiently – by creating engaging content that appeals to your target demographic and drives conversions.
In this article, we’ll try to break down the basics of Instagram – the key strategies, algorithms, and 2024 Instagram updates that will provide you with practical tips to make it work for you.
What is the Instagram Marketing Strategy for 2024?
The Instagram marketing strategy for 2024 focuses on several key trends and best practices that can help brands and influencers maximize their reach and engagement on the platform. Let’s quickly drive through them before we move to a more detailed account of how to use them for your business.
- Enhanced SEO: SEO never loses its relevancy in the world of Digital marketing. Certainly then, one of the key Instagram marketing strategies for 2024 involves optimizing profiles and content for searchability. This necessitates using relevant keywords in your bio and captions, as well as focusing on niche hashtags rather than the most popular ones to target specific audiences more effectively.
- Focus on Community: You can buy followers – there are so many agencies out there that can help you achieve those numbers. But you can’t buy a close-knit, like-minded niche community – you’ll have to build one. It can be done by utilizing features like Close Friends and Broadcast Channels to create a sense of exclusivity and a deeper connection with your audience.
- Collaborations: Instagram influencers are SMEs, or digital celebrities with a loyal fan following. Partnering with digital content creators or brands through collab posts can significantly expand your reach. These posts allow multiple accounts to share the same content, pooling their audiences and boosting engagement metrics.
- Interactive Stories: Use Instagram Stories to engage with your audience through interactive stickers such as polls, quizzes, and question boxes. These tools can help you understand your audience better and foster more interaction.
- Reels and Trending Audio: A Social insider study found that Reels see an average reach rate of 30.81%. Make the best of Reels by incorporating trending audio and creating dynamic, engaging content. Adding text and captions to Reels is also important to make them accessible and engaging for viewers who watch without sound.
- Link in Bio Tools: Utilize the link in your bio to drive traffic to important content, whether it’s a blog, shop, or other platforms. Tools like Linkin.bio can create a landing page with multiple links to guide your audience effectively.
- Creator-Led Content: Draw inspiration from successful creators. Brands should adopt a more authentic and less polished style to resonate better with audiences, similar to popular content creators.
- Live Streaming: Instagram Live is expected to gain popularity again, especially with new features like Instagram Live Producer, which supports advanced streaming setups with multiple cameras and microphones.
- User-Generated Content (UGC): Encourage and leverage UGC to build social proof and community engagement. Highlighting content created by your followers can create a more authentic connection with your audience.
- Photo Dumps and Imperfect Aesthetics: The trend of sharing less filtered, more candid content continues to be popular. Embrace this by posting photo dumps and behind-the-scenes content to create a relatable and authentic brand image.
By focusing on these Instagram marketing strategies, brands, and influencers can enhance their presence in 2024, fostering stronger connections with their audience and achieving greater engagement and growth.
How to sell on Instagram in 2024 (for small businesses)
There are over 200 million business profiles on Instagram.
Selling on Instagram in 2024 involves leveraging the platform’s latest features and trends to maximize visibility and engagement. Here are some strategies to effectively sell on Instagram:
- Optimize Your Profile: What do you do when you meet someone for the first time? You talk about what you do right?
Likewise, your bio is the first glimpse of what you (or your business) are and what users can expect from your page. A clear bio that states what your business offers and includes a call to action (CTA). Use a recognizable logo or a professional photo for your profile picture. There are tools like Linkin.bio or Linktree that you can use to create a landing page with multiple links, directing followers to your shop, blog, or other important pages.
- Use Instagram Shopping: Did you know that you can directly shop from Instagram? Well, Instagram also offers an e-shopping experience. As a business, you can tag your products directly in your posts and Stories to allow users to shop seamlessly without leaving Instagram. You can set up a shop where you can regularly update your product catalog and utilize high-quality images and detailed descriptions.
- Create Engaging Content: Reels as notorious of fame as they are, are still super popular and their audience is only growing. Why not utilize the best of it to create short, engaging content showing your products or services in action? And don’t forget to add trending music to it to make it more discoverable.
35% consumers prefer types of Stories with a mix of photos, videos and text.
Besides Reels, there are other interactive features like polls, quizzes, and question stickers to engage with your audience and drive traffic to your business. You can take this further to the level of social proof by encouraging your customers to share their experiences with your products and repost their content.
- Leverage Influencer Partnerships: Instagram influencers are huge! Their reach is unprecedented and their audiences are niche. You can partner with such influencers to reach a broader audience. Use collab posts to share the same content and maximize engagement from both audiences.
Alternatively, you can Implement affiliate programs to incentivize influencers and customers to promote your products in exchange for a commission on sales.
- Utilize Instagram Ads: Instagram has one of the most robust ad targeting options to reach potential customers based on their interests, behaviors, and demographics. Use them to their best capabilities. Take the help of an expert if you are looking for some serious business. For example, shoppable ads on the platform allow users to purchase products directly from the ad itself.
- Engage with Your Community: What works for a physical store also works online – customer relationships. It’s evergreen and it will ever be, so actively engage with your followers by responding to their comments and messages. This helps build a loyal community and increases trust in your brand. Use Instagram Live to showcase new products, host Q&A sessions, or provide behind-the-scenes content. Live interactions can boost engagement and drive sales .
- Optimize for SEO: SEO is a must-have tactic to gain traction on Instagram. When you do some research and use relevant keywords and hashtags in your captions, they can greatly help improve the discoverability of your posts.
You can use alt text to describe your images to improve accessibility and SEO scores.
- Track and Analyze Performance: Regularly review Instagram Insights to understand what content resonates with your audience and adjust your strategy accordingly. Experiment with different types of content, captions, and posting times to see what works best for driving sales.
By integrating these strategies, businesses can effectively utilize Instagram’s features to enhance their sales efforts and engage with a broader audience in 2024.
Instagram algorithm updates for 2024
There isn’t a single algorithm governing the entire Instagram app. Instead, Instagram employs multiple algorithms tailored to different features like Feed, Explore, Reels, and Stories. While specific details are closely guarded, experts have provided some general insights into how these algorithms function. Here’s a summarized overview:
BONUS Content: How do you go viral on Instagram?
Going viral on Instagram involves a combination of strategic planning, engaging content, and leveraging platform-specific features. Here are some key strategies to help you achieve viral success:
- Make your images visually appealing.
- Use a mix of posts, stories, and reels to cater to various preferences.
- Use popular and trending audio clips in your Reels to boost visibility.
- Keep your content short yet engaging and packed with value or entertainment.
- Use a mix of niche and popular hashtags and also create a unique one for your brand to make it traceable.
- Use polls, quizzes, and question stickers in Stories to engage with your followers and encourage interaction.
- Actively respond to comments and messages to build a community and increase engagement.
- Collaborate with influencers who align with your brand. Their endorsement can help you reach a larger and more engaged audience.
- Use Instagram’s collab post feature to share the same post with another account, doubling the reach and engagement potential.
- Post at Optimal Times and post when they are most active.
- Be consistent in posting.
- Host contests or challenges that encourage followers to create and share their content related to your brand.
- Repost and highlight user-generated content to build community and trust, while diversifying your content pool.
- Use relevant keywords in your captions and alt text to improve your content’s discoverability through Instagram’s search and explore features.
- Add location tags to your posts to reach local audiences and appear in location-based searches.
- Create content that evokes strong emotions, such as humor, nostalgia, inspiration, or excitement– for worse, anger and frustration.
- Share content with audiences to see if they relate to the ideas and see themselves in the stories, making them more likely to be shared.
- Regularly check Instagram Insights to understand which types of content perform best and adjust your strategy accordingly.
- Experiment with different types of content, posting times, and engagement tactics to see what works best for your audience.
By consistently applying these strategies and staying adaptable to new trends and features, you can increase your chances of creating viral content on Instagram.
