If you are running a small business, you must be targeting social media for marketing your products to reach a wider audience. But the question that you need to ask yourself is whether your small business marketing idea is working or not?
And if your answer is a NO, then you need to reevaluate your Instagram marketing strategies. To help you folks in this matter, I have gathered eleven Instagram tips that will help boost your engagement.
1. Shoppable Content
The first thing you need to do is make your products shoppable right from the Instagram posts. One way you can do that is by adding the buy now link of the product that you have been posting on Instagram. Doing so reduces the time and effort that a user has to put in to visit your website and then search the product manually.
Also, a direct link gives you the desired visits which you can convert to customers once they are on your site by offering them some first buy offers or coupons.
You can take help from the posts where it is already implemented, for example, Meijorofficial. If you visit their page, you’ll find many shoppable posts in it.
And if you are looking to take the help of various trending pages, then you can use competitive ad analysis tools available in the market such as Poweradspy, Adplexity, etc.
2. Highlight Your Passion
Make sure you are sharing your passion with your audience; show them what inspired you to push your idea into reality or what is the aim of your organization. For example, let’s say you are a startup that makes clothes from recycled fabrics with the help of a new recycling technology, which helps you reduce the amount of waste that is being; thrown into the ocean.
In such a scenario, what you can do is post a picture of your product, highlighting all the environmental benefits it has. You can also mark where and how you have used the recycled materials in your product. Doing so; your audience will be intrigued, and upon seeing the benefits your products bring to the table, they are more likely to purchase it.
Most of the major brands, implement this strategy every so often, and you can see this in their Instagram posts. So, it is high time you start showcasing your passion and let your audience know what inspired you to start your business.
3. A Helping Hand
It is always beneficial to show how your brand is helping people live a better life as it reveals users that you are making an effort towards helping communities and people.
The prime example of this was seen recently, where several clothing brands or organizations started manufacturing masks to meet the high demands of citizens due to the ongoing Pandemic – Coronavirus. This movement was immensely supported by people all over the globe. And due to it, all the small businesses who were helping got recognition on all the social media platforms.
Such recognition increased their brand’s popularity by a large margin, which in turn quadrupled their engagement, thus driving more traffic to their website.
You can also implement a similar strategy for your brand and generate an immense engagement. Although, keep in mind that the engagement level I talked about above happened due to the situation. So, if you are starting your small business marketing now, the results may vary for you, or it may take more time to generate the same result. But, it will get you the desired traffic even if it takes some time.
4. Gather People’s Trust
All your marketing strategies will go waste if you won’t be able to show that people are genuinely using your products, and you can do that by posting UGC (User Generated Content) on Instagram. User-Generated Content is the images or videos which show that people are using your product and actually liking it.
Such posts resonate much better than normal posts with the audience as they know that it is not something that your marketing heads cooked in an office and posted on Instagram. They know it is a completely unique and genuine user response.
So, to gather such posts for your Instagram feed, you can talk to people who are currently using your products and ask them to share their experience, or you can also do a giveaway. You can also interact with your audience and share content they might have posted with your products.
5. Make an Impression
In the Instagram feed, you have only one chance to make an impression. Therefore you have to make your advertisement eye-catchy and captivating. You can do that by adding bright colors, fast-paced screens, and some catchy music. Such types of videos are hugely popular on Instagram, as you all know, with the increasing popularity of apps like Chingari.
I am not saying that you have to implement the same tactics as they are doing in those apps, but given the popularity of such content, you can try the mixture of content. Since it is better to mix the content so; that your audience gets to view a variety of posts.
6. Unboxing Videos
Unboxing videos helps to get rid of the uncertainty that users may have while buying a product from a startup or some small business. Therefore, you must publish some of the unboxing videos of your products. It doesn’t have to be sophisticated or something professional, keep it original and as authentic as possible.
Now, you may have seen hundreds of unboxing videos on Instagram and YouTube. Some of those are done by professionals or by influencers, but for small businesses, I will suggest that you do it yourself and keep it as authentic as possible. It will reduce the ad expenditure and also resonate more with your audiences. You can take the examples of how small business owners that fall under your niche are shooting their unboxing video.
7. BTS: Behind The Scene
You must have seen many popular brands and YouTubers sharing behind the scenes of their work environment, such posts are widely popular and hugely appreciated by audiences. You can also include similar posts in your small business marketing that show how your products are made, or how you are packaging, or how you are distributing packages all around the world.
Currently, all the organizations are showcasing how they are maintaining a healthy and clean environment during this pandemic. You can also do the same for your Instagram posts. Show them how you are maintaining a safe and clean environment for your employees.
8. Educate Audience About Your Products
Being the new player in the market, you need to educate your audience why choosing your product rather than the already existing ones is a better option for them. You need to provide your audience with some solid evidence for choosing your brand.
For example, if you make products for skin care, you can educate your audience, how dry skin may affect their aging process and make them look two times older. Then you can show them trials and results showcasing how your products are the best solution to keep their skin hydrated and moisturized. You get what I am talking about right.
You have to educate the audience and give them a reason to choose your product. If you are struggling, you can take the help of brands like Lakme, and see how they are targeting their audience with similar posts.
9. Be Unpredictable
Traditional ads don’t always work, as there are already hundreds of ads published daily, that follow the same parameters, and people are bound to get bored of watching the same ads again and again. Therefore, sometimes you have to be a little bit unpredictable in order to get people’s attention.
And the best way to do that is to record video or make an ad at the spur-of-the-moment. This way, your content will look all original, and people will surely watch it rather than scrolling past it.
10. Multiple Products
One more thing you can do to gather huge engagement via your small business marketing campaign is to showcase multiple products in your ad instead of one. Multiple products mean the chances of people actually liking your post and clicking on it to visit your website increases. It also helps to gather the attention of a larger group of audiences as compared to a single product post.
One more thing you can do in such posts is to collaborate with other pages or small businesses and promote their products with yours, just like a joint gift guide. This way, you’ll also get exposure to their audience, and your reach will increase.
11. Make an Unexpected and Genuine Statement
As I mentioned in the previous points, users see hundreds of posts and ads daily; therefore, your posts must stand out in the crowd. To make sure your post doesn’t get lost in the abyss of the internet, you can take a counter-intuitive step and make a genuine statement. In doing so, people will be intrigued by your post and will click on it.
Now to make sure you nail the post, you must take the help of pages or businesses that are doing this perfectly, for example, Loreal. If you have seen Loreal ads, you must have noticed that sometimes they begin with a bold statement about the skin like ‘Your skin gets dull after 30’, or something like that. Statements like that grab people’s attention as it is unorthodox and new.
And their ad not just stops there, it continues and tells people how they can stop or reduce their aging process. They also make clear how their products help people achieve that.
Conclusion
The above eleven tips on small business marketing will get you the desired engagement and customers if implemented properly. Make your Instagram posts/ads fun and memorable to stand out in the crowd. You have to show your audience what makes you or your business different from those that are already present and trending.
DepositPhotos – instagram
