Instagram is a perfect platform to get connected with followers. With compelling visuals, it grabs the attention of younger ones to the platform. Along with displaying appealing pictures, brands could set up business profiles that enhance the brand’s goals and purpose, portray products, and gain sales and leads. Businesses can also make use of tools on Instagram to drive sales.

#1. Business Profile on Instagram

At present, there are about 25 million business profiles on Instagram. It is proof that if you want to be competitive on the platform, you need to have an Instagram business profile. Business profiles offer you access to insights data to check the statistics and demographics of the audience. 

Analytical insights let you discover the right audience and their interests. The Instagram business account allows marketers to pay for promoting their products’ posts, where personal accounts have no permission for it. It is easier to change from a personal profile to a business profile on Instagram.

The other great feature includes email, call-to-actions, and links to your business profile on Instagram. That lets the audience get contact details and know directions to your place on Google maps. Businesses have to make sure that the audience can locate them quickly and easily for a comfortable experience.

#2. Share User-generated Content

User-generated content is content gathered from the audience. The posts that are tagged and are with hashtags are a loaded source of content. These contents are like advertising through word-of-mouth. The existing followers create content that displays your product or service to new audiences. When you share pictures with the audience, it makes the post’s creator feel good and shows that you genuinely care about your customers.

Despite that, without your support, some people may be hesitant to post pictures of your product. You will have to entice them with an incentive or rewards like a shot of winning prizes if they share photos featuring your brand or hashtag. 

For instance, you may offer to get featured on your account or an opportunity to win gifts or giveaways. Encourage the audience to make use of your brand’s hashtags to measure your efforts.The content from your existing audience is social proof for probable customers who are still wondering whether to buy or not. Hence, rejoice in your existing audience.

#3. Build a Real and Engaged Following

With the excitement surrounding Instagram right now, it is indeed easy to get caught up in the hype and forget about the essentials. When it comes to driving sales through social media, whether it is Instagram or any other platform, you have to appear genuine. You could buy followers, spam them through DM’s, and put up too much content. 

These may help you increase your followers, but nobody wouldn’t know about you or what you offer, or why they should purchase your product. Rather than employing spammy and straightforward tactics to grow on Instagram, try to build genuine and engaged followers with clever automation. Few tips may include:

• Plan content well in advance and use scheduling tools to automatically post content at a preferred time.  
• Stay engaged by liking, commenting, and engaging with related content posted by the target audience.
• Robotize these processes by using growth services. That way, you will have time to be available on the platform and respond to customers.

#4. Use Hashtags

When you use proper hashtags relevant to your products, you tend to grab the attention of a potential audience that helps boost sales. Using the correct mix-up of hashtags enables the target audience to discover you. 

That way, you could build your brand awareness. Still, it is not easy to get the right combination of hashtags. You have to put your efforts into experimenting with hashtags. Ensure to use well-balanced hashtags that are distinctive and familiar in your posts.

#5. Post Appealing Pictures

As Instagram is a visual-oriented platform, you must predominantly post only excellent pictures.

Preferably, your pictures need to be unique, eye-catching and focus mainly on products you want to promote. The audience must instantly be able to identify your brand when they click on your profile.

Whatever pictures you share on Instagram streamlines your brand and business strategies to bestow authentic brand feel. Suppose your brand is slender and minimal, then it must be slender and minimal on the platform.

Hence, being consistent is the key to success, stick to the aesthetic, and don’t use different voice tones on captions. Let it be simple! Although the real pictures do wonders, sharing stock pictures may add variety to your profile. 

Royalty-free picture websites are available, which lets you find good-quality photos. Bear in mind, the visuals of your brand or products are the first thing people see about your business. Therefore make sure it is fabulous.

#6. Spend money on Instagram ads

Creating Instagram advertisements helps you to acquire new and potential audiences. Spending money on ads is worth it, mainly if you are a new business on Instagram. Plan your ads such that you reach the potential audience that is probably interested in your products.

For example, consider a fashion brand that initiated an ad campaign on the platform to target a female audience aged between 25 to 34. These ads included low-tone pictures and a shop now button that directs the audience to their product page on the website. 

While in the campaign, the brand witnessed additional five-fold sales. Thereby, decreasing 80% of the price per conversion increases the six-fold return on money invested on ads. The takeaway here is that developing an effective strategy could be a game-changer for your brand. 

For an extended period, the problem with Instagram marketing was that brands couldn’t insert links on their posts. Instead, they had to indicate followers to the link in bio and constantly renew the link. But, if you make ads, you could provide links to your website in your posts themselves.

#7. Run Retargeting Instagram Campaigns

To further increase the effectiveness of ads on Instagram, retarget those audiences who have already expressed interest in your product. Retargeting is necessary as it targets particularly those audiences who visited your website without taking any action. You could focus on one product or post carousels to showcase similar products to push customers to the target page.

To begin with, download ‘Facebook Pixel’ and upload the product catalog onto Business Manager. It automatically generates the ads depending on the most viewed products on your site and the product pictures submitted, with Facebook’s backend technology choosing the relevant content based on how you have placed your ads.

#8. Partner with Influencers

Influencers on Instagram are famous personalities that already have a huge fan following. Followers pay attention to their recommendations and advice on brands or products. Hence, it is no surprise that brands are focussing on influencers to market their products.

Since Instagram is a visual-oriented platform, it offers the perfect pathway to engage target people using influencers. The right influencer marketing strategy on Instagram must help you increase brand awareness, boost engagement with massive auto likes on Instagram and acquire enormous returns or conversions. To maximize the sales, provide attractive discount links or promo codes for your potential audience through your influencers. Suppose there are more than one influencers to market your product, then make sure to assign a different code to each to scale their conversions.

Studies show that influencers created through word-of-mouth ads have a 37% more engagement rate compared to paid ads. As a result, influencer marketing is an excellent way to increase your ranking as it enables folks to discuss your product.

#9. Showcase Products in Action

To drive sales, posting good-quality pictures wouldn’t be sufficient to attract people.

Make an impact on the audience’s mind by displaying the experience of using your product. Tailor your pictures and videos such that it conveys a story about your business in action.

Consider, you sell a specific ingredient. You can share photos of dishes that you prepared with the ingredient. In the caption, append the procedure to prepare the dish and mention the right time to enjoy the food. 

Suppose you sell fabrics; you can showcase wearing clothes in multiple ways. Insert a caption that tells how it feels wearing the fabric or arouses the cloth’s texture. Display the product’s inaction by posting how people like and enjoy your brand and making them understand that they also can use and have fun using them.

#10. Request for Open Reviews from Influencers

As influencers are regular consumers, folks trust them easily. Their views and opinions are more authentic than a celebrity promoting your product. Brand’s, to gain the trust of the audience, tend to partner with influencers. You could ask the influencer to be genuine while reviewing your product, though they see negative factors in it. 

Thereby, while an influencer shares negative aspects, it makes the positive factors about the product more genuine. Consumers are aware of the fact that there are pros and cons for every product. Hence, request your influencers to share explicit opinions to gain the trust of the audience.

For instance, consider you are a beauty influencer, you post genuine reviews of some beauty products. You would talk about the outcome of using the product, also whether those outcomes are in line with what the product states. 

Conclusion

With over six hundred million users, Instagram is offering brands an excellent output. The platform is where folks take their passion into a purchase. I hope that using these ideas help you boost sales on the platform.