Anna Maria Richards
With over 3.5 billion users of social media worldwide, it is no secret that the social media industry has had an immense impact on how businesses attract and communicate with their audience. Offering a variety of platforms that can be used in tandem, innovation, and creativity, as well as an excellent understanding of the demographics of a brand’s followers, are central to effective marketing that reaches billions. Utilizing platforms such as YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram to promote products and services is key to any business success, with Instagram being the platform of choice because of its ability to visually connect a brand with its followers. This platform is your ticket to success, especially if you use growth services like Growthoid to get more Instagram followers. These services make things easier for you by targeting real, active followers that will turn into your customers.
Developing a strong online presence can be daunting, and in this article, we will give you a few valuable tips to grow your brand on social media.
Creating powerful content
Given that the majority of social media consumers are millennials and Gen Z’s, it stands to reason that Instagram would be the preferred platform because of its visual attraction. Instagram can however go beyond visuals to highlight a brand’s vision, mission, and goals. In order to create a compelling presence, a brand needs to be consistent in posting high-quality content that piques the interest of its followers. Creative content is key to continuous engagement, and posts can be created and scheduled in advance. However, advertisements are imperative when it comes to reaching an audience that does not follow your brand. With innovative targeted advertisements, specific demographics and locations can be targeted to feeds outside of your normal base, and these can link directly to your landing page. An added benefit of using both Facebook and Instagram by linking these two platforms is that you maximize your reach since advertisements posted to Instagram can be automatically posted to Facebook as well.
Use a hashtag
Instagram generates approximately 95 million photos each day, and the hashtag system is designed to deliver content to the right people. The power of the hashtag on your posts cannot be undermined and it serves to increase engagement, attract followers and strengthen your brand’s image. As with everything, a good marketing strategy is key, and knowing when to use a hashtag will result in increased interest, retainment, and ultimately, growth.
There are a variety of ways in which a hashtag can be effectively used, and both too little or overuse can be detrimental. Instagram does afford the opportunity of searching for the most popular hashtags, and you must look at what your competitors are using while keeping in mind that most brands use less than 7 hashtags per post. A good guide is to use a specific hashtag that applies to a target audience and clearly defines their need. This narrows down the options available to them and creates a niche for the item being searched for. When creating hashtags for brand campaigns, originality matters. You want something unique that will make your brand easily identifiable.
Videos
Over 4 billion online videos are watched per day, and at least a third of shoppers purchase a product after watching a video. It is evident that video advertisements convert to sales, and provide extensive reach given that they are shared. In addition, videos rank high in search engines, making these businesses more findable than those that do not utilize video. Ideally, to retain interest, marketing videos should be under 2 minutes long, with the average business video at 6 minutes. On Instagram however, it was found that videos that are on average 26 seconds long received the most views.
Content Calendar
It can seem overwhelming to ensure a regular flow of content with these tips in mind, and we strongly suggest utilizing a tool such as a content calendar to control your posts. This will help to keep track of content creation, workflow and to monitor publication dates.
Using what is available at your fingertips effectively is the best way to grow your business’s online presence. It pays to invest a little more at the beginning, especially in terms of time and expertise. Clear planning and execution are key, and while it’s evident that great content is imperative, managing this efficiently with the use of a content calendar could be the difference between converting sales and losing potential clients.
