A lot of potential lies in using Instagram; from selling products to reaching your target audience, as an  tackleshop it is both necessary and beneficial to take Instagram seriously. 

Gone are the days when Instagram was used only for personal pictures. This article will teach you the basics on making posts, content, and organization when it comes to Instagram.

Table of Contents:

1. Selling on Instagram: Is it effective?
2. Step 1: Profile
3. Step 2: Posting Content
4. Step 3: Advertising
5. Step 4: Content Ideas
6. Step 5: Automating vs. Organizing

Selling on Instagram: Is it effective?

 Did you know, Instagram has the highest conversion rate compared to other social media platforms? Because of this 90% of the world’s biggest brands use Instagram to promote their products. These brands are aware that Instagram is a helpful tool as it can be used to showcase new products, new offers, and even influence viewers to take action by browsing further, sharing posts with the community, and even purchasing products and services. Instagram is exponentially growing, and your competitors will take advantage of that fact, so don’t miss out on this opportunity! 

Step 1: Profile 

The first step to growing your business through Instagram is building a profile that potential customers will see and be attracted to. Putting effort into building and maintaining your profile will put you leagues in front of your competitors. Here are some important things to remember when creating your profile: 

Profile Photo 

Many companies tend to use their logo as a profile picture which works well as it can be easily recognized and linked to your brand. If you choose not to use your logo as a profile picture be sure that the photo you pick is easily associated with your brand. 

The average viewer will come across a business seven times before becoming a customer. Seeing an easily readable logo and recognizable profile photo will prompt them to become committed to you.

The Biography

Be sure to fill out the Bio on your profile as well. Some important things to mention in your bio are who you are and what your mission is. While it is important to be clear and concise, it is also important to make sure you entice the viewer by showcasing the style and personality of your brand in your writing. When writing an introduction, capture the audience by being creative while also including your values and important points.

Profile Name

When choosing a profile name, it is preferable that you use your company name. If your name is long or complicated, try to shorten it and make it simpler for the profile. This will make it easier for users to search for and remember the brand.

Links

Instagram gives you the opportunity to redirect viewers to a page from your profile. Before choosing which page you would like followers and potential customers to sent to, ask yourself: what do I want my visitors to do?

Directing them to your homepage is always an option, keep in mind however that viewers are unlikely to purchase something right away. If you have a blog with interesting content or a video channel that gives more information, feel free to direct them to those as well.

Step 2: Posting Content

Paying attention to the content that you post is crucial; post related images or video that conveys the same message. There are other elements to be aware of when posting content as well, such as:

Analyzing your competitors.

You can learn a lot from your competitors, so it is critical to see which of them are active on Instagram and what kind of content they are posting. By analyzing successful competitors, you can learn which content connects most with their audience, which is your potential audience as well.

While analyzing your competitors, see how they direct viewers to their profile. Do they do it to a web page? Facebook? A newsletter? Twitter? Do they manage to recruit a decent sized audience?

If you don't have any particular competitors, it is worth your time to check out companies that are similar to yours and operate in the same field. While they may not be a direct competitor with your company, by following them you can still gain a wealth of information on how to build a thriving profile and the things you should avoid if they’re failing.

Analyzing your competitors can give you insight on the techniques used to create an excellent profile but don’t follow their exact footsteps. Make sure your content is unique and exciting so that you stand above the crowd while staying within the attitude and style of your company.

Visuals

Visuals are the most powerful content on Instagram. People can become confused if you upload photos that do not have any connections, differ in style, or differ in meaning. To avoid confusion, create a standard by carefully choosing the style of photos you wish to upload, the color scheme you would like to maintain, the filters you would like to apply, and the content you would like to share.

When a person first opens your profile, they should immediately get a feel for your personality and mission of your brand. Keep the following guide in mind when contemplating what visual content to post on your Instagram profile:

1. What type of photos do you want to post? What is meaningful to your brand and significant to potential customers?
2. What look are you going for? Do you want to use filters?
3. What kind of colors do you want to use? Using too many colors can become chaotic, be sure to stick to the colors that are relevant to your brand.
4. What size images do you want to upload? 1080 x 1080 is the recommended upload size.
5. What kind of fonts do you want to use? Fonts can elevate your visual content but make sure it is easily readable!

Posting Frequency

As with other social media gateways, you have to find a frequency of posting that ensures that your followers stay with you. Too many posts too frequently can become bothersome and may result in the loss of potential customers. The biggest brands typically find a good regularity at 1 or 2 posts per day.

What to post? : Some brands, such as ones working in the sports fishing industry work with inspirational content. Other brands may use quotes, everyday life, and educational content to reach their followers. If you are on other forms of social media, begin by using the same type of posts that have been successful for you and convert them into a visual version for your Instagram followers.

Don’t forget about the analytics! An excellent tool for gaining insight into your Instagram activity is Iconosquare. This tool will help you grow on Instagram by allowing you to manage your activity, search for and organize content, schedule and manage posts, and find influencers that will help your brand flourish.

Some essential elements Iconosquare can help monitor:

• Which posts are the most successful?
• Which posts have the most interactions (shares, likes, etc.)?
• How many followers have been gained or lost in a particular time frame?

Timing

While Instagram is used daily by many people, the most active period for users is from Friday to Sunday around 5 p.m. This may hold true for the average Instagram user but make sure to analyze your audience yourself as you may find different data depending on your target audience. Iconosquare provides high-quality data and statistics that will help you determine the best time to post to reach the most people.

Hashtags

For your followers to find your content, it is crucial to use the appropriate hashtags. Instagram users search for content and profiles based on individual tags, and this is the best way to increase your visibility.

 Hashtags work well because the Instagram search engine is used so often. There are free online tools that can help you determine the best hashtags to use for certain keywords. The more relevant your hashtags are, the higher your visibility will be.

While the use of popular hashtags is important, remember to use the names associated with your brand as well. It can even be helpful to create new hashtags, unique to your company so that your audience will be able to find you later. When organizing an event or trip, use keywords that can be tied to you directly to increase both visibility and follower commitment.

Step 3: Advertising

Instagram advertisements are perfect for creating traffic and increasing visibility. While people have become immune to the many of the effects of advertisements over time on other social media platforms such as Facebook, this remains largely untrue for Instagram. This is because brands who post good quality content are identified at first glance.

Make sure your advertisements are accomplishing a purpose. Typically, Instagram ads are used to direct traffic, increase video views, extend a post’s reach, and boost visibility.

On Instagram, there are three types of ads you can utilize: photo, video, and carousel. Carousel is not as highly recommended as the former two types of advertisements because the message is not focused enough. However, this method is still more efficient on Instagram than on your website.

Create a focused message: Present users with a single product, a single, clear call to action, and the link that takes the user directly to the product page.

When optimizing your website, it is imperative to remove factors that will discourage customers from booking a charter or purchasing from your store. Conversion rates are typically lower when multiple products are advertised at the same time, or if the CTA is too general or too confusing.

Instagram has a simple interface so it can be in your best interest to keep things that way: simple. If the purpose of a post is to get people to purchase something, eliminate all of the unnecessary steps and content. For example, if you have a specific offer, make the link take your followers to a simple landing page with the same message and visual elements that they saw in the advertisement so that your Instagram post can be easily associated with your web page.

Step 4: Content Ideas

Instagram is not only great for building your brand but direct selling as well. However, don't try selling anything right off the bat. If you're selling products in the retail fishing industry, don't just post your products on a plain white background. Instead, liven your posts up by placing the product in a real-life situation, showing the customer how it's made or used. Once that is accomplished, you can work on selling the product.

Telling a Story

Instagram posts that tell a story can get more users to understand, relate to, and appreciate your brand. By introducing a customer who swears by your product or an employee that works for your company your brand suddenly becomes that much more reliable and relatable. Delve into your company’s history, daily workflow, present important achievements, or even give users something that they can connect with emotionally. By giving extra information on the “behind the scenes” of your company, users will begin to trust your brand and ultimately become closer and more committed to it.

Creativity

Let your creativity loose! How can you make your products and services interesting? If you have a hard time brainstorming, bring the community into it. Create a game where followers can send in creative pictures of them using the product or participating in the service and integrate these photos and their stories into your interface.

User Generated Content

Utilizing the community and getting them involved helps create a connection that users love. By giving followers a chance to interact and show off your reach will extend even further as everyone loves sharing posts from the community.

For user generated content to be beneficial, however, make sure your brand or products are included in them somehow. The easier it is to relate your brand to a post, the greater the benefit as you’ll get increased recognition and ultimately commitment.

Live Streaming

If you’re organizing an event or service, take the opportunity to live stream to your audience. Live streaming has become popular because many people aren’t able to go to such events in person but would still like to be apart of them. By sharing content about your events such as photos, stories, and updates, it’ll capture the audience’s attention and entice them to continue following you to learn more.

Importance of Influencers

Influencer marketing is incredibly influential on Instagram. By taking an influencer with many followers and presenting him or her on your profile in the appropriate way with content that is relevant to your brand, your audience will become enthusiastic to share this content.

Community Interaction: Competitions

There are several great reasons for organizing a prize competition for your Instagram followers:

• You can promote your competition and your content with influencer marketing.
• User generated content has an extended reach.
• Prizes for your competitions can be presented right away.

Before organizing a prize competition for your followers, make sure you have a set of goals in mind such as: would you like to have more followers? Would you like to reach more people? Do you want to direct people to a particular web page? Do you want to start a trending hashtag?

To make a competition enticing to your followers make sure that you offer something worthwhile to them in return for the posts and shares that they associate with your brand. Some ideas for a worthwhile prize may include a product that is limited edition or a prize that relates to an influencer.

When rewarding the participants in your competition, make sure to republish their posts, celebrate the winners, and tell a story!

Wishpond is a great tool to utilize in organizing competitions. It has an abundance of ideas for competitions ranging from sweepstakes, to photo contests, to hashtag contests and much, much more.

Step 5: Automating vs. Organizing

Constantly providing high-quality content on a daily basis can become tedious and exhausting. There may come times when you forget to publish content when you're too busy, or you've hit a writer's block and don't have any new ideas for content. This is why it is a good idea to come up with enough content beforehand to have later down the road.

Tip: Canva is a great tool for creating stunning social media graphics with millions of images, filters, icons, and fonts. Use professional or product photos and change them up to match your profile’s unique style.

Another great tool that will help you in your Instagram marketing is Later. While it will not be able to post for you, it will keep track of what, when, and how you should post. Later will manage your content by creating a calendar, storing and organizing your visual content in a library in which you can group and label your media, and it will also help you search and repost other engaging content from the community that can be associated with your brand.

It is important to make sure that when setting up content to be posted that you mix it up a little bit. Don't post a bunch of product photos consecutively, instead create different categories to diversify your posts to keep users engaged and to serve the needs of every follower.

Instagram is a social media network, and it is important to interact with your followers. You need to show users that you have a presence by taking to the comments and answering messages just as you would on any other social media platform. The best way to organize this effort is to set aside a desired amount of time - say, 30 minutes - per day to answer questions and messages that have come in. By reaching back out to your audience, you are bringing your brand closer to them, and they will feel that you are more committed to them which in turn will make them more committed to you.

While you cannot set up automated posting on Instagram, there is an application called Letsell.it that will present you with a sort of bypass. Not only will this application extend your influence by reaching users that you were unable to get to before, but it also has a useful tool for keeping in touch with your customers.

Say No to Stock Photos

Instagram focuses on unique, interesting, and relevant visual content so if you want to successfully grow your brand on this platform forget about using stock images. By using a stock photo, users will assume that you were not willing to invest the time and effort into giving them the best visual content that you can offer on a platform where that’s what matters most.

Tip: If you can afford to hire a professional photographer, definitely utilize it! While they may be more expensive, the payoff will show in the performance of your high-quality visual content on social media. If you want to create a schedule of posting one or two times per day, you can plan to have several months of content created ahead of time for a relatively inexpensive price.

Instagram is a platform where unique and intriguing pictures flourish, so it is imperative to put much effort into creating this visual content for users, so it will transfer into a higher conversion rate for you.

You’ve got this!

Creating an Instagram profile should be a breeze if you follow these important steps and tips. Not only is Instagram a great tool to utilize in building your brand and extending your reach but it will also help your income flourish as well. Just remember to keep organized, stay simple yet unique, create diversified content, and connect with your followers!