Learning to use Instagram for Business

29Include Your Location in the Bio InformationThis is particularly important for starters on Instagram. Make it clear for your audience from the beginning where you are located. With the new Instagram, you are able to fill inyour current location in the process of filling in your bio information. Providing accurate information regarding your location on you bio helps your followers identify your location. It is important to note that there are a number of advantages that comewith providing the right information about your current location of operation.For businesses, accurate locations allow followers to determine whether they are able to gain from your business or not depending on proximity. With the right information regarding your location on your bio, you are able to attract the right and relevant audiences who will not only like and comment on your images but purchase the products your brand is offering. This implies that accurate location information on your bio will ensure that you attract followers who will be close enough to buy the products and/or services you are offering. Additionally, providing the right information regarding your area of operation will help you identify your competitors in the same market niche.With this information, you are able to plan accordingly on how to counter the influence of your competitors in the same market.As a matter of fact, the correct information regarding your current location also authenticates your business amongst your existing and potential customers. While your marketing efforts might be based on Instagram, it may not necessarily need your location, the people you expect to attract through your promotional efforts need to be certain that you brand is credible and authentic. Providing the right information

30regarding your location is one way of authenticatingnot only your brand but also yourself amongst your followers. You need to earn the trust of your followers and by sharing your location with them helps achieve this. Therefore, you need to make an attempt of including your location of operation on your Instagram bio with the intention of winning the trust of your followers as you go ahead with your promotional efforts.

31Follow Celebrities and Notable FiguresThis concept is almost similar to following other well established but related businesses as already mentioned above. However, the only difference in this case is that you will be following individuals as opposed to brands and businesses. Virtually all celebrities and notable figures in the contemporary societies have Instagram backing. They command a large audience on this social media platform. As a brand, you can follow these celebrities in an attempt to win the support of their followers. This has worked for a number of upcoming businesses on Instagram and will definitely work for you if approached from the right angle.While this strategy might sound easy, you should be cognizant of the fact that getting audiencefrom celebrities requires persistence and patience. The outcomes of this strategy are not immediate but they surely are long-lasting once you succeed. Taking advantage of the audiences celebrities have for your personal gain can only be achieved by constantly liking and commenting on their posts. On most occasions, celebrities and their audiences will not ignore your efforts forever. A time will reach when these notable public figures will recognize your efforts. This happens particularly when they find your promotional materials relevant to their personal interests.In order to win the hearts of celebrities and notable public figures, you should take your time to study their posts in order to identify their specific desires and interest. Ensure that you are keen enough to recognize what might piss them off as well. After a comprehensive analysis of these trends, you can go ahead and forward seductive posts that will capture the interests of these celebrities. It is highly likely that they will follow you back if they are interested in your content.

32This will therefore mark a turning point in your Instagram marketing efforts because the followers of these celebrities will come rushing to your Instagram page.Following celebrities and other notable public figures sounds lucrative especially after noting the varied advantages associated with this strategy. However, you must be vigilant while taking up this task. It is imperative to follow celebrities who are relevant to your brand. Do not go ahead and followcelebrities simply because they have managed to cultivate an enormous following for themselves. You ought to ensure that the operations of these celebrities go hand in hand with the products and services you intend to promote through your Instagram promotional efforts. It is only through this that you can achieve the desired results from using celebrities’ and other notable public figures’ following to achieve your marketing goals. As a result of this, making use of networks of celebrities and other notable public figures is an effective way of succeeding in business Instagram marketing but only if done in the right way.

33Build Partnership With the Local Brands in Your Business NicheOn most occasions, people have always viewed competitors as enemies in business while this is not the case. With Instagram marketing, your competitors can turn out to be your most valuable allies. The fact that they might be promoting and selling the same products and services as you own does not necessarily mean you should hate them. You can take advantage of their presence in your market niche to achieve your promotional efforts on Instagram. With a cordial relationship with your competitors, you are able to leverage their support and use their existing networks to your advantage.Partnering with your competition in an attempt to meet marketing goals on Instagram can involve reaching out to them with the aim of cross-promoting each other’s brands. When this is properly executed, it amounts to a win-win situation in which everyone gains on comparatively equal proportions. It is important to note that this intuitive kills two birds with a single stone because it not only enhances the Instagram visibility of both brands involved but also reinforces a sense of togetherness in the business niche despite being evident competitors. Drawing from this, you can further your business promotional efforts on Instagram by partnering and cross-posting content on both your pages.Partnering with your competitors with the intention of cross-posting each other’s content on Instagram pages is a clever over more of achieving marketing objectives on Instagram. Nonetheless, this strategy might pose a myriad of challenges if not handled with care. For example, the partnering brands must share common interests which are

34increasing their visibility on Instagram. In addition to that, both brands must have related products and services. This isrequired in order to enable the participating brands to make relevant posts on their Instagram pages. One of the most prevalent disadvantages that come with this initiative is the fact that one brand might have a limited number of following while the other might have enormous following. In this case, one of the brands will gain more from the other’s promotional efforts.

35Make Good Use of Photo Map to Promote Your Business on InstagramPhoto Map is an incredible feature that allows you to publicize the exact locations where your photos are taken. This feature works best when you geo-tag the images in relation to the places where they are taken. The feature has been used successfully on other social media platforms like Facebook and is currently one of the newest features on Instagram. With this amazing feature, your followers are able to tell exactly where your photos are taken. Even better, recent studies have found out that photos with geo-tags get over 80% engagement as compared to other ordinary photos. This implies that photos that are amalgamated with geo-tags are more likely to attract engagement from your audience as compared to plain photos. Thus, the use of geo-tags on your Instagram posts can play a significant role in not only wooing traffic to your Instagram page but also ensuring that your audiences participate on your posts accordingly.The use of Photo Map is obviously a major advantage when it comes to telling your audience about the location of your business. It is important to the local marketing perspective because it readily informs your audience about the location of your business. In addition to assisting earning the loyalty and trust of your audience, this provision also authenticates your brand as a one that has a physical location and can be readily accessed. Even though thisfeature helps your followers know your location, you cannot post images from the same location on a daily basis. This is perhaps the only setback with Photo Map. You will at times need to post images from a different location that might not necessarily beyour place of business. The flipside to this, however, is that it could lead to some degree of confusion among followers. In order to avoid

36scenarios such as these, you can make and attempt of using geo-tags only when you are at your desired location of work.

37Come Up With Local Brand AmbassadorsThe social proof of your brand is a powerful tool of confirming to your audience the credibility of the products or services that are offered. Coming up with brand ambassadors for your business is an incredible way of showing social proof of your brand. Brand ambassadors will praise your brand on their Instagram pages with the intention of marketing your brand to their friends. This will definitely promote your brand equity amongst the second level audiences of your brand ambassadors.There are a number of ways that you can implement to transform your regular customers into brand ambassadors. For example, you can make an attempt of encouraging your local consumers to take and post imagesof themselves making use of your products. They can also be encouraged to take photos visiting your product outlets. When they post these images on their Instagram pages, their followers are more likely to develop interest on the brand and the products onoffer. This initiative thus plays a vital role in promoting your business on Instagram.There is one worrying problem that comes with creating brand ambassadors and giving them the freedom to promote your brand on your behalf. Since they are merely customers and have absolutely no shares in your business, there is little surety that these ambassadors will always have the interests of your business at heart. They might gain the trust of your other followers on Instagram and use it against you in future. Despite this challenge, brand ambassadors can be influential when it comes to promoting your brand on Instagram because of the social proof that comes with their engagement in your brand promotion.

38Hold an Offline Event for Your Instagram AudienceOne impeccable way of building your local community on Instagram is holding an offline event. Make an attempt of breaking the online monotony and hold an actual physical event that allows you to meet your Instagram audience face to face. Inviting your Instagram followers to a physical event is highly likely to make them feel recognized by your organization and by you as a person. Additionally, this initiative can make your audience feel like they are part and parcel of your business thereby enhancing their loyalty to your brand. Therefore, you can decide to break the online monotony and treat your Instagram family to a physical event.Offline events can either be held at your place of business or any other location that will accommodate the varied interests of all the stakeholders. While such events might not require specific locations, it is important to note that the offline events you decide to hold for your Instagram family must be relevant to your products and services. What’s more, you must recall and acknowledge that these events act as promotional activities of your brand and hence must always go hand in hand with whatever you are offering at your place of business. This is yet another instance of killing two birds with a single stone. Inviting your Instagram family to an offline even promotes your business. In addition to this, treating your audience to an event that is relevant to your brand also markets your business to your audience.All you need to do is to post a date, time and place of your offlineevent and invite all your Instagram followers to attend. While this is an impeccable initiative of creating brand loyalty amongst your Instagram audiences, it is worth noting that this strategy

39only works for audiences who are close to you. Such events might be very helpful to your audience in terms of monetaryvalue. For this reason, only the followers who will be in a position to come to your event with limited expenses will make it to your function. Unfortunately, those followers who will be required toundergo a considerable expense in order to attend such events might not make it to the events. Therefore, this strategy only works for loyalists who are close to you or your business for that matter.