Are you using the right hashtag for your Instagram business or brand? Are these hashtags relevant to your brand? Find here.
Being living in an era of change, we all have to master the art of marketing a business. We need to stay updated with the trending methods rather than following the same old traditional methods.
Today, businesses have been picking online promotional methods not because this method is cheap but it has the potential to reach masses.
Today, let us explore the least spoken and discussed social media channel Instagram and understand how it benefits to drive more traffic and sales for your business when used with Hashtags.
It’s observed that Instagram is generally used by business people who have to talk more with images to sell their products like E-com, photographer, travel, etc.
However, it can be used in many creative ways to get your business Branded.
Study shows Instagram has 1.074 billion active users following brand they like or care about.
Brands are leveraging this portal to speak about new and upcoming products and engage their users with them, especially youth.
So, How you can use Instagram for your business/brand?
Before you start with it, you should set your goals i.e.-
- Are you looking to get more business, or
- You want more traffic, or
- Are you working to create awareness for your Brand, or
- Do You want to make your Brand hashtag popular?
Whatever your goal is, predefine it and then make your social media marketing plan.
Like,
- How many posts you will make
- What kind of post do you want to promote
- Hashtag that you will use and etc..
The next step is to research about your competitor, that is
- How often do they post
- What kind of images are getting more likes and comments
- Are they following specific patterns to post like infographics, quote, or random ideas about their business model?
Your research will help you in evaluating how you can be better or different.
Once your primary foundation is set up with all this information, it is time for next step.
Creating your business profile:
Add your business logo and description, which will help the user to know what you stand for. Do not forget to add your business website link or your social profile link, as Instagram grants this place as a clickable link for the users to connect and shop on your site.
The same thing is followed if you are using Instagram for your Personal Branding.
Find your contacts to connect:
Once you have updated your profile, it’s time to get followers and follow people. If you are already into an existing business all you need to do is import your existing Facebook account friends or email contacts to invite them on Instagram or to follow them.
You can also use the search option (a magnifying glass) next to the home icon, on Instagram to discover or explore featured people, groups to follow people based on common interests, by suffixing their name or tags in the search and join the same expanding clan to yours.
Creating Content:
It’s time for action now, we need to start posting content as per our defined social marketing plan for our audiences to make sure they are enjoying and following every bit of posting that we do.
For starters, you can also test content with relevant hashtags to evaluate which time your user is more responsive and when are they more active and what kind of content is driving attention.
Points to remember while creating content
- Make use of an impacting call to action in your post with hashtags
You can add a strong call to action button/ icon in your post to enable the readers to either share/like/buy your product.
Let the impact of your post inject something within themselves that can do wonders to your brand by simply adding words “#like”, “#share”, “#comment” or buy, etc and see the difference or #followus #followme #photooftheday #instalike #instadaily, etc are few more examples.
- Choose the right colors for your post relevant to your content
Well like we all very well know colors in branding play a very vital role for each and every brand. Posts with subtle colors like green/blue/grey etc got more of the limelight compared to gaudy shades of yellow, orange, and pink.
- Good quality images
Don’t forget to keep your photos crystal clear which means choosing an image with good quality pixel rather than a poor quality image that can prove out to turn off for the viewers.
You can later start building content similar to their interest. Your analytics will help you in the evaluation if they are visiting your site for more information.
- Engage with your followers
To keep the traction going on it’s important that you start engaging with followers who are following you. We generally like to do is,
- Start following the user who is following you
- Add likes or comments to their photo to show them we equally love and care for them.
Remember, not to spam your profile but promote only and only about you in their social channels. But instead, focus on building relationships.
“The more you care, the more they share” It’s all about caring and sharing!”
How to use Hashtag for your brand Instagram marketing?
We have been using the hashtag in many of our social accounts like Facebook, Twitter, etc. But the hashtag has a become more popular and important tool while using Instagram.
The Hashtag helps you organize and categorize your post and video for people to search for when they looking for specific information.
Business owners generally fail to know how many hashtags to use on the post and they sometimes land up using irrelevant hashtags.
Instagram has mentioned that we can only use up to 30 hashtags in one post, but it is ideal not to use more than 3 or 4 tags.
We tend to use popular hashtags like #marketing # business #brand but when checked we may have more than 100 million searches for these tags.
If these, hashtags are relevant to your business it’s fine but if not my advice is not to use them as sometimes hashtags are reported as spam and chances are high of getting your account blacklisted.
A famous food supply company Taco Bell uses one or two hashtags to describe their products or event. Like, Taco Bell to attract their user as per day. They post daily event photos with the hashtag #tacobellmonday #tacabelltuesday.
This way they are giving their users fresh content each day with curiosity to look forward to the next post.
Whereas, Starbucks uses 3-4 hashtags for its promotions. Some of their hashtags are not related to their business but they use it to publicise and get user attention.
How to strategize your Hashtag?
Once you have followed all the above steps, it is time to understand how to execute it.
Kind of hashtag to use:
The most important thing to follow while using hashtags would be to:
- Maintain relevance with each defined word.
- Not to overuse hashtags.
- Should relate to your industrial niche.
- Keep the target audience in the hashtag.
- Don’t use someone else’s hashtag, it can create a wrong impression..
- Most important thing is to create your brand-specific hashtag like #sotc #makekytrip. Just keep in mind your hashtags can be easy to remember and should work as brand recall.
Instead of using the only #marketing as your hashtag, you can use #marketingtip, #marketingidea, etc. This way you are making a broad reach for your audience instead of using just one.
Research on your Hashtag:
As discussed earlier, make thorough research first before starting an Instagram account. To find out what kind of tags your competitors are using. Make a list of all those, add some creativity to your tag and then you are ready to go.
You can also use apps like Icon square to find popular hashtags in your niche.
Conclusion: Bonus Tips to use Instagram for driving sales (How to use hashtag for your Instagram Business?)
- Share only POSITIVE images
- Let your passion be reflected in the post you share. Like if you are a shopaholic and run a business supplying different types of shoes, then post about anything and everything that you feel will connect with your followers.
- Add tags to the related user. This will help you gain their attention and possibly their follower’s attention.
- Mix your share of the business post with some entertaining posts. Something that your follower doesn’t feel you’re only talking about business.
- Make cross-promotion – Always share others’ posts or give them likes and comments on their post. This will help you in building a relationship.
- Connect social media like Facebook, Twitter, and some more with your Instagram account. This way you can update your fans and followers everywhere.
To conclude,
Instagram when used with the right hashtag can make your brand reach the right audience and make you drive sales to your business.
