What you need to succeed with organic Instagram marketing for your Instagram Business Account.

From utilizing the features of a business account and optimizing your posts, to using social media analytics, in this article, I'll let you test your industry with an Instagram marketing strategy so you can start promoting your business on the platform today.

From Personal to Business: Instagram Business Account

Before you think about your Instagram marketing plan, make sure you have an Instagram business or creator account. If you're willing to take advantage of the proven benefits of using Instagram for marketing, the first thing you need to do is set up your business account.

Instagram Business allows companies of all sizes to create business profiles and promote their content to achieve their goals through the Instagram app. Starting a company profile on Instagram also allows you to provide a direct link to the impressions generated by posts on a specific Instagram page.

Instagram Shopping

Instagram introduced a new e-commerce destination that makes it easy to shop with brands and creators. Instagram launched an e-commerce hub called Instagram Shop, and the company is wooing businesses to create an online store that will work through Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. With a Business Account on Instagram, you can offer an all-in-one online shopping experience.

Shops on Instagram allow you to highlight products directly in your Instagram social media posts and lets your followers purchase products from your online store with a simple tap. On Instagram Stores, products can be tagged the same way you would tag a friend, but instead of tagging them directly, you can tag them in your story. It won't be necessary to tag your friends, family members, or even your own Instagram account with purchasable posts on Instagram. For Instagram Stories, the product can highlight you, which makes them so funny and unique. For more Instagram Shopping tips, check out this post from Hootsuite by Michelle Cyca.

Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories are an excellent way for brands to connect with their audience and market themselves.

Promoting your business can be difficult. Adobe Spark makes it easy. No design experience needed to create stunning social graphics and videos. Pick from beautiful customizable templates that you can easily make your own, then resize them for any social platform in just one click.

With the growing popularity of Instagram marketing, it's the perfect way to connect with dedicated users and get more email subscribers. While those who use Instagram like to connect with brands, the real advantage of using the social media site as a marketing tool is the fact that they really enjoy networked brands.

Instagram Reels

Instagram unveiled a new way to create short, entertaining, informative, and engaging videos in just 15 seconds. Reels is a new feature to create and discover short and entertaining videos on Instagram.

Similar to TikTok, Instagram Reels lets you use hashtags that tend to give your videos a certain amount of interest. The Instagram Reels Explore page shows you all the accounts you follow, trending accounts, and accounts Instagram considers relevant to you.

Suppose you want to use Instagram Reels but want the flexibility of using pre-recorded videos. In that case, you can use a video editing program like Adobe Spark Video to easily modify and optimize your video clips. Scroll down to apply effects and AR filters to your Instagram Reels videos, and scroll up to select from various options for applying effects, such as AR and filters.

Write a caption for your Instagram Reel and choose whether you want to share it with your feed, which will post the video to all Instagram profiles in your feed. Instagram Reels are a nice addition to Instagram's features, and their use can lead to greater engagement by diversifying your audience and creating broader business accounts on Instagram.

Instagram Reels is also a way for brands and businesses to better understand their Instagram community. By creating reel content, brands will find new creative talent that could soon be popular on Instagram.

Measuring Success: Instagram Insights & Google Analytics

Updating your Instagram account to a business profile gives you access to analytics tools like Instagram Insights that measure Instagram's success. You can also use Google Analytics as a hack to measure how much recommendation traffic you've received on Instagram and how it has increased since you worked on an Instagram marketing plan. [Measure the performance of your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media accounts with each one's built-in analytics.]

With Instagram analytics, you can obtain a ton of valuable data and information to understand how your brand is performing on Instagram and how you can improve your results.

Buffer has a wonderful list of Instagram Metrics for you to use. Here is one I often use to calculate the success of my Instagram Marketing:

Rate metrics give you a percentage figure to help you understand a particular metric relative to another metric. For example, engagement rate is the percentage of your followers that has engaged with your Instagram post.

Metric (e.g. number of engagement on a post)
—————————————————————
Follower count when the post was published

The common denominator used for this equation is follower count (i.e. per follower).

Examples: Impression rate, engagement rate, view rate, click rate, exit rate, and completion rate.

In conclusion…

Instagram Marketing Tips:

• Use Instagram Live Stories.

• Add 30 hashtags to your posts and stories.

  • Fun Tip: To avoid “hashtag stuffing,” add your 30 hashtags as a comment on your post.

• Create original [epic] content.

  • Adobe Spark is my favorite for content creation.

• Conduct market research by following hashtags and industry-specific accounts.

• Comment on target market accounts.

You can use all Instagram marketing tools to plan your content in advance, which can give you more time and new ways to grow your business. Post as often as possible — consistently.