Instagram in a social media app that is used for social media networking and visual media sharing such as photos or videos. Instagram was released on the 6^th of October 2010. The company has stated that the intention of the app is to “capture and share the world’s moments”. As of December 2017, there are more than 1 billion Instagram users worldwide. The Instagram community now includes more than 800 million monthly active users, with over 400 million photos and videos posted daily. As marketers, we know that it can be a great way for businesses all around the world to push their brand and make sure their name is known by as many people as possible.

Many Ways to Target your Audience

There are so many ways to ensure your following is targeted and relevant to your business. You can do this by making use of hashtags that relate to your posts and to your account. More than this, there are services like TaskAnt here, that makes searching for hashtags that much easier. This essentially makes your post searchable and more visible on Instagram. This means that you will gain more followers who are interested in your business and are likely to buy whatever it is you may be selling. Another way to target your audience is to follow people who have similar interest to your account. If you are selling flowers, it would be a good idea to follow people who have interacted with the hashtag “#flowers”.

It’s Big and Free

Instagram is a huge platform with many people active every single day. Unlike traditional marketing or some other social media platforms, Instagram is free. You can have free advertising, to a potentially, extremely large audience. There are people on Instagram who have all kinds of interests and who can make or break many businesses. The key is to post content and then advertise said content to your target audience. Instagram has so many users but there are also many ways to find your specifically targeted audience

Many Forms of Content

On Instagram, you can post many different types of content. At this point in time, Instagram has regular grid posts, which are posts that can either be pictures or videos less than 60s that people can like, comment, share and save. There are stories, which are either pictures or videos that are posted on your profile but will only last 24 hours and then they will disappear. The last form of content is are reels, which are longer videos that people can like, comment and share. It is important to make use of all of these features as some people will enjoy looking at stories more, whilst others will only look at grid posts and some will prefer to look at reels.

Make Use of Influencers

There are well known people on Instagram known as influencers. These people have made a name for themselves of social media, and generally are only well known on a specific social media platform. You can pay a social media influencer or compensate by giving them free products or services to enjoy in exchange for a social media post about your business. This can be extremely helpful as influencers are well, influential and people tend to trust what influencers are advertising and are much more likely to buy from your business if an influencer has advertised your business, and its always good to try out something new for followers. Besides convincing people to buy your product, you are also likely to gain a lot of followers by making use of Instagram influencers, as people will follow who their favourite influencers will tell them to follow.

Users can Shop on the App

Instagram has added a feature in which you can shop on the actual app instead of having to go to another website. It is still recommended that you link your website in your bio and still have that available as an option, however, that fact that Instagram offers a service in which you can sell to consumers directly on the app allows for more people to browse your store and potentially more people to buy from you.