Instagram Strategy: Tips on how to grow your business on Instagram

Is your business practising social media marketing in Nepal?

Social media marketing in Nepal has evolved a lot. Like many brands, you may be considering the importance of social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, and wonder how to grow your business on Instagram. Over the years, these platforms have grown from just social networking sites to major marketing platforms.

Here are the supporting facts about Instagram:

Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users across the globe.
Instagram is one of the fastest growing social media platforms on Earth.
Instagram has a higher engagement rate (about 2.3%) compared to other social media platforms.

Certainly, you can leverage Instagram marketing to learn how to grow your business on Instagram. However, with the increasing number of users, you might find it difficult to get your audience’s attention. If you want to know how to grow your business on Instagram, you have to take the time and effort – planning, editing, posting consistently and engaging with your audience.

In our previous blog, we’ve covered several topics about the scenario of social media marketing in Nepal, that includes Facebook advertising and Instagram marketing. In this article, we share some helpful tips that can educate you on how to grow your business on Instagram.

#1 Set up your business Instagram account

First thing’s first, your business Instagram account should be separate from your personal one.

Keep in mind, when setting up an Instagram account, it’s all about your business and your audience. So you should avoid posting your personal photos and selfies. Because your audience wants to see your brand personality and office culture.

Here are some useful tips for you to set up a business Instagram account:

a. Include a captivating bio

First impression is the last impression. Well, this makes sense everywhere including Instagram as people look at your bio first before they decide to follow you. So how do you create the first impression that makes it last on Instagram?

Firstly, write down an interesting bio that’s appealing to your community you want to reach. Include short information about your brand in your bio and what you do. Also, include a hashtag relevant to your brand.

On Instagram, there is only one option where you can share the link to share your content or redirect to your website. You cannot place a link anywhere else, other than placing it on the “website” section of your profile. Therefore, whenever you create content (blogs, articles, videos), you can put a link on top and direct your audience to your website. Also, don’t forget to add “link in bio” in your caption.

For instance, when you look at Lone Tree Marketing’s Instagram profile, you’ll know that we’re a digital marketing agency. Also, we use relevant hashtags related to our industry and add a link of our latest content in our bio.

b. Choose your brand message wisely and stay consistent with it.

Your brand message speaks a lot about your brand. Your logo, brand name, brand colour should follow a consistent brand guidelines. By staying consistent, your audiences will be more familiar with your brand, and your business becomes more recognizable. You must use the same brand name across all channels. Building a consistent brand message that shows what your brand represents is crucial to increase reach and learn how to grow your business on Instagram.

At Lone Tree Marketing, we use the same brand name across various platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, Twitter, Pinterest and Youtube. We publish content about what we do as a digital marketing agency and stay consistent with our brand message to let our audience know about our brand values.

#2 Craft professional photos appealing to your audiences

Naturally, people are attracted to visual content like images, photos, graphics.

Instagram is an image-centric platform, and it’s become a popular marketing platform for brands. This is backed by science – 90% of the information that our brain processes is visual.

On average, about 60 million photos are uploaded on Instagram every day. This means your content should be unique and appealing with your audience.

Here are some tips to create outstanding images for your Instagram posts:

Craft high-quality images that reflect professionalism and your brand message.
Adjust the ideal size of an image in a square shape with 1080X1080 pixels.
Use a consistent colour theme (colour, element) that represents your brand style.
Post lifestyle content (background, scenes, model) that showcase human personality to your brand. For instance, in Lone Tree Marketing, we post lifestyle content that represents our culture, work life, and employee creativity.
Include images to promote special offers, announcements and giveaway contests related to your product/service. Also, engage with your followers consistently to grow your business on Instagram.
Follow a similar colour contrast and theme so that your post looks uniform.

#3 Include hashtag in the post

To grow your business on Instagram, include hashtags on Instagram posts. This increases the chances of being found among a larger audience. People will discover your content when they search using the hashtag. For instance, if you search on Instagram using “ #lonetreenepal”, you will see Lone Tree Marketing’s post.

Also, we use hashtags such as #digitalmarketing, #inboundmarketing, #contentmarketing and many more. This allows us to be found among our prospective customers who are looking for digital marketing services in Nepal. Moreover, it represents our services, brand identity and what we do as a marketer.

Some useful tips to use hashtag:

Find keywords relevant to your brand and use it as a hashtag.

Research popular and trending hashtags related to your brand. For instance, you can use an analytics app such as iconosquare to research popular hashtags.

To grow your brand on Instagram, get more specific and narrow down options when using a hashtag. For instance, if we use generic term like “#digitalmarketing” (includes post 5,278,405 times), so getting found among our audience is very less. Instead, we use more specific hashtag “#digitalmarketingnepal” (include post 220 times) that increases the chance of getting found among our audiences.

Create your own hashtag. For instance, Kitkat uses the tag #haveabreakhaveakitkat, and encourages their followers to use the hashtag on their post. This strategy helps to increase their followers and raise their brand awareness.

#4 Post-user-generated content

So far, you know creating awesome content is key on how to grow your business on Instagram. But unfortunately, most brands do not capitalise on user-generated content.

User-generated content on Instagram is any photo or video posted by a customer about your product or services. Furthermore, it includes product or company reviews and positive or negative feedback about your brand.

As a brand, you can leverage user-generated content to post on your newsfeed and stories. Here’s an user-generated post by gopro on their newsfeed. You can notice there are several hashtags with credit given to the original post.

Why is user-generated content important for brands?

They resonate more with audiences because they’re created by customers who’re satisfied with your product/service.
They are more trustworthy because they tell about other people’s experience with your brand.
They increase the reach with a large number of audiences.
They are cost effective because brands do not need to spend lots of money for promotion and advertising.

Now, you know user-generated content is the most effective tactic you can apply to grow your brand on Instagram. If you’re thinking about using user-generated content on how to grow your business on Instagram, here are some useful tips for you:

Engage with your followers (comment, direct messages) on a regular basis.
Host a contest with an exciting price so that your followers participate in it.
Choose your campaign or contest with the popular hashtag that represents your brand.
Ask for permission with your followers and post the user-generated content on your Instagram post.

#5 Engage with your audience consistently

According to adweek report, Instagram is the best platform to engage with social media audiences.

The mobile functionality, easy to use features and visual content makes this platform more popular and engaging with audiences. Moreover, brands are leveraging this platform to interact with the audience, enhance customer service, get feedback from customers and many more. As a result, they’re able to convert their visitors into loyal customers.

Instagram changed its algorithm in 2018. The Instagram ranking in the audiences newsfeed is mainly based on your interest in the content, relationship with your followers and timeliness of the post. The new algorithm prioritizes content with higher engagement. So, how do you engage with your audience frequently?

Write an effective caption that opens up a conversation on your post. For example, asking questions, calls to action are some examples that you can use in the caption.

Start a giveaway contest so that you get more followers and increase engagement rate with your post. You can use an eye-catching image with the prize, include it in Instagram stories and post.

Interact with your audiences consistently. Respond to the notification, thank followers for their tags and comments and reply back. This can help you create more loyal followers for your brand.

Looking for social media marketing in Nepal

Lone Tree Marketing provides social media marketing in Nepal according to the needs of our customers. To explore the best ways to integrate social media marketing into your business, please feel free to Contact us. Our team of Social Media Marketing experts at Lone Tree Marketing will love to help to grow your business on Instagram.