Instagram has developed to be the greatest and one of the most influential social media and marketing platforms today. You can share your views on Instagram and you can also get buyers or viewers for your content, products or services if you use Instagram in the right way. Instagram also works great when it comes to content marketing and paid advertising making it an extremely useful tool for customer service and communication. Instagram has a large number of active monthly users and active business accounts and you can surely win your audience by marketing on Instagram.
Here are some important and effective Instagram marketing trends:
#1 Instagram Story Ads : An Influential Form Of Advertising
If you are on Instagram, you might surely be checking the stories posted by your friends or by the pages/groups that you are following. Instagram stories have become one of the most popular social media features that directly get the reader’s attention. Instagram stories is a great feature for the individual day to day users and it also works great for the advertisers who wish to straightaway communicate with their audience.
It is important to take into consideration that in order to get a proper response from the readers, it is important to create an Instagram story that is well designed and has a good look and feel. If you are marketing your products or services, then your Instagram stories should be impressive, highly targeted and in line with what your target audience expects.
#2 Instagram TV Has A Bright Future
IGTV is a video application created by Instagram. You can easily download it through Google Play or App Store. The IGTV was announced and launched in June 2018, this is a new video platform that is only dedicated to the mobile users. Similar to YouTube and other video websites, IGTV features vertical video playback; therefore, it is ideal for marketers and content makers who are targeting the mobile audience.
A vertical video is shot either with a camera or computer and this video is viewed in a portrait mode. A vertical video creates an image that is taller and not completely wide. Through vertical video playback, Instagram aims at encouraging people to create video content only for the mobile devices. Instagram is aware that people are most likely to use their mobile devices vertically for shooting a video, hence it encourages the vertical format. Instagram TV is going to be an extremely powerful and influential tool and in the coming years. Through this application you can create various videos that show your products or provide information about your services.
Instagram Reels
Instagram has launched the reels section recently. It’s basically a short form video format. You can make reels and post them on instagram. It has created an immense impact on the user experience of Instagram. Nowadays there are millions of users who scroll down the reels section for hours and hours.
Also, you can do the branding of your business through the reels. Thus, it’s a great Instagram trend.
#3 Instagram Shopping
Shopping on Instagram has become a popular feature because of the new shopping post attributes. Features like link in bio, shop now, swipe up, sponsored links, direct links links in images helps in marketing the brands. This feature is in line with the convenient shopping on mobile trend. You can post your product images along with discounts or offers, and provide links for purchasing them. It is important to curate your content well and post it along with visually appealing images that allure the users to buy.
#4 Analyzing The Instagram Data
When we post something on Instagram, we all love to check the views, likes and comments on our pictures and posts. As a business owner, you can get a lot of information through Instagram so that you can promote your products and services excellently. For instance, Instagram provides an ‘Insights’ section which is a new feature in the social media platform that presents the raw data about your posts. You can get a lot of valuable information through this feature which can be used for appropriate business promotion planning and analysis. With the help of Instagram Insights, you get the ability to study the performance of the content at the basic level and this helps you in knowing what works for you and what does not. It is not enough to just simply post updates on your Instagram account, as a brand, you must study the data available for presenting the social media content in a way that gets the maximum response.
#5 Use Of Instagram Influencers To Get More Traffic
Who are Instagram influencers? Instagram influencers are basically Instagram users who have excellent credibility and an impressive number of followers and audience. These Instagram influencers have the capability to influence others with their trustworthiness and authenticity. The influencers of your brand are the users that use your brand hashtag and have a large number of followers. Influencer marketing is a big trend for brand marketing today. Brands send influencers on trips or outings so that they create content that can be shared through social media channels. While planning for content calendars in the new year, make sure to incorporate the user-generated content. If you wish to create an additional buzz for your brand in the year, you must involve the individuals who actively use Instagram and who have a huge number of loyal audience.
#6 Use The Engagement Features On Instagram
Instagram provides a lot of features that make it easier to connect and interact with your audience like asking questions, the emoji slider and starting polls. These features are a little less-explored but if used wisely, they work great in terms of interacting with your audience and to enhance the brand awareness. You can use the ‘questions sticker’ in your stores to get people thinking and replying, it is a fun way to have direct conversations with your Instagram audience.
#7 Focus On Your Instagram Bio
Work on creating a short and smart description of your brand and utilize the story highlights appropriately. If done impressively, this will help in getting clicks to your website’s URL. Your Instagram profile page is the place where you tell people who you are, what you do and why should people like you or follow you. Needless to say this is one of the most crucial elements of your Instagram marketing strategy and you shouldn’t overlook this one.
#8 Creating Offline Experiences
Creating offline experiences is a huge hit when it comes to impressing people. Even if you don’t have a million dollar budget, you can create great and memorable offline experiences for people. This is one of the most important Instagram marketing trends.
How to create an offline experience? All you have to do is create an Instagram worthy décor or basically an Instagram friendly venue for your customers or general people where they can click pictures. If people take pictures, they will share it on their Instagram profile mentioning your brand’s name and this will help you in getting more audience, followers and this will also helps in spreading word of mouth about your brand. You can have a standee or an Instagram frame for people to click pictures like the one shown below:
#9 Go Live
Although it is bit of a challenge to create live content you must do it because it is considered authentic in nature. The live video feature is there on all the major social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram and you must make use of this feature. You can create videos about how your products are made or what your customers feel about your products or about how they are used, anything! You can surely get a competitive edge by going live with your Instagram stories and sharing interesting content through your live videos.
#10 Personalization
As a result of huge amount of information being shared by people every day, it is possible to get insights into all type of data about people behind the screen. This will help you in personalizing your Instagram content for your target audience. You can create content, product information or reviews and emails on the basis of the customer’s purchase history, links clicked, social media updates and other online behavior. For instance, Netflix offers shows that you can watch on the basis of your taste and what you see on Netflix. While shopping online, Amazon shows you a list of products that are similar to the ones that you have purchased before. Similarly, you can use the information about people to create personalized experiences on Instagram as well. At times, it can be challenging and intimidating to create personalized content on the basis of the vast information you have, but don’t give up on your efforts, your followers will surely like the extra efforts you put in for them.
Conclusion
Today, social media is a key ingredient in every marketing strategy. Just like the other social media platforms, Instagram has become a popular and influencing social media platform that is essential in the great scheme of things and cannot be ignored by the marketers. The year is going to be very interesting for all the Instagramers and marketers so make the most of it.
