5 Ways To Use Instagram To Make Money

 

Social networking sites are not just restricted to getting in touch with your friends and family or getting likes on the picture you recently uploaded. Social media portals are now becoming the need of the hour for small as well as big business enterprises. If in case, you thought Instagram was all about snapping a picture, applying filters to it and posting it to your news feed, then you need to read this blog because avoiding Instagram for business promotion and sales is one of the biggest mistakes you are doing right now.  

Instagram has more than 400 million monthly users and this is more than twitter! If you post relevant things and with a purpose or intent then you will see the real impact. According to Iconosquare’s Instagram study 2015, it was seen that 70% of Instagram users looked upon a brand on the platform and more than 62% of the users follow a brand because they like it. By posting right images on Instagram, consumers drink in your marketing message without you going gaga over your sales. This illustrates shoppers do look upon social media portals for references which mean Instagram can help you convert passive customers into confident ones.

But how can you turn Instagram into a powerful business tool? Many people are unfamiliar with on how they can use Instagram for their business. By the end of this article, you will be well-versed with how you can leverage upon Instagram to fill your sales funnel. Let’s see how you can do that…

Techniques to use Instagram for sales

1. Focus on great images

Instagram is all about images. According to the statistics, more than 80 million photos are shared every day on this platform. This is the reason why 96% of fashion brands leverage upon Instagram to filling their sales funnel. Since IG is photo-centric, you need to have high-quality images. If you fail to have great quality images then generating sales via Instagram will backbreaking for you.

• Your priority should be the resolution of the image. No customer or viewer would like to look at a picture that is blurred or difficult to make out. I believe that won’t be something to worry about. In today’s era where we have smartphones with high-quality cameras, having great images is no trouble.
• Images that look user generated or organic are likely to perform better than those the professional ones. This should not imply that your organic photographs can compromise with quality. A low-quality image won’t fetch you good results.
• Scroll through your favorite pages and ask yourself why you follow them? See what kind of images engage you and what images might evoke a response.

2. Start Ads on Instagram

Instagram is used by over 200,000 advertisers to reach out to the customers. Out of them, 75 percent of the advertisers are outside of the US. To create an Instagram ad, you will need to go through Facebook Ad creation tool since IG is owned by Facebook.

• Visit facebook page, go to the ads section, further go to the manager section and start the ad creation process.
• Click on the option ‘send people to your website’
• Reaching upon the format and creative of the ad section, you will see an option that is going to show your ad on Instagram.
• There will be several options, you need to ‘tick’ the option that appears next to the Instagram.
• In case, you want your ad to appear only on Instagram, then ‘untick’ all other options that are shown on the page.
• You might be asked to link your Facebook account to Instagram account while setting up ad.
• Preview to see how your ad has been created.

Sources: www.neilpatel.com

Being done with the ad doesn’t mean you should stop. Experimenting with online advertisements is a way to know what kind of ad works best on that platform. This implies trying different texts and images. Keep a track on how well each of your ads is doing. This helps you analyze on which ads you should double and stop those aren’t results. After trying different formats, you need to try different ad formats. For instance, you can go for carousel format. In this format, you can more than one image withing your ad. Else you can go for video ads which are now trending. Another example could be you can combine your Facebook campaigns with your Instagram campaigns.

3. Build your fan base organically and promote them

One of the ways in which you can generate sales via Instagram is to build your fan base through organic methods which you can later sell. For creating a fan base first you need to analyze what kind of content your target audience likes. You can do this by going through the profiles of those who have the kind of fanbase you would like to build. Search for relevant keywords within Instagram to know what is working the most. There will be a number of profiles from where you can get inspiration. Analyze their images, content style and the types of descriptions that they use. Also, pay special attention to their hashtags. They can take you to closer to your objectives. See which type of posts have been liked the most by audiences.

• When you go through a number of profiles, you get acquainted with what type of work would work well.
• Do this research from a marketer’s point of view. This will help you notice any subtle actions on the ‘inspired profiles’.
• Once you know what kind of content works well for your target audience, create content and post. Copying others’ work won’t benefit you in the long run. However, remember one important rule: Post consistently. Don’t keep your account dead. Constantly putting photos or sharing videos on your account will help you in maintaining a healthy discussion.
• Engagement is important. It is valued by your followers. If you respond to them, it shows you care about their opinions.
• Follow the followers of your competitors. This can attract a fan base. For instance, Richard Lazazzera, a leading online entrepreneur followed 100 of his competitors followers. Furthermore, he liked and commented on their posts. By doing so, he earned a 34% follow back rate.
• The more time and efforts you invest in engaging with potential followers, the higher is the follow back rate. 

Tips for generating sales via Instagram

1. Shout for shout

Find people who share the same foundation like you. By cross promoting each other, you can increase the visibility of both profiles. Once you are done with building community, you can further go on by promoting some offers. For doing this, you can create an image and inform people that you are running a promotion. Place a link in the description.

By posting good quality content along with images, you can convert some sales.

2. Pay for promotion

There is one more option in which you can convert potential customers to confident ones. By paying other Instagram users to promote you, you can do that. Here are two ways in which you can do this

a) Pay people to promote your account.

b) Pay people to promote an image that you can provide them with along with a description and a link. Clicking on this link will take people to things you want to sell.

• For this to happen, you will need to spot people who have a huge fan base and then pay them to spread a word about you.
• It is essential to use images that give organic or personal feel because Instagram users tend to resonate them best.
• Things you need to remember while implementing this strategy:
• the offerings made by you is optimized for conversions.
• Use other forms of traffic as well. For instance, Facebook Ads to create a converting offer. You can then send Instagram traffic once you have something that works.

Constantly track what you are spending and what you are earning. Put in extra efforts to track the types of profiles that are generating results for you. Once you know why certain profiles are working better for you, go for the similar types of profiles. Be sure you are putting good money and efforts into what is working for you.

Instagram is a tricky place to generate sales but once you know how it works, it will definitely be a boon to you. Try these tips and let us know which you find interesting by dropping  a comment below!