Some of the most successful brands today use Instagram for business. They have a solid Instagram marketing strategy to reach new audiences and engage with existing customers. They create engaging content regularly, run ad campaigns and sometimes partner with influencers.
As a result of these efforts, these manage to get more out of Instagram and build a strong presence on the platform. This makes a significant difference since people use it to research brands and plan their purchases. According to the latest Instagram stats, 70% of shoppers on the platform look to Instagram for their next purchase.
If this is enough reason to step up your marketing game on the platform, we’re here to help. In this guide, we walk you through the detailed process of using Instagram for business. We cover everything from creating an Instagram Business Account to boosting your sales.
To kick things off, let’s look into the process of creating an Instagram Business profile and the benefits of doing so.
Instagram has evolved from a photo sharing app to a powerful marketing platform for businesses With over 1 billion monthly active users, it provides a huge opportunity to reach new audiences and grow your brand
But how exactly should you use Instagram for business? What features should you take advantage of? How do you stand out from the crowd?
In this comprehensive guide, I’ll cover everything you need to know about using Instagram for business in 2023, including:
- Setting up an Instagram business profile
- Crafting an effective branding strategy
- Posting quality content consistently
- Using Instagram stories and live video
- Running ads and influencer campaigns
- Getting analytics and metrics
- Driving traffic and sales
Let’s dive in!
Setting Up Your Instagram Business Profile
The first step is to convert your personal Instagram account into a business profile. It’s easy to switch over and it unlocks powerful analytics and features.
Here’s how to set up an Instagram business profile:
- Open the Instagram app and go to your profile page
- Tap the three-line menu button in the top right corner
- Select “Settings” from the menu
- Tap “Account” and then “Switch to Professional Account”
- Choose a category that best represents your business
- Accept the Terms of Use and you’re done!
With a business profile, you can now access Instagram Insights to view data on your followers, engagement, website traffic and more.
You also gain access to special business tools like Instagram ads, promoted posts, contact buttons and call-to-action stickers for your Stories.
Crafting Your Instagram Branding Strategy
The best brands on Instagram have a clear and consistent strategy for their visual branding. Put some thought into the look, feel and tone you want for your business on Instagram.
Here are some key elements that make up your Instagram branding:
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Profile Picture: Choose a logo or headshot that represents your brand. Keep it simple and recognizable at small sizes.
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Bio: Use 150 characters to describe what your brand does and your value proposition. Include a call-to-action.
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Name: Keep it short and sweet. Your brand name is ideal if it fits.
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Color Scheme: Pick 1-2 primary colors that you use consistently across your profile.
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Visual Style: Give your photos and videos a consistent editing style with filters, effects and image types.
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Hashtags: Research relevant industry hashtags that fit your brand voice and niche.
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Captions: Craft engaging, valuable captions that sound like your brand and add context.
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Link in Bio: Drive visitors to your website, online store or landing pages.
By defining these brand elements upfront, it will be much easier to stay consistent and stand out with your Instagram marketing.
Posting Quality Content Consistently
High-quality, valuable content is the key to success on Instagram for business. But you need to post consistently to keep your audience engaged.
Here are some best practices to follow:
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Post at least once per day to stay top of mind. More is generally better, up to 2-3 times per day.
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Vary your content between photos, videos, carousels and Stories. Videos tend to perform best.
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Post at optimal times based on when your audience is most active. Use Instagram Insights to identify your top hours.
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Engage with your audience by responding to comments and questions. Like and comment on followers’ posts too.
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Use relevant hashtags in each caption to get discovered by new people. Research top hashtags in your niche.
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Partner with influencers to collaborate on content and help promote your brand. Offer free products for sponsored reviews.
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Go behind the scenes by giving followers an inside look at your products, office, team etc.
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Share user-generated content by reposting customer tagged photos and reviews.
By publishing awesome content consistently, you’ll expand your reach, engagement and conversions over time.
Leveraging Instagram Stories and Live Video
Posting Instagram Stories and live video are extremely effective tactics for businesses.
Here are some tips to use them successfully:
Instagram Stories
- Give followers a behind-the-scenes look at your brand in action.
- Use fun stickers, filters, text tools and gifs to liven things up.
- Link to your website or products with swipe up or sticker links.
- Share employee takeovers to give fans a unique insider perspective.
- Repurpose top-performing posts into Stories to maximize reach.
Instagram Live
- Host Q&As to engage your audience and build relationships.
- Share live product demos to showcase features and benefits.
- Announce sales, product launches or big company news to create buzz.
- Go live at industry events and conferences to expand your reach.
- Collaborate with influencers by going live together or cross-promoting.
The spontaneous, raw nature of Instagram Stories makes followers feel more personally connected. Use them frequently to humanize your brand.
Running Instagram Ads and Influencer Campaigns
Once you’ve built up an audience and refined your content strategy, paid promotions are a great way to grow faster.
Instagram Advertising
- Run ads promoting your best content to reach new targeted audiences.
- Test different objectives like traffic, conversions and video views.
- Set up retargeting ads for site visitors or past customers.
- Customize creative, placements and calls-to-action for optimal performance.
- Track ad results and optimize based on key metrics like cost per follower.
Influencer Marketing
- Research influencers in your niche with engaged audiences. Look for 50K-500K followers.
- Reach out to set up sponsored posts, brand ambassador deals or free product reviews.
- Ensure influencer values and content align well with your brand.
- For mega influencers, advertise through their accounts via branded content ads.
- Use promo codes and track sales from influencer posts.
When executed well, paid Instagram promotions deliver an amazing return on investment and lower customer acquisition costs.
Tracking Metrics and Analytics
The built-in Instagram Insights analytics tool provides a wealth of data to measure your performance.
Make sure you’re tracking these key Instagram analytics for business:
- Follower growth over time – Shows profile awareness
- Engagement rate on posts – Measures content quality
- Reach and impressions – Evaluates overall visibility
- Website clicks – Identifies traffic driven to your site
- Interactions by follower demographic – Optimizes targeting
- Saved posts – Highlights valuable evergreen content
- Posts and Stories 3 best – Choose top-performing content to replicate
Digging into the data will reveal what content resonates best with your audience. You can use those insights to refine your Instagram strategy going forward.
Pro Tip: Download your insights as Excel reports for deeper analysis.
Driving Traffic to Your Website
One of the biggest benefits of marketing on Instagram is the traffic you can drive back to your website or online store.
Here are some proven tactics to get more site visits:
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Link in Bio – Make sure it goes to a relevant landing page to convert visitors.
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Website Stickers – Add these clickable stickers to Stories and profile.
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Shoppable Posts – Tag products that users can tap to browse and purchase.
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Lead Gen Ads – Run Instagram ads that drive sign-ups with custom forms.
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UTM Tracking – Tag links with campaign parameters to monitor Instagram traffic in analytics.
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Geotags and Locations – Help nearby followers find and visit your brick-and-mortar.
Getting website clicks is the first step. Next, focus on on-site conversion optimization to turn visitors into customers.
Generating Sales on Instagram
For ecommerce brands, the end goal is driving sales directly through Instagram. You have a few options to enable shopping and transactions.
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Instagram Shop – Set up a shop section with product catalog linked to your online store.
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Shoppable Posts – Tag products in posts so users can navigate to product pages or checkout.
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Product Stickers – Add stickers in Stories that users can tap to view products and prices.
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Shopping in Reels – Tag products that viewers can tap on while watching Reels.
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Instagram Checkout – Allow seamless one-touch buying without leaving the app.
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Instagram Pay – Let users purchase through direct messaging and payments.
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Shopping Ads – Run ads that optimize for purchases, catalog visits and adds to cart.
Enable as many of these shopping features as possible to maximize conversion opportunities.
Key Takeaways and Next Steps
Marketing on Instagram provides limitless potential to engage with current customers and reach new ones.
But you need a strategic approach focused on quality content, audience growth, analytics, and driving sales.
Here are the key takeaways:
Write engaging Instagram captions
There’s an art to writing a good Instagram caption that actually gets your audience to engage with your content, follow you and make a purchase. A few tried-and-true tips are:
- Keep it short and sweet. Just because it canbe 2,200 characters doesn’t mean it should.
- Ask a question or tell a story that will increase the likelihood that viewers will comment.
- Incorporate emoji or social media lingo.
- Use hashtags to help Instagram users find your content.
To get even more inspiration, here are 400+ Instagram caption ideas.
Instagram gives its users so many different ways to create and share content, so make sure you’re taking advantage of those. It can be boring for users to head over to your Instagram post and see just the same type of content again and again.
Instead, switch it up. Share Stories, photos, branded graphics, videos, carousel posts, Reels and more. Add each different type of content to your content calendar so you can plan around it and keep a solid variety.
Ecommerce brands can get even more out of Instagram through shoppable posts. Set up your Instagram shop, tag products in your Instagram posts and make it easier than ever for customers to make a purchase.
Instagram Shopping allows followers to tap on a product in your post, view the listing and make a purchase, all without ever leaving the platform.
Create a strong Instagram marketing strategy
Each marketing channel you have a presence on needs to have its own specific strategy—and your Instagram is no different. Because Instagram is such a visual platform, a lot of your strategy needs to revolve around finding or creating the visuals that you share.
However, there are a few more aspects to remember as well.
To successfully market your brand on Instagram, you need to create content that’s relevant to your target audience. But first, you need to define your Instagram target audience.
Look at your existing customer persona, then conduct research on Instagram to find profiles that align with that persona. Follow them and analyze the content they share. Check out which brands they’re following and analyze the content they share as well.
Then, use those analyses to help guide your own Instagram content strategy. Pay attention to which of your posts, Stories or Reels get the most attention so you can start creating more similar content.
What are you hoping to get out of your presence on Instagram? The most likely objectives may look something like:
- Sales
- Website traffic
- Engagement
- Followers
- User-generated content
- Influencer partnerships
You’ll then need to adjust your strategy to focus on the goal you choose.
For example, if your goal is to increase your social media sales, you’ll want to set up an Instagram shop and tag your products in each of your posts. If your goal is website traffic, make sure to create a link in bio page with multiple links to your website. You’ll also need to use the link sticker to share your latest blog posts and landing pages via Stories.
Lay out your goals and KPIs, then create a strategy that satisfies them.
How to Create an Instagram Business 2023 [Step by Step Tutorial] – Make Money on Instagram
How to use Instagram for business?
Before you start using Instagram for business, you need to create an Instagram account for business. It’s free and anyone can do it. Here’s how to switch your existing Instagram account to a business account: From your profile, tap the hamburger (three lines) menu icon in the upper-right corner. Tap Settings and privacy.
How to create a business account on Instagram?
You have to first create a personal account and then switch to a Business profile from there. Check out the steps below to learn how to create an Instagram Business profile. Go to your profile and tap on the “Edit profile” button below your profile picture. Tap on the option to “Switch to professional account.”
How to create a business profile on Instagram?
1. Sign upfor an Instagram account and choose a username that clearly represents your business, like your business’ name. 2. Add a profile photo, a biography and a link to your website. 3. Switch to a business profile. From your profile, tap the gear icon in the upper right corner and select and then tap to switch to business profile.
How do I change my Instagram business account?
From your profile, tap the hamburger (three lines) menu icon in the upper-right corner. Tap Settings and privacy. Then, scroll down until you see the Account type and tools menu. Next, click Switch to a professional account to change the account you’re logged into into an Instagram business account.
