Instagram is one of the fastest growing social media and is providing benefits to marketers which were not expected previously. Instagram is the most popular photo sharing app currently in the market and it can also be used for sharing videos with your followers. Visual content is considered extremely powerful and popularity of Instagram is a direct manifestation of this phenomenon.
Benefits that a business can derive from having an active Instagram account
- Customer engagement: Unlike Facebook and Twitter where sponsored content and advertisements are often detested and ignored, Instagram is a medium where people come to see nice photos of your work, product or service. You can share interesting anecdotes from your everyday business experiences and also share pictures and videos. It can generate quick leads and if you can post enticing images of your products, the sales conversions will also be quick. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words! A powerful picture often evokes emotions that words can’t.
- Building trust: Instagram is a channel where you get rewarded handsomely for good quality content. Branded content creates trust. Since, Instagram is a media where you can document your entire journey through the conception, visualization, and development and marketing stage of a product, it creates an emotional connection and trust. You can also personalize your content depending on your target market.
- Get feedback: Instagram is a medium where your content can be shared easily. If you use hashtags, you will know what people are talking about. You can get valuable feedback from these community discussions. Since your followers or prospects can themselves upload photos, you can get new ideas or understand what their expectations are.
What is Instagram influencer marketing?
Influencers are popular individuals on Instagram who endorse your products or brand either on their own volition or out of an agreement or arrangement. The latter is the usual norm. An influencer wields enormous impact on a group of people. They are respected and their opinion is considered to be credible.
So, if an influencer decides to promote your brand through their posts, photographs and videos on Instagram, their followers who also happen to be your target audience get swayed. Once brand awareness is created, you can then focus on engagement and lead generation. Instagram is also a great tool for direct sales.
You can not only create a strong image but you can also get the influencer share such content that promotes immediate sales conversion.
How to identify the right influencers for promoting your brand on Instagram?
The most important determining factor would be the buyer persona of the followers of that particular influencer. If their profiles and demographic parameters match the buyer persona of your product or brand, you will have to try and create a genuine rapport and long lasting relationship with this influencer.
You will also have to choose influencers in your niche who can create content that supports or complements your brand’s voice. The two have to be in agreement. Also, choosing influencers who create original content or promote engagement through their content should be your preferred choice.
Look for social signals
Don’t choose an influencer based on their follower count alone. Look at the level of engagement instead. According to this post made by Power Digital Marketing, an engagement level of 3-5% per post can be considered to be acceptable. So, if an influencer has 20000 followers, he should get at least 1000 likes per post to meet your search criteria. This is a social proof that his followers actually read his posts and respect him as an authority.
Frequency of posts
The frequency at which an influencer posts is also important. There are many niche sectors where multiple exposures are required to get a target interested. The quality of content should be consistently high. Otherwise, there will be breaks in the momentum and your influencer marketing campaign will fail.
Build up a strong relationship
It is not enough to send a few emails to an influencer and making him an offer to promote your brand or products. You will have to engage with him on the medium, like and share his posts and comment on his post. Whether he gives a reply to the comments can also act as a determining factor. Compensate him correctly and find out his expectations clearly.
The right influencer can change the complexion of your business and catapult it to the next league. The research process initially may be tiring but the expenditure is much less compared to traditional advertising and promotions. The return is also very high.